Meditation reading

A prospective student has an interest in meditation and asked whether I could recommend any reading.

I'd like to share my answer below:

If you would like to develop a meditative practice there are many possibilities, depending on your interests and where you are in life. I think it's a bit difficult to work with a general approach from a book.

So in my view it's best to work with a teacher on an individual basis. In yoga as I know it, the journey would involve a lot of 'energy' work, going from the gross to the subtle. It's a multi-year journey.

A possible path may be going from asana (to reduce a person's "rajas" - nervous energy), to pranayama (breathing exercises to reduce one's "tamas" - linked to apathy, inaction) to dhyana (meditation - working to better understand the object of meditation and allowing its properties to reflect on oneself).

'Spiritual development' is often linked to meditation, but it almost seems a bit of a misnomer, because what we're looking for in yoga is already there and can't be developed in the conventional sense.

Instead, yoga seems to be more concerned with removing the 'obscurities' that prevent us from seeing the reality as it is (avidya). The path I tried to describe above represents this idea.

Having said all of this, A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield is a classic. You may find it useful.

Sorry to be so elaborate - I hope you'll find the ideas presented here of interest at least a bit!

Luc