Dedication
To all my Teachers for your faith that I could share
and to the students who inspired me to share what I know.
Atma Namaste!
Preface: Introduction
Simplicity simply accomplishes results.
I was speaking with someone yesterday about this very book and told them the title and their comment was “Wow, only 2 minutes, that’s not enough, she continued, I used to do TM (transcendental meditation – a meditation technique taught to many thousands of people in the late 70’s) for 60 minutes.” I then asked her what happened and she said I got away from it because I couldn’t find the time.
So this book is for everyone, those of us who are lazy, going crazy and those who dont have time, even a more seasoned meditation practitioner. I have discovered through many classes, teaching busy execs, moms, entrepreneurs, and interactions that everyone has at least TWO minutes for meditation. How about you?
Next, is a play on words I heard often after someone has taken my class it’s “I have to go medicate. I mean meditate.” Oh, how interesting it is that the words medicate and meditate are interchangeable in our language. For many medication is necessary to gain freedom from an ailment AND meditation can allow freedom from a physical, mental, or emotional ailment allowing the body to get achieve better balance and overall peace. Having more peace allows the body to have less stress resulting in better health.
For many years, I had heard of meditation, but I also had no real idea what it was or how to do it or if it was something that I needed. I grew up in a suburban woodsy area and I just escaped into nature when I needed a break. Later, I learned that this is a form of meditation. After moving to the city I knew I needed something to relieve lifes stresses so I tried lots of things including retreats with Jesuit Priests, hiking, exotic vacations, and just sitting to “try” to quiet my mind. Discovering that these attempts to quiet my mind were ineffective, and only seemed to make my mind get louder, I surprisingly filled up my already busy schedule with more. I filled every ounce of my day with work, exercise, and everything else otherwise distracting to avoid having to slow down, rest and even better, stop. To avoid resting my mind, I even read books while working out on a stair climber, which only increased the chatter in my head. Similar to most people that have not learned to still the mind and to give it rest, I continued to overtax my brain and increase the tension in my mind and body. I followed the “more is better” axiom. Can you relate?
Also, similar to most people, I searched for countless things to bring me peace before I began to practice meditation. I began taking art classes and while I was good at this and loved it; the search to find peace still seemed to escape me. Drawing, painting, singing, although creative interests, stimulated the mind even more. I was not getting the feeling of peace that I had been searching for and life became increasingly intense. Moreover, as with most people, the more than 100 different ways in which I had tried to discover calm and peace were fleeting and did not work. When I got sick from loving my job and too many hours of work, I was ordered by my doctor to make a change for my mind and body. My doctor recommended meditation as a way to relieve stress, which would help to heal my sick and tired body. Not knowing how to rest, thinking of meditation only stressed me out more. In spite of my doctor recommendations, I continued the 16-hour days at work that included spending more than 80 percent of my time traveling. Similar to many people today, I was over committed to my job and completely under-committed to living and the hectic travel schedule and intense pace was taking a toll.
Knowing that my body was still lacking rest and health, I decided to ignore the doctor and not return, and instead found myself in the emergency room. I had acquired an infection that had poisoned my blood leaving me on bed rest for a few weeks. I was 33 years old at the time; however, by the methods in which the doctor prescribed treatment—rest, diet change, less travel, relaxation and meditation—I was apparently living with a body that was much older. The infection in my body resulted in near death, which became the catalyst for finding a new way to live. I resolved to achieve more balance, no matter what I was involved with and particularly in a working environment.
Having no real idea where to start I then tried regular massages, which helped to some small degree but the underlying problem was still the same. I needed more inner peace and inner rest. It was about that time when I heard some radio hosts talking about energy following thought and intention and how it helps the body heal and heal much faster. The guests actually shared a meditation and I felt some peace for the first time and all of a sudden found that it made sense.
Taking an alternative healing class, which was a pole apart from my career path in the pharmaceutical industry, again I was ironically, told to meditate. At the end of the class they told us we were going to meditate. I had a good internal laugh. We started off with a few physical exercises, then sat down and closed my eyes, and listened to the meditation CD. After heckling the concept, I realized it was the first time I had fewer than one million and one thoughts racing through my mind.
Having been intrigued by this rare quiet mind phenomenon, I was hooked. Having purchased this miraculous meditation CD, I decided that I liked feeling happy and that I would practice meditation regularly. I practiced meditation just two times a week as an experiment. Every time it was a discovery of finding more happiness and connecting with my true “happy” self. I took my meditation act on my business trips and wouldn’t start my day without at least 20 minutes of meditation. I soon discovered the many benefits of meditation, which included changes to my physical body and the success of more of my business deals. I found that my business deals closed more easily, my body was feeling more at ease, and I seemingly had more free time and energy, despite having the same responsibilities and more clients. Similar to many people who begin a regular meditation practice, meditation became a way of life for me—I was wholeheartedly hooked.
While still working in the pharmaceutical industry, a client I was working with asked me to substitute as the teacher for her meditation class. Although I believed I did not know anything about teaching meditation, my client disagreed and stated that she had learned meditation from me. I agreed that I would help her out and then she could go back to teaching the class.(NOTE: I maintain that the best way to learn something is to teach it to others.) In teaching the class, I realized that there are many people that want to learn to meditate, but also, that there are many people that experience frustration about the process and practice of meditation. Experiencing my own frustrations about how to actually meditate is where I started. Experiencing meditation as a foreign practice, I possessed a certain understanding—other people probably have similar foreign feelings about the thought and practice of meditation. As I started the first meditation class that I had ever taught, I began by telling the students my story.
My story continues to be told now, to many students of meditation. Since my first class, and my tenure as a meditation teacher at many community colleges in Orange County, California, I have continued to expand meditation teachings to thousands of students throughout many cities in the United States and overseas.
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A book that teaches meditation practices to others has been manifesting in my mind for quite sometime. Over the past several years, I have taught thousands of people from all walks of life to meditate. More than 89 percent of the students I have taught had never before meditated, and similar to myself, each student wanted some type of peace in their life. And those students that had meditated before wanted to learn new techniques to quiet their mind and to take their meditation practices to the next level to reach even greater peace.
The idea of this practical meditation book began to take shape
