Learn to Meditate by David Fontana (2009) Paperback

by David Fontana

Mediation has been used for centuries across the world as a way of relieving stress and anxiety, encouraging mental and physical relaxation, enhancing creativity and releasing our true spiritual and emotional selves. Now in this practical illustrated guide Prof David Fontana puts his 35 years of experience into a series of exercises, visualisations and affirmations that will bring meditation into any lifestyle. Written with a refreshing clarity and simplicity this accessible guide draws upon all of world's meditation traditions to present an eclectic and thoroughly practical programme for inner peace. Brimming with innovative exercises, visualisations and affirmations, this is a book that helps attune us both physically and mentally whatever our mood or need

Genres: Self Help, Meditation, Health, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Reference

Unbound

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

David G.J. Fontana FBPsS was a British psychologist, parapsychologist and author. He was Professor of Psychology at Cardiff University. He was also visiting professor at Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Algarve.

Reviews

[Scott Dinsmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why I Read this Book: With how busy and often stressful our lives are, I was in search of a remedy. Meditation turn out to be a great starting point.

Topics Covered:

* How to meditate
* Stress and anxiety reduction
* Calmness of mind
* Better sleep
* The power of a directed mind and heart
* The mind’s effect on the body

Review:

A cure for stress, I think I’ll take one of those please. It seems like stress is the buzzword of the decade. It’s no surprise with the millions of things we each have going on. But just because it’s been socially accepted as a part of life, does not mean that there’s nothing you can do about it. At the beginning of this year, I found myself at the mercy of what had become an incredibly stressful mind, body and life. I needed a solution. Slowly but surely learning to take the time to meditate became one of the great remedies. I am only starting to scratch the surface and I already am beginning to feel the benefits. And to think, all I really needed was some time to myself.

After many years of thinking it was a bunch of hocus pocus, meditation first caught my interest a few years back when a good friend of mine told me about his experiences with a meditation school in New Zealand. After seeing my interest he let me borrow Learn to Meditate as an introduction. I dove right in. Soon after that I read about Spirit Rock Meditation Center and the importance of clearing your head in The Four Hour Work Week. In fact Never Eat Alone even spoke of it in its closing chapter. And it has always been a part of Tony Robbins material. I was beginning to see a pattern. And my increasing yoga practice and fiancée being a teacher didn’t hurt the cause either.

Before I knew it I was on a roll. Next was The Power of Now, then How to Practice by the Dalai Lama and just last week I read Saltwater Buddha, which relates Zen and meditation to surfing (recommended by the same friend who gave me this book). The author happens to be a really nice guy my age living right in San Francisco. Then things really kicked into gear this year when three things happened. First, I realized how incredibly stressed and constantly anxious I was as a result of the business I had recently launched. Then I found myself at a week-long wellness retreat with my family in Mexico that had a huge focus on meditation. And finally just last month, I saw the Dalai Lama live in Santa Barbara. Before I knew it, I was a major believer. I had to find a solution to my non-stop, stress-filled life (self-induced of course) and meditation seemed like a reasonable spot to turn. It seems to have worked for thousands of years for people in other parts of the world so why should we be any different?

Many people hear the word meditation and a pile of stereotypes come to mind. Over the years western society has given it that feel, although I think now people are finally starting to come around. I am hardly one to talk since I only started seeing its value a couple years ago and it finally took me having serious day-to-day discomfort (stress) to really dig into it.

The benefits of meditation range all over the place from better sleep, calmness of mind, stress reduction, improved relationships, reduction in fear and even cited medical benefits. In fact, if you read enough you will find someone linking the benefits of meditation to just about everything in life. Drs. Andrew Weil and John Kabat-Zinn have made great strides in linking the health and medical benefits of meditation and mindfulness to the body via scientific studies. There are finally starting to be proven relationships between the mind and body and its affects on one another. Eventually people might just start paying attention to all this.

