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    Introduction to Meditation
    Introduction to Meditation
    Introduction to Meditation
    Ebook62 pages58 minutes

    Introduction to Meditation

    By Michael Smith

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    About this ebook

    Meditation is an ancient practice dating back many thousands of years. It is a method by which we look internally rather than externally for the causes of our well-being and happiness. Most of our lives are spent dwelling in the past or anticipating the future and rarely do we focus our full attention in the present moment. This is the principal of cause of stress as we search outside for the things that we think will bring us happiness and contentment, but inevitably if we are not happy within ourselves, then nothing external will provide us with any long lasting satisfaction. This short introduction gives advice and techniques for those starting out in meditation practice.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael Smith
    Release dateJan 22, 2015
    ISBN9781310026744
    Introduction to Meditation
    Author

    Michael Smith

    Professor Michael B. Smith received an A.A. from Ferrum College in 1967 and a BS in chemistry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1969. After working for 3 years at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. in New- port News VA as an analytical chemist, he entered graduate school at Purdue University. He received a PhD in Organic Chemistry in 1977. He spent 1 year as a faculty research associate at the Arizona State University with Professor G. Robert Pettit, working on the isolation of cytotoxic principles from plants and sponges. He spent a second year of postdoctoral work with Professor Sidney M. Hecht at the Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology, working on the synthesis of bleomycin A2.? Smith began his academic career at the University of Connecticut in 1979, where he is currently professor of chemistry.?In addition to this research, he is the author of the fifth, sixth, and seventh editions of March’s Advanced Organic Chemistry. He is also the author of an undergraduate textbook in organic chemistry titled Organic Chemistry. An Acid-Base Approach, now in its second edition. He is the editor of the Compendium of Organic Synthetic Methods, Volumes 6–13. He is the author of Organic Chemistry: Two Semesters, in its second edition, which is an outline of undergraduate organic chemistry to be used as a study guide for the first organic course. He has authored a research monograph titled Synthesis of Non-alpha Amino Acids, in its second edition.

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      Book preview

      Introduction to Meditation - Michael Smith

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      It Is What It Is

      A book for life

      Michael Smith

      ISBN: 9781310115646

      Introduction

      Most of what is written in this book is common sense if not downright obvious, but much like a riddle, the answer only becomes apparent when finally pointed out. Until the answer to the riddle is revealed it remains obscured, confounding and confusing our minds as we try to unravel the solution. When the riddle is fully revealed to us we are astounded at its simplicity and wonder what eluded us, we were blinded until the lens of logic helped us to see.

      From the day we emerge from our mothers’ womb, perhaps even whilst still in the womb, we think, the mental chatter takes form, thoughts eventually give rise to actions, actions help to form habits, and habits carve our personality. We become as we think. There is no action that we perform without the volition to act and there is no volition without the thought that motivates it.

      This book therefore is simply a guide for how things really are, it has no religious constraint nor complicated philosophy and it is elegant insomuch as it can be put into everyday practice regardless of race, creed, religion or faith. The ideas and principles discussed here are not in the least bit new; indeed many have their origins in the distant past. Perhaps what is different is that they are presented in context to modern day life. The aim of this book therefore is to provide meaningful explanations and potential solutions to the problems we encounter in life.

      Our behaviour is not something that is solid and unchanging, cast in stone forever determining who we are. Our lives are not mapped out in some pre-ordained plan. Even if you believe in a divine being, then it follows logically that such a being gave us a consciousness, a will to accept or reject. Even when occasionally it appears we have no choice in matters, at some level we do make choices, sometimes those choices prove to be hard with difficult outcomes and sometimes we make the right choice with the outcome we desire. One thing is consistent and that is that our mind makes the decision. The thought gives rise to an action and the action determines the outcome.

      There is no magic here, no mystical, cosmic interference. We think, we act, we experience, that, is what it is. Where the complexity lies is, how we think, how we act and how we experience. Why do we experience pain, misery, anger, jealousy, hatred, love, affection, joy, depression or stress? Why is it one day we are in a great mood and another day in a foul mood? Everything has a reason for being, nothing is cause-less, and there is not a single event in the entire universe that does not have a cause. Agreed some phenomena appear to have very obscure causes, just ask a quantum physicist! But causes there are, obscured they maybe, but like our riddle, once solved the veil of mystery is removed and we stare at the obvious.

      For the majority of our lives our minds are confused with hardly a moment of pure clarity, our thoughts hurtle from one thing to the next, tumbling over and over in a never-ending cacophony of inner chatter. Yet from this maelstrom of mental activity we act, that action then has a consequence which impacts not only on ourselves but also upon others. We rarely see reality as it truly exists, what we actually experience is what our habits determine we shall see, almost like a movie where we write the script and the plot. Yet we are taken in fully by this illusion like experience and act in accordance. Then we wonder what the heck went wrong. If our minds are confused is it any wonder that our actions will be based upon that confusion. If the action is therefore flawed then the consequences can only result in chaos.

      Of course I am not saying that every single action we take ends in chaos, but it is

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