Reverse Meditation is a study and practice manual of the Tibetan reverse meditation in which one moves toward and into life’s challenges. Whether you suffer from chronic pain or illness, experiencing disability or are facing mental health issues, this book guides you in a series of meditations which help you to become one with the challenge and discover its’ empty nature.
The book is well written and easy to read. Although I found the first half of the book to be a little weighty with frequent references to other authors. This constant confirmation of ideas from other authors, slowed down the flow initially.
However, the author more than made up for the slow start in his description of open awareness and reverse meditations. T his portion of the book demonstrated the brilliance of the author and clarity of his own insights from his meditations. Clearly the author put into practice what he preached and this is clear in his descriptions of his own challenges and how he used reverse meditation to deal with them.
The greatest difficulty with this book is that it is a very advanced meditation. Unless one is a seasoned meditator one may find difficulty in fully grasping the mediations. I would recommend that any beginner approach this book with the help of seasoned meditator or qualified meditation instructor. However, I think that even beginners can gain a great deal from this book. At the very least we can understand that within pain, suffering and illness is wisdom.
I would sum up the book with the following quote from its’ pages:
“They [reverse meditations] deconstruct the pain back to its nature, returning you to the no-thingness, or emptiness, of pain. By becoming one with your pain, you’re left with nothing to grasp.”
If that is not enough to entice you to read the book
“…indeed, great meditators learn to savor hardship rather than avoid it, because pain provides a heightened opportunity to accelerate the spiritual path.”.
For more books on working with physical pain visit here.
To get an overview of Tibetan healing meditation visit here.
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