Finding the Center Within: The Healing Way of Mindfulness Meditation. Read Online Free

sharing some of our experience, we hope readers will know that their experience is normal, and that their struggles with practice are normal ones. We hope these sections provide encouragement to continue the practice. For the essential thing is always just to continue. At the end of each chapter, you will find a section with an outline of the practices for that one-or two-week period.
    How to Use This Book
    How you can best use this book will depend on what kind of person you are. Some people will want to read straight through first and become familiar with the entire book before trying the exercises. If you want to do this, that is fine. But to get the most out of this book, we hope you will then come back and read it more slowly, following the suggestions for practice either according to the program, or at your own pace and in your own way. This is a book to work with. Allow time for the content to be absorbed and practiced. If you tend to be a little compulsive about following rules and programs, it might be best if you take a leisurely pace through the material without worrying too much about following the practices for each week exactly as they are outlined. Spend as much time on each section as feels right for you. Relax and enjoy the process.
    On the other hand, if your good intentions about spiritual practice tend to evaporate—if you don’t follow through—it might be best to follow our suggestions programmatically, step-by-step and week by week. At the end of the ten weeks, you can always return to any areas that appeal to you or that you would like to strengthen. There is a lot of information in this book. We hope that you will make this book a kind of companion, a spiritual friend that you keep coming back to again and again, dipping into it frequently for inspira-00 BIEN pref.qxd 7/16/03 1:54 PM Page xix

P R E FA C E
xix
tion and guidance. Just reading will do little for you. But using it as a spiritual friend to whom you keep returning, taking your time with the exercises and suggested practices, will be far more powerful and helpful, whether you follow the weekly program, or work through the book in your own way.
    Finding the Time
    When I was so distressed I nearly dropped out of graduate school, my friend and classmate David Greenway asked me: “How much do you want to be a psychologist?” I didn’t like the question at first. But later on, I realized how apt it was. If I wanted to be a psychologist, I had to face the difficulties I was experiencing.
    A similar question to ask yourself is: How much do you want to find the center within? How much do you want to find release from suffering and be the calm one in the storm? Would it be worth, say, the time you would give to a college course? Would it be worth a tithe of your time, just 10 percent? If you want this a lot, the time requirements of the program in this book are not onerous.
    However, this is only one way to think about it. More important, we realize that the means must match the ends. You cannot achieve peace and joy by pushing yourself too hard into practices that are not themselves full of peace and joy. The key is to practice in a way that is delightful all along, so that the path and the ultimate destination are the same. If you do this, it will not be difficult to find the time. Language and Anonymity
    Except for sections titled “The Experience,” the first person is used to refer to the first author (Tom Bien). The second author is referred to by name (Beverly Bien). We generally rotate use of “he” and “she” to refer to a nonspecific individual person. Sometimes we may use masculine pronouns in a religious context where this is traditional usage. There is no intention in this to ascribe male gender to the deity. Most of the case examples in this book, while based on our experiences in life and in therapy, are composites rather than being drawn from specific individuals. When a specific person is used, identifying