A guided journal that provides writing techniques and exercises that are matched with Buddhist meditation instructions and teachings.

This guided journal uniquely combines personal writing and meditation, two of the most beneficial self-help processes available. The two practices augment each other naturally, and many Buddhist teachers recommend a practice journal, but many people don't know how to approach structuring a practice that draws from the benefits of both. In this book, Beth Jacobs who has taught and written extensively on both Buddhist psychology and therapeutic writing provides a variety of writing techniques and exercises that are matched with specific Buddhist meditation instructions and teachings. She describes meditation practices and Buddhist concepts along with writing exercises that bring the material to life. Writers will find exercises that deepen their experiences in general and writing in particular. Meditators will find Buddhist concepts clarified and techniques expanded. All readers will discover a laboratory of writing as experimentation, with structures that open ideas, break habits, and combine experience in novel ways.
A Buddhist Journal Guided Practices for Writers and Meditators, Beth Jacobs, North Atlantic Books, Paperback, 150 pp, $16.95

BETH JACOBS, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice and a former faculty member of the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University. A lay teacher in the Soto Zen tradition, Jacobs incorporates Buddhist studies and meditation into her work as both a psychologist and a writer. She is the author of Writing for Emotional Balance (2005) as well as an award-winning column for the National Association for Poetry Therapy.

Acknowledgements	xiii
Preface: Why a Writing Practice? The Value of a Guided Journal for Buddhists	xv
Section 1: The Formal Practice	1
Exercise 1--Before and After	5
Exercise 2--Four Steps to a Sip of Water	10
Exercise 3--Distraction Net	13
Exercise 4--Best Simile for the Mind	15
Exercise 5--Research Log	19
Exercise 6--Inhalation and Exhalation	23
Exercise 7--Written Mantra	26
Exercise 8--The Four Qualities around the Four Foundations of Mindfulness	30
Exercise 9--Body Awareness and Tension Checks in Meditation	35
Exercise 10--Mindfulness Cues for All Day	39
Section 2: The Slow Fade of the Self	41
Exercise 1--I Am a Person Who	43
Exercise 2--Shoes of My Life	45
Exercise 3--Skandha Check	48
Exercise 4--Skandha Shift	52
Exercise 5--Chart of Personality Errors	54
Exercise 6--Meditations to Decrease Sensual Clinging	57
Exercise 7--Molecular Experiences of Attachment/Aversion	60
Exercise 8--Write from Inside the Object	63
Exercise 9--Asking about Causes and Conditions Instead of "Why?"	65
Exercise 10--A Word form the Resistance	67
Section 3: Words to Go Beyond Words	71
Exercise 1--Refresh Sensory Usage with Synesthesia	73
Exercise 2--Everything Relates	75
Exercise 3--Describing What Is Not	79
Exercise 4--Form and Emptiness	82
Exercise 5--Impossible Questions	87
Exercise 6--What Is Indescribable?	90
Exercise 7--Language Deconstruction Game	93
Exercise 8--Verbify	95
Exercise 9--Word Mandala	98
Exercise 10--Automatic Free Write ==> Haiku	101
Section 4: A Sampler of Different Schools of Buddhism	105
Exercise 1--Insight and Calm	107
Exercise 2--Tonglen Meditation Setup	110
Exercise 3--The Flow of Consciousness Actions	113
Exercise 4--Thought Control Methods from the Early Sutras	117
Exercise 5--Constructing a Tetralemma and the Middle Way	122
Exercise 6--Meditation Motivation and The Way of the Bodhisattva	126
Exercise 7--Your Own Koan	130
Exercise 8--A Wholehearted Response to Eihei Dogan's "Wholehearted Practice of the Way"	135
Exercise 9--Pure Land Vision	139
Exercise 10--Buddhism, the Brain, and Your Practice	141
Postscript	143
Notes	145
About the Author	151