A breakthrough "how to meditate" guide!

"Jewish meditation is a practice that can sustain you and deepen your connection to the Divine over the course of your lifetime. Seekers throughout history have practiced it and reaped its rewards, and today many people are making it a significant part of their everyday spiritual practice."
-from the Introduction

A supportive and wise guide that is an absolute must for anyone who wants to learn Jewish meditation or improve their practice-now updated and expanded. Nan Fink Gefen teaches you how to meditate on your own, and starts you on the path to a deeper connection with the Divine and to greater insight about your own life. Whatever your level of understanding, she gives you the tools and support you need to discover the transformative power of meditation. This most comprehensive introduction to a time-honored spiritual practice:

• Answers commonly asked questions about the nature and history of Jewish meditation, and examines how it differs from other meditative practices
• Shows beginners how to start their practice, including where and how to do it
• Gives step-by-step instructions for meditations that are at the core of Jewish meditative practice
• Explains the challenges and rewards of a Jewish meditative practice

Nan Fink Gefen, PhD, is a teacher of Jewish meditation, a writer and an editor. She has taught Jewish meditation to hundreds of students around the country. For six years, she directed a program to train Jewish meditation teachers at Chochmat HaLev, a center of Jewish meditation in the San Francisco Bay Area.

She is a contributor to Meditation from the Heart of Judaism: Today's Teachers Share Their Practices, Techniques, and Faith (Jewish Lights), and author of Stranger in the Midst: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery (Basic Books). She co-founded Tikkun magazine in 1985, and she is the co-founding editor of Persimmon Tree: An Online Magazine of the Arts.

Introduction to the Second Edition vii
Acknowledgments xiv
Part One: The Practice of Jewish Meditation
1. What Is Jewish Meditation? 3
2. The Promise of Jewish Meditation 17
3. States of Consciousness 29
4. Forms of Jewish Meditation 41
5. Getting Started 57

Part Two: The Core Meditations
6. Focused Meditations 81
Hineini Meditation 81
Shalom Meditation 85
Divine Light Meditation 88
Chesed Meditation 91
Thankfulness Meditation 94
Neshamah Meditation 97
Sh'ma Meditation 100
Yod-Hay-Vav-Hay Meditation 103
7. Awareness Meditations 109
Gam Zeh Kadosh Meditation 109
Walking Meditation 113
8. Emptiness Meditations 117
Ayin Breath Meditation 117
Space-between-the-Letters Meditation 120
Beyond-the-Self Meditation 123

Part Three: A Meditative Life
9. Challenges of a Meditative Life 129
10. Meditation and Jewish Spiritual Practice 151
11. A Morning Meditative Prayer Practice 169
Jewish Meditation Resource Guide for Beginning Meditators 173