You can purchase a copy of Dr Strong’s book ‘The Path of Mindfulness Meditation’ at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk, Barnes&Noble.com. Also available on Kindle.
I am pleased to announce the publication of The Path of Mindfulness Meditation in February 2010. This book has been many years in the making, starting in the 1970s. It is based on many years of personal meditation practice and my experiences from teaching and helping others apply mindfulness to facilitate spiritual and personal transformation. The capacity of mindfulness to facilitate healing is truly remarkable and is one of the greatest discoveries given to us by the Buddha.
Mindfulness, called sati in Pali is a multi-dimensional form of conscious awareness with both passive-receptive qualities of openness as well as the active components of watchfulness and vigilance. Above all, mindfulness reflects the four sublime Buddha qualities of metta, karuna, mudita and upekkha, the boundless expressions of the awakened mind that is truly free. Metta describes the quality of friendliness and genuine care towards all formations, and this begins with your inner emotional pain and suffering. It is only when you choose to turn towards your inner experience of anxiety, anger, depression, grief, disappointment, trauma and low self-worth that change become possible. This choosing to turn towards suffering and in fact towards all aspects of your ongoing experience, including your personal joys and happiness is the essential movement of mindfulness to embrace and care for all beings. As you cultivate this towards yourself, you naturally become more open and friendly and caring towards others and towards your world.
Karuna is the application of metta to embrace suffering as you experience it internally or externally in others. Mudita is the application of metta to embrace joy and happiness and well-being as you experience it internally or externally in others. Upekkha is the foundation of equanimity and non-reactivity that allows you to embrace everything, pleasant or painful and allows you to be fully engaged and fully present with whatever you experience. When there is upekkha then your innate intelligence, called satipanna shines through and your resultant actions become skillful and in-tune with the needs of the present and always lead in the direction of the resolution of suffering or dukkha.
Mindfulness facilitates the movement from Reactivity to Responsiveness and you become more responsive and less reactive in life and in relationships. Mindfulness also gives you a way to access your true essential Self - your Buddha nature as the pure conscious awareness that is the ground of your Being and that is free from reactivity and reactive conditioning and where intelligence, compassion, creativity and intuition run free. The Path of Mindfulness is a path to freedom - I hope that you find my book a useful guide.
Peter Strong, PhD is a spiritual teacher, meditation instructor, mindfulness therapist and scientist. He teaches and counsels through an Online Mindfulness Meditation Service that he offers through Skype. Inquiries welcome. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.
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