If you have ever been curious about meditation but are not sure how to take the first step (or perhaps were embarrassed to admit it to others), Learn to Meditate is the perfect place to start. I will warn you that it is very much an introductory book, although I have a feeling most experience levels would still find value.

I am grateful to have been given this at the perfect time a few years back when I was just opening up to learn. The extremely short chapters touch on just about every form of mediation so you can get a feel for what works best. I remember the first exercise I did left me feeling more calm and at peace than I think I had ever felt before. To this day that first experience was the most intense and I can’t guarantee you similar reactions but I am pretty certain you’ll have some neat distinctions.

Key points to take away:

* Consistent meditation has the power to significantly reduce or even remove stress and anxiety
* The benefits of mediation can be received from as little as a few minutes a day
* Meditation ranges from concentrated breathing to extended periods of focused thoughtlessness
* Our busy lives cause our minds and bodies to crave time alone to get clear and refresh
* Time to yourself can be the best daily gift you can give your mind and body
* Meditation can act as the perfect natural sleeping pill
* A common misconception is that if people spend less time doing things and more time clearing their mind, they will get less done–this could not be further from the truth

To me meditation is similar to throwing a stone into a pond and then throwing another one in only moments later. Almost immediately the rings of water intersect and create other rings at a pace much too fast to count. You may not see an immediate and direct effect of meditation on your life but as you progress you will likely start to notice the rings of a calm mind rippling through every part of your life making all kinds of improvements here and there. Some small and some large, but all of them beneficial.

This is not meant to be a book to power through. It should be enjoyed slowly and is designed to be read only one section, a few pages, per sitting. With each section comes instruction of how to practice various forms of meditation. This makes it great for beginners because dozens of techniques and styles are covered. And there are beautiful pictures to go along with most pages. Read it at your leisure and be sure to leave 5-20 minutes to practice the techniques that perk your interest. By the end of the book you will likely find a few that click and warrant further exploration.

It’s funny that meditation is not more popular in the states. When you think about it we all meditate. I think Dr. Kabat-Zinn defines meditation in its most basic form as directed concentration. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all had experience with this. Be it trying to ride a bike as a child, cramming for a difficult mid-term or giving a presentation to your superiors. Tiger Woods does it every time he hits a golf shot. Michael Jordan used to do it before every game when he focused on himself winning a thousand times over. Think about the things to which you give total and complete focus. I had a short experience with it in setting up to a birdie putt on the golf course just today. That’s all meditation. As Eckhart Tolle puts it in The Power of Now, it is presence. Being absolutely and completely in the present moment. I know what you’re thinking. Easier said than done, right?

At first glance you’d think it would be easy. That’s what I thought. Just sitting still and thinking about, well, nothing at all. But I quickly found it to be quite the opposite. We have been so trained in our society to be constantly multitasking and focused on getting things done. And even when we are alone with nothing around us we quickly pick up a book or worse yet our phone and call someone or check email for the 30th time that hour. We go so fast that at the end of it all we have left no time just for ourselves. No time to think and definitely no time to not think. Reserving a few minutes each day to just sit and be can have huge benefits even if it’s just that you are taking a pause from sprinting on to the next task. And that’s at the very least. A lot of us don’t even remember what’s it’s like to not have something pressing on our mind or to not feel stressed or anxious. It has just become a part of life. An unfortunate given.

So I encourage you to take this as a chance to reclaim some of that time for yourself. It may benefit you and those around you in ways you could not imagine. After all it’s very difficult to be truly successful without a clear mind as your guide. Whatever your reason for looking into meditation, I encourage you to start here. And if not here, then start somewhere. Maybe for you that means just taking a few deep breaths throughout the day to get centered or perhaps it means sitting in silence for hours on end. You pick. I started with 5 minutes every few days and now I strive for a couple 20 minutes sessions a day if possible. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn’t. Just do what works.

It’s hard to know what you will get out of it. But if all you end up with is a little extra time to yourself each day, that isn’t such a bad thing either. That’s where some of the most powerful things can begin…in a room alone with nothing but a clear mind. I think you’ll enjoy the feeling.

