Meditation: A Self-Study Guide

This book is a do-it-yourself guide to the practice of meditation. Unlike other books on the subject, its approach is secular, rational, and pragmatic. Its aim is to explain in detail one possible approach to the practice of meditation and to present it within a modern conceptual framework that eschews the religious and mythological trappings that characterize most approaches to the subject. It also attempts to distinguish between potentially helpful and potentially harmful forms of meditation and to give a rationale for the approach that it recommends. Finally, it borrows concepts from psychoanalysis, philosophy, and computer science to explain what meditation is and why it works. In this way it aims to be a really complete guide to meditation in both practice and theory that ordinary people can use to teach themselves how to meditate.