Unlearning Meditation 1st (first) edition Text Only

by Jason Siff

When we meditate, our minds often want to do something other than the meditation instructions we've been taught. When that happens repeatedly, we may feel frustrated to the point of abandoning meditation altogether. Jason Siff invites us to approach meditation in a new way, one that honors the part of us that doesn't want to do the instructions. He teaches us how to become more tolerant of intense emotions, sleepiness, compelling thoughts, fantasies—the whole array of inner experiences that are usually considered hindrances to meditation. The meditation practice he presents in Unlearning Meditation is gentle, flexible, permissive, and honest, and it's been wonderfully effective for opening up meditation for people who thought they could never meditate, as well as for injecting a renewed energy for practice into the lives of seasoned practitioners.

Genres: Buddhism, Meditation, Nonfiction, Spirituality

Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[J]

If you've just started meditation, this book might answer your questions. If you're an experienced meditator, this book might question your answers.

I liked this:
pg 105
"I didn't consider that there was anything to unlearn about calm states until I began questioning the whole notion of applying effort to become calm."

[Juergen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jason Siff has a broad background in vipassana meditation, both with the Goenka/U Bha Khin techniques as well as an ordained monk in the Mahasi Sayadaw lineage. He came to some conclusions regarding the meditation practice as taught in these lines and began to evolve his thinking regarding meditation in general. This resulted in a shift in language, practice, and teaching style that he tries to capture in this book. He brings to bear a style called 'Recollective Awareness Meditation,' which feels like a 'gentler' and 'less rigid' style of meditation especially when compared with the practices of his forebears. I found many of the ideas put forth here to be refreshing and helpful.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, and its author's meditation practice, emphasizes an attitude of broad receptivity to experiences that come up during sitting, rather than suppression in service to instructions from a teacher or tradition. Instead, Jason encourages investigation and curiosity, and provides some tools that help us understand the experiences that may come up in your meditation, including a form of journaling that documents the sitter's mental states. I am studying meditation with this method, including a day long retreat on sunday with Jason. It's freeing me up in remarkable ways.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was first introduced to Jason Siff's type of Recollective Awareness meditation back in September of 2014. It was a small seminar, followed by an even smaller series of classes (that at times were actually a lot like group therapy). I was immediately draw to this style because it was so unlike any previous types of meditation I had done before.

There was no tedious requirements to only focus on my breath. No annoying "oommmmmms" to constantly repeat. No being made to feel inadequate when my mind wandered off -- this was fine, encouraged even, and you journaled about where your mind took you after your sessions were done. I found the whole experience so much more positive and mentally helpful than I ever did in my previous attempts at meditation (either guided meditation on my own at home; or fidgety, sweaty, stinky sessions in hotel conference rooms to close out a day of karate seminars -- don't even get me started on how much I hated those).

So, why the one star rating?

Well, because Siff's writing is so bizarre and rambling and confusing, that it took me two full years (and then some) to force my way through this book, and I still have no idea WTF he's trying to say, and this is even after having taken several intimate classes in this form of meditation over several weeks.

For example:
Seeing into the narrative of an impasse usually takes a certain amount of experiential familiarity with it over time, as well as a lightening of the impasse through the initial two steps of the transformative conceptualization process. It can still be done when the impasse is somewhat heavy, but not when it is impassible, for in such a case you would most likely encounter frustration.

The above excerpt is basically how the entire book is written, and no, it's not just that this passage is "out of context," the context can't actually be discerned because most of the sentences throughout are word salad that don't make sense.

This would normally have been a DNF for me, but I kept plowing through, because I thought that eventually I'd get something out of this book. And maybe I got a few bits here and there:

One's experience of meditation defines what meditation is (for oneself). -- OK, sure. I definitely believe this. For example, I don't sit in a traditional cross legged/lotus pose when I meditate. I can't. My joints are just too bad, and I can't sacrifice my physical well being for my mental well being. If I'm meditating for sleep, I lay down in bed and used assorted pillows to set myself up in a supported savasana, and if I'm meditating during the day I prefer to lay on the floor with my legs elevated onto a couch or chair seat, giving me a flat back and a fully supported lower body to relieve stress on my joints. Am I more likely to fall asleep during in these poses? Yup. Don't care. LOL!

Or this one, Instead, by including everything experienced in meditation, there is no single experience that is its goal. Where meditation leads is a result of how you engage, develop, and learn from these six meditative process in a lifelong path. -- This is good advice, just, meditate, and keep meditating. Don't worry about what other people's meditative experiences are, keep your eyes on your own paper and your own experience. It's your practice, not anyone else's.