~Reading for Your Success

[Carol Sente · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book had some interesting exercises and visuals but overall isn’t one I highly recommend. It didn’t add a ton to my current practice. I have found some of the meditation apps much more helpful. Calm has a 30 days of How to Meditate by Jeff Warren that I found far more valuable.

[Roman Majerský · Rating 3 out of 5]

Veľmi zaujímavé kapitoly a cvičenia ku koncu knihy vystriedali tvrdenia, na ktoré som až príliš veľký skeptik. (slovenský preklad je PEKLO)

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the first half of 2025, I have really focused on my health. In addition to examining eating habits and altering my exercise program, I’ve read books to improve my overall health; I picked up Learn to Meditate as part of that process.

Off and on over the years, I have attempted traditional meditation. I have struggled and my antsy self has found it hard to STOP and SIT and FOCUS ON NOTHING. Initially, I read one section a week and spent the following week practicing the exercise given at the end of the session. After doing this for four and a half months, I was growing weary and opted to finish reading the text. I have found five of the exercises that I feel like I could see myself continuing. However, even with Dr. Fontana’s careful instruction and description, I still feel like traditional meditation is not for me.

Notice I said “traditional meditation.” By that I mean what most folks think of when they think of meditation: sitting quietly and focusing though on, well, nothing. What I have found helpful and meditative is journaling. When I read in Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age that journaling could be a form of meditation, it made me stop and ponder. I determined that, yes, journaling does quiet my mind, help me find who I am, focus my thoughts, and provide peace—all things I was looking for in traditional meditation!

So, I’m going to stick with the journaling and table the sit-and-OM meditation.

[Bryan Whitehead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over the years I’ve read a lot of introductions to a lot of different things. I fancy myself something of a connoisseur of introductions, so I can say with some authority that as intros go this one’s quite good. It’s a solid blend of general theory and practical exercises. I also profoundly appreciated David Fontana’s decision to neither write as if his audience already understands the subject nor treat his readers as idiotic children who will learn only through condescension. To be sure, I didn’t hang on every word. I’m not all that interested in the Kabbalah or astral projection, so I found myself skimming those sections (though even there Fontana soundly advises that things like out-of-body experiences should be at best possible side effects and not the goal of meditation, which should be the goal in and of itself). And of course writing an instruction manual for meditation isn’t a terribly daunting task. The ads for an old board game (Othello?) described it as requiring “A minute to learn and a lifetime to master.” Well, here’s the minute of learning you need to do. But Fontana goes on to put the practice in cultural context and suggest variations and additions to the practice that students can use to improve their abilities. The layout is also pastel-soothing without being too hippie-annoying. I’ve already gotten some good out of the author’s wisdom; no greater compliment could ever be paid to a book.

[Reyedit Arcols · Rating 3 out of 5]

No es muy didáctico y muchas páginas no son prácticas.

Hubiera querido que empezara, desde la primer página, a darte una manera específica de hacer las cosas, y luego ya vas viendo otras opciones. En cambio, no te enseña a sentarte hasta la página 40 o 50...
Y sin embargo tiene varias cosas buenas. Me gusta el hecho de que el autor contempla los "poderes" que se pueden desarrollar con la meditación, aunque, como recalca, de eso no se trata meditar. Las últimas páginas me han gustado mucho por eso.

Una tercera parte del libro son vistazos a las muchas diferentes prácticas que existen sobre meditación. Te ayuda a expandir las ideas, y si te da curiosidad una la buscas en otro lugar o libro donde específicamente se trate el tema, como los mantras, por los que estoy interesado. En este libro se habla de un tema por dos páginas y se continúa con el siguiente.

Lo que es bueno, muy bueno es. Pero muchas páginas, como digo, no son vistazos a prácticas en las que no se ahonda, sino que son resúmenes, vistazos para. Interesarnos. Pero que no empiece a enseñar desde la primer página es lo que más me molesta.

