I've read a great many books on meditation. I'd rate Unlearning Meditation #1 in terms of its helpfulness to me as well as the potential I think it offers others. It describes an approach to meditation that acknowledges the subtle pitfalls that people are likely to encounter in mainstream approaches to the teaching of meditation, pitfalls that are typically neither acknowledged nor addressed. The unfortunate consequence of this lack attention to those traps is that many people come away discouraged from their attempts to meditate, feeling that they are no good at it. Others unknowingly lock themselves into patterns of meditation that "follow the rules" without finding out what works best for them. The approach described in this book helped me find my own way of meditating, one that continues to grow and evolve. I believe that the most useful review of the book I could offer is to briefly describe how that came about.
Disclaimer: for the past 5 years I've been a student of Jason's. He's not the only teacher from whom I learn, but he has become the principal one since I discovered his "Unlearning Meditation" workshop at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies 5 years ago (4 years before the book came out). At that time I had run up against a wall, feeling that I was "failing" at meditation because of my inability--after 35 years of trying in one way or another--to attain sustained periods of thought-free concentration. I had internalized this goal from instructions in various forms of meditation--from Transcendental Meditation to several schools of Buddhism--that pointed to getting "lost in thought" as a sign that one's attention had wandered, and should be brought back to, say, a mantra, or the breath. My inability to stop "thinking" seemed to be evidence that I just wasn't getting where I "should" get to. I discussed this with a Vipassana teacher at a retreat, who suggested that during my meditation for the next six months, I just count my breaths. I felt as if I had been instructed to put my head in an oven and turn on the gas! For a few weeks, I gave up meditation. But that felt even worse. Instead, I decided to abandon what I had been instructed, and instead set my own goals, defining meditation as whatever I did when I sat down on my cushion every morning to meditate.
About this time I saw the notice for the "Unlearning Meditation" workshop, which appeared to be aimed at people who were stuck. Jason offered a way of looking at my experience that enabled me to reframe it, seeing it not as failure but as an expression of the natural tendency of my mind. The solution that he suggested affirmed what I had intuitively arrived at on my own: in place of resisting my mind's tendency to think, he invited me to explore allowing my attention to go there, even engaging with the thoughts to the extent of "problems solving" or "planning," all the while striving to be aware of the choice I was making, with non-judgmental curiosity. I found this to be enormously freeing. Instead of berating myself with feelings of failure, I began to become aware of patterns in the ways my thoughts emerged and attracted my attention, gaining the insights that had eluded me in "insight" meditation. Ironically, I found that viewing my meditation in this way enabled me to have more sustained periods of concentration than before, when I had been trying to do so.
I believe that encountering Jason Siff's "unlearning" approach not only helped me get unstuck from a deeply discouraging impasse, but also enabled me to regenerate a practice that has since become more rewarding than it had ever been. There's much more to be said. But Jason says it in the book better than I could here. I couldn't recommend this book more heartily.
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Top reviews from other countries
Miss Allen
A way to meditate that actually suits me
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 1, 2016
Ms. Kathleen Brady
Would highly recommend this book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 16, 2014