What is meditation? This simple question is very difficult to answer, simply because there are many different meditation techniques which span so many traditions. Over the years I have read accounts of the meditative traditions in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, Judaism, Christianity and in Shamanism.
My experience has been that, after a little time of reading or study trying to learn how to meditate, my eyes glaze over as I find myself slipping beneath the waves of obfuscation that advanced scholars, either advertently or inadvertently, create for the swimmer in their rarely charted waters. Much of the writing about the benefits of meditation in different traditions is so obscure for the naive reader that it becomes almost impossible to understand the nature of the practice, the purpose of meditation and how it relates to the broader spiritual context within which it is taught.
Consequently, confusion rather than understanding, and turmoil rather than stillness, are created. One has a sense, sometimes of scholars so enamored of their own understanding of a particular tradition that they mystify this understanding to maintain their ascendancy over the naive reader or aspiring scholar. None of these accusations can be leveled against the authors in this enlightening website.
The site is a guide which takes the reader gently by the hand and walks him or her through vast traditions of complex knowledge. It provides clear and simple directions for routes ahead, and is written in a language which is immediately accessible without being either condescending or simplistic. It is a tribute to the authors' writing that I, who have practiced and studied meditation from a psychological orientation for more than twenty years, felt that I had learned far more by reading through this one site about meditation, than I had from most of the others put together. The complexities of different spiritual traditions are clearly outlined, and the place of meditation simply explained. Repeatedly throughout the site, straightforward instructions on how to meditate using the practice of different kinds of meditation techniques within those different traditions are presented.
