A meditation teacher was talking with his students about the benefits of the mindless state of awareness achieved with meditation. One of his students asked many questions during the talk and finally asked how to stop his mind from thinking. The teacher calmly responded, “Do you know that place that can be sensed just between one thought ending and another beginning?” “Yes,” the student responded. “Widen the gap.”
Paul Miller’s book, The Mindful Place of Calm: Find Your Way into the Space Between Thoughts & Actions, is a wonderful handbook with insights and exercises to “widen the gap.” Miller’s book adds fresh insights and techniques to achieve what he calls the Meditative Feeling within five minutes, and then how to extend and prolong the feeling into the day.
Miller also shares what he calls the Wisdom Insights that he received from his meditation practices. The Wisdom Insights are presented as sutras, pithy poems of guidance on staying aligned with the truth of your higher self. His discussions on each of the Wisdom Insights reveals how the teachings can be applied in everyday reality.
The benefits of mindfulness meditation practice are well-
researched and documented. Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of the meditation classic, Full Catastrophe Living, pioneered introducing mindfulness meditation into a medical setting in 1979 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He introduced the meditation practice as part of the patient’s healing regime and was able to help the patients manage the pain and discomfort associated with their illness, minimizing their need for medication and enhancing the healing process. Mindfulness meditation training is now practiced in over 200 hospitals worldwide as a further testimony to its effectiveness.
Meditation training actually can rewire the neural patterns within the brain. We are not hardwired to always and forever respond as we always have with fear, anxiety, and uncertainty driving us more than we wish. A regular meditation reduces the size, function, and neural pathways to the amygdala, the fear-making gland that amps up the fight or flight response to anything uncomfortable.
The Mindful Place of Calm is a fresh and welcome addition to our collective understanding of the practice of mindfulness. It can inspire and teach you how to listen to your own Wisdom Insights that can come from meditation. Reading this book will inspire you to utilize the techniques you will learn to enhance, not only your meditation practice itself, but also its application in your life.
David Pond, author
Llewellyn’s Little Book of Meditation,
Chakras for Beginners,
Astrology and Relationships
January 2019