Simply Being Present: Lessons in Mindfulness and Insight Meditation

This book is written as an introduction for someone new to meditation. It will also serve the seasoned practitioner who is looking to reinvigorate their practice. This book not only gives instructions on how to meditate, it also includes a special emphasis on how to integrate mindfulness into our daily lives. Guided meditations are provided.

This book is a symphonic synthesis of what I have learned over the past 35 years about how to meditate. Some of what I learned came from taking classes, reading, and listening to dharma talks. Other lessons came from attending retreats, sitting in meditation and integrating mindfulness into my day. It was the experience of sitting and integrating that helped the concepts become a part of me. I often say that we do not sit to become good meditators. The real harvest of the fruit of meditation practice is when we can see how our lives are impacted in beneficial ways when we knowingly are present with the reality of the moment and then choose to live our lives skillfully from the point of wisdom, rather than from the stance of habit and past conditioning.