Stillness is the Way

I just happened to spy a book on my bookshelf called "Meditation: A Foundation Course" by Barry Long. I'd quite forgotten that I had it and even though I'm a great admirer of this now deceased guy, I'd never sat down and read it through. It's not a long book and its emphasis is wholely practical, just what I need really because lately I've been reading about various techniques for meditation and not deciding on any one in particular. In practical terms, I've been doing nothing and that's why chancing upon this little gem is so serendipitous.

Barry has a no-nonsense style about him. For example on page 3, he writes: "A great deal of mumbo-jumbo has been written and talked about meditation" and he goes on to say that "some meditation techniques introduce emotional excitation or arousal - through visualisation, chanting, imaginative exercises, trance and so forth - but these will not get you real results, only more confusion."

He divides the book into ten lessons to be followed sequentially over a period of days. Lesson 1 is titled "Posture, Breathing and the Still Mind" and in this Barry briefly outlines the ideas behind the practical lessons that follow, the first of which (Lesson 2) is titled "Meditating on the Body". The approach outlined there is more or less the same as the Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N.Goenka that I'm familiar with from the 90s and so I have no conflicts or reservations in following his directions. I'll practise what he says in the second lesson for a few days and then move on to the next. At last I'll be actually meditating.

In setting up the hyperlinks for this post, I notice that the people behind Barry Long's website are still marketing his videos, audio tapes and books even though he died on December 6th 2003. This is regrettable as their focus should now be on freely disseminating the material via the Internet. To this end they should follow the example of the Meher Baba Trust and digitise all of Barry Long's books and make the ebooks downloadable at no cost. Similarly all his audio and video recordings should be freely downloadable. However, I doubt that will happen.

I also noticed that there is a Vipasanna Meditation Centre at Bogor (near Jakarta) that is offering 10 day courses in May and July but the times aren't convenient for me. In any case, I don't know if I could endure a full ten day session again. I managed a couple when I was in my mid-40s but I don't think I'd have the stamina for it now. The problem with these sessions was that they were so exhausting that I always stopped meditating after leaving the centre just out of sheer relief. I think I'll stick with a little bit of meditation every day if I can manage it. As Barry says: "Stillness is the Way".