The Heart of Meditation: An Introduction to Formless Meditation Practice

People begin to meditate for different reasons. Maybe you want to be calmer, more relaxed, at peace or at ease. Maybe you are curious about what Buddhism and meditation have to offer. Maybe you have a sense of being unhappy with your view of reality and want some sense of meaning or truth. Or maybe tyou have an inkling that there is something to discover beyond their everyday reality and are looking for answers to some of life’s big questions, such as, why is there so much suffering and pain? What does death mean? What are we doing here at all? Meditation is at the heart of Buddhism, and at the heart of the ‘Living the Awakened Heart’ training. All the themes that you explore in the course relate to meditation. By reflecting on these different themes, you will be homing in on your own direct experience. That experience is then stabilised and taken deeper through the meditation taught in this book.

Lama Shenpen Hookham is a Buddhist teacher who has trained for over forty years in the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. She has spent over 12 years in meditation retreat. She produced a seminal study of the profound Buddha Nature doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism, for which she was awarded a doctorate from Oxford University and which is published as The Buddha Within (SUNY press 1991). She lives in North West Wales, spending most of her time in semi-retreat and working with her students and on her writing.