I think it's a helpful reminder that there are all kinds of meditation and you can't really practice in a "wrong" way - doing it "wrong" just means you are doing a different style.

All of this being said, this book is generally awful, and I can't in good conscience recommend anyone read it.

***
A note about reading dates. Restarted on January 14, 2018 after starting originally in September 23, 2014 and abandoning after it was due back at the library and I didn't bother to renew. I'm not sure I was wrong to abandon it all those years ago.

[Oleg Prophet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book to reset if you are feeling stuck with meditation. Helped to reevaluate my sits. Added journaling after sit as well.
I'll be still following The Mind Illuminated though.

[Craig Bergland · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an okay book. He has a point about methods getting in the way. In many ways he reminded me of my Christian contemplation teachers who stressed the method of no method, which caused me to struggle as a beginner but now (nearly two decades later) I can appreciate. That being said, to some extent he beats a dead horse with example after example and the book becomes redundant.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for people who want more freedom in their meditation practice, or people who think "I don't meditate right" and feel guilty when they don't meditate "the right way."

[Ml Lalonde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for beginning meditators. While I liked this book for tackling some of the issues experienced by long term meditators, it didn't really speak to me.

[daniel stuart johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most effective and important book on meditation I have read. I am a practicing secular Buddhist and have read a good deal of dharma books from secular mindfulness to more traditional Buddhist literature and have found this to be the most personally helpful for establishing and maintaining a reliable and helpful meditation practice. Everyone I recommend this book to personally messages me with their mind blown as was mine when I read it. But blown in that wonderful way where you want to say "That's exactly it!". Both someone some part of me knew deep down but had never or was afraid to articulate for fear of being outed as a heretic. I am deeply indebted to this man for his work and contribution to the dharma discourse and pragmatic wisdom. Thank you for being brave enough to actually write from your experience and inspire people like me to trust my own experience.

[Olga Lehmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book from cover to cover non stop and felt that his reflections and systematic way or understanding meditative practices were accurate. This perspectives on gentleness and also the meditator’s guilt also made me recover a sense of mastery and self-compassion. His integration of psychology into meditation is also important to me as a clinician

[Grace Rennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was enlightening for the first half. After a while, the author’s insights began to feel redundant. I couldn’t finish this book, but I did gain some important lessons from it regarding my own meditation practices. Maybe I will pick it up again in the future and feel differently. But for now, I don’t feel the need to read the rest of it to understand his main message.

[Steve Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

After 7 years of fairly disciplined practice based largely on the Thervada traditions of Thailand I found that there was much in my meditation experience that seemed to run across the fairly ascetic interpretation of the process in which I was involved. I did not push myself into the strict mould prescribed but seemed to allow quite a lot of latitude in accepting what came up. There is no denying that there have been major changes within as a result of all that practice, but somehow I always felt that because my approach did not always accord closely with instruction and much of my experience seemed outside the desvcriptions I received through the orthodox readings, I was not "true to the teachings" or somehow was not "pure in the path" and there fore was missing something.

Now I find this book where someone is speaking about much that is familiar to me from my own practice. It has in some ways validated what I have been doing (if that is indeed even necessary); it has also now caused me to reorientate my focus to things that have until now, certainly been present just behind the forground but which have been pushed aside in some ways while I sought what I thought I ought to. Things will no doubt ow take a new direction.

All this has coincided with what some may call a spiritual emergency (Stanslav Grof) and the collapse of much of my own internal psychological structure and a passage into a felt sense of fluidity that has been growing for some time. Interestingly my curiosity has also been drifting into the fileds of Shamanic practice, Dreaming, Tantric Buddhism and Sufism recently. An aside perhaps but what seems to be there holds great attraction so we shall follow and see where it all leads.

As is often the case this book arrived in my hand at just the right time. I look forward in anticipation. More shall be revealed.

[A.J. Seiffertt · Rating 4 out of 5]

My second read of this, this time because I'm in the teacher training program and needed to take some notes so I can hopefully answer student questions more coherently. Really great synopsis of the 'technique' (that isn't a technique), and Jason does actually talk like this- very practical, compassionate, and thoughtfully listening to concerns and questions before he formulates a response. Highly recommend! :)

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first few chapters make this book worth reading. The end flutters to a close. Highly recommended for people who find it hard to use breath as an anchor for meditating and people who have an adversarial relationship with meditation "directions."

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of good ideas. Not the most compelling writing or teaching style, but well worth reading for those who've reached an impasse or are otherwise struggling with traditional meditation instructions.