[Peter Sprengelmeyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The content of this book jumps around quite a bit. By taking a thematic approach, David Fontana cuts rapidly across diverse traditions and approaches. As an overview, the content is reasonable and it offers a nice survey. The exercises were pretty variable - and likely for the same reason. I tried to follow them, but it is not really a course of study. Rather they follow the same incorporative approach as the rest of the book. So, for me some were helpful and others fell a little flat. I would suggest this as a first book or overview of meditation approaches (as the title suggests), but less helpful if you are looking to expand an existing practice.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This gave me a good background on the teachings of meditation around the world. It put a little bit of context into how meditation works and the different experiences you may encounter along the way. The only thing i found kind of exhausting was the exercises list every 2 or 3 pages , but i guess it os about starting with exercises that can help anyone break in through the gateless gate of meditation.

[Julie Guardado · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book as part of the Meditation curriculum for American Institute of Health Care Professionals. The book is an easy, friendly read and beautifully illustrated. For those who have zero background in meditation, this is a good introduction. For those which experience, it may seem too basic, but serves as a good review.

[Brandi D'Angelo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An aesthetically pleasing book that teaches the many types of meditation and the religions and practices associated with it. I especially like all of the colorful illustrations. There are even doodles across the index that makes it pleasing. I'm keeping this for my book shelf.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

M

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative on different types of meditation and cultural and religious uses. Many exercises to try as well.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally ready to discover myself

[Anju Shakti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contiene información muy interesante sobre como comenzar a meditar, contiene ejercicios y explicaciones sencillas, además de una revisión a las tradiciones religiosas en donde la meditación es esencial. Un plus, son sus ilustraciones: son bellísimas y transmiten paz. Ideal para iniciarse en la meditación y poner en práctica lo que propone.

[Nathanael Coyne · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to meditation. Starts off with the basics and goes into increasingly advanced topics and techniques. Touches lightly on Buddhism and other religions but for the most part keeps meditation separate.

[Olivia]

So far, which isn't very far because I am actually doing the exercises and learning to meditate, it is surprisingly amazing! One 15 min. exercise makes me feel so refreshed and connected while at the same time disconnected from myself. It is wonderful and clarifying.

[Mj Gilmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introduction and higher level overview with meditations in each chapter. I would recommend this as a jumping-in book as it defines terms, traditions, and possibilities while describing the essentials to get started. This is an easy read with playful illustrations and one I will keep

[Soňa · Rating 2 out of 5]

hmm, not sure what to write, definetely good starting point for someone who never meditated... good overview on different styles and ways, great selection of excercises to try out but still not my cup of tea :(

can't help but this book didn't have impact on me... find it bit boring.

[Kim Caudill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed the broad overview. After being introduced to TM many years ago I've held an aversion to many of the schools of meditation.

Practical and simple tips and info.

Practical tool/augmentation as part of workplace health promotion.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for beginners or folks to want to deepen their practice. Easy to read and filled with meditative exercises, as well as background on various meditative traditions.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written informative and most helpful

[Slawka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to follow exercises, simple language. Only for beginners.

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yeah, can I unread a book?

[Shay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent so far.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brief and general book about mediation. I skipped around a little bit, and didn't learn that much. One take way term: "consensus trance."

[Shamilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for beginners!

[L.L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bardzo ładnie wydana książka - ilustrowana, grafika... to nie że sam tekst, książka jest bardzo ładna. I szybko oraz z zainteresowaniem się czyta. Jest wszystko ale nie zanudza. Są ćwiczenia ale nic do przesady, moim zdaniem jest idealna. Przeczytałem w dwa dni i już pierwszego zacząłem medytować :) myślę, że więcej już mi nie trzeba (książek) na ten temat (ale na końcu jest rada, żeby zgłębiać wiedzę, to zobaczę, moooże jeszcze coś poczytam...).
W każdym razie książkę sobie zatrzymam i będę z niej korzystać.