The New Meditation Handbook: Meditations to Make Our Life Happy and Meaningful

Rating:
Summary: With parables that clear the mind
Review: Ably written by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso (a meditation master and Tibetan-born teacher of Buddhism), The New Meditation Handbook offers a Buddhist perspective in both general words of wisdom concerning the benefits and practice of meditation, and twenty-one individual meditations for broadening the depth of one's thought and mind. An insightful volume with parables that clear the mind and assist one in expanding consciousness and understanding, The New Meditation Handbook is also available in a hardcover edition....

Rating:
Summary: The most important book you will ever buy
Review: I have read a lot of books on Buddhism and gleaned some basic understanding from each of them. But this book is very, very special. This book hands to you the complete path to enlightenment in twenty-one meditations that will change your life. Geshe Kelsang is a brilliant scholar and a truly remarkable teacher. His presentation of this ancient path is extremely clear and easy to follow. The world would be a better place if everyone practiced the meditations in this book!

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Summary: Universal Path to True Inner Peace. Extraordinary!
Review: The breathtaking meditations in this book provide all human beings, regardless of religious path, the opportunity to release negative thoughts and feelings in order to experience Nirvana through steady heartfelt practice.
"Remembering the kindness of living beings," Equalizing self and others," "The disadvantages of self cherishing," "The advantages of cherishing others," "Great Compassion," "Taking," "Wishing Love," and "Giving" are some of the meditations that have brought down my walls of ego, and transformed them into deep inner peace and compassion for all of life.
Take out of this book what you feel will benefit you, and if there are certain thoughts that you do not agree with, coming from a different religious path, then simply just use the meditations that you are comfortable with, and that work for you! I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who would like to live a life more filled with genuine and pure inner peace.
Barbara Rose, author of 'Individual Power' and 'If God Was Like Man'

Rating:
Summary: A book of religious meditations
Review: The two star rating isn't meant to signify that this book on meditation is poorly written, but that it's somewhat deceptively presented as a "self-help" book on how to meditate, rather than as what it really is - a book presenting meditation from a very specific theological perspective. I would have had the same reaction if I'd bought a book describing itself as a guide to positive thinking, only to find that it was a tract with prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
I claim no expertise in the many schools of Buddhism, but I do know that there seems to be some tension between those who view Buddhism as a universally applicable philosophy, and religious Buddhists who expound a variety of theological dogmas. These include beliefs and sometimes amazingly detailed descriptions about the landscape of the afterlife, the pre-life, and the cosmos, which one can only accept through religious faith or intuition, or perhaps, some one would argue, through "enlightenment". You can decide for yourself if these theological details (eg samsara, bardo, or belief in various gods and goddesses) are essential to the moral, ethical, or practical message of the historical Buddha, or whether they stem from a synthesis between his fundamental teaching and other religious and cultural traditions which began very early on. But be advised that in "The New Meditation Handbook" you are not given this choice. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso is a firm believer in a particular theological tradition, and his book on meditation is grounded in this context. If you are unable or unwilling to accept these beliefs, you will find yourself having to separate "the chaff from the wheat."

Rating:
Summary: great book - I use it every day
Review: This book has a very clear introduction about what meditation is and how to meditate, but what makes this book really worth owning is the cycle of 21 meditations, starting with understanding how precious our lives are, through developing compassion and learning about the ultimate nature of reality.
My practice gets deeper with every round of meditations I do.
Highly recommended.