—Beginning Meditation – How Others Began, Part Three—
>>> Part One: Beginning Meditation, Starting Out – Read Testimonials on How
Starting Meditation – “I Had Many Questions about Life”
"I decided to begin meditation because it was recommended to me by my golf coach. I was a competitive golfer and he suggested that I worked on the mental aspect of the game through meditation. This was the entry point but the truth is that Zen helped me with my life much more than with my golf game. At that time I had many questions about life and had a lot of suffering. I didn’t understand myself, didn’t know what I wanted or why I wanted it."
From an Interview with Carlos Montero
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Starting Meditation – “Meditation was at the Heart of Yoga”
"It’s been a long time, nearly 40 years since I first became interested in meditation. I remember getting a book on yoga the summer after my first year of college in 1970. The next year I joined a Hatha Yoga club at college and began practicing yoga regularly. As I remember, we always did a few minutes of meditation at the end of a session, and I think I got the idea that meditation was at the heart of yoga. About January of 1972 after dropping out of college, I remember coming across the book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. I would say that’s been the most influential book I’ve ever read (and reread many times over the years). "
From a meditation interview with Peter Ford
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Starting Meditation – “Means for Cultivating a Peaceful Presence”
"I first became interested 15 years ago as a result of stumbling across a book entitled “A Path With Heart” by Jack Kornfield. The hook was that it offered a clear approach to spiritual practice (meditation) which I could immediately employ. This was a first for me. As someone who’d been loosely associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition, I had never come across any material that instructed one on how to pray, for example. In contrast, here was a book that offered a specific, time-tested means for cultivating a peaceful presence."
From a Meditation Interview with Chris Lance
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Starting Meditation – “A Radical Turning Point in My Awakening”
"I had a very brief stint with formal meditation at age 16, via Transcendental Meditation. I never forgot “my” mantra. A few years ago (in 2004) I resurrected it…just for fun. This precipitated a radical turning point in my awakening experience…which led me to: Listening to Eckhart Tolle on CDs, on a daily basis, until relatively recently. "
From a Meditation Interview with Doreen Connors
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>>> Part Four: Ways of Starting Meditation – Stories of Beginnings
Meditation Interviews
The interviews conducted for this site are done by email. Interviews with both practitioners and teachers have the benefit of offering personal insights meditation practice. Unlike dictionary-style descriptions of meditation, these testimonials reveal details that can only come from the direct experience shared by those who meditate. If you meditate, please consider sharing your story by participating in a meditation interview.