Too often we find that our meditation sittings don't go as we'd hoped. Our mind wants to do something other than the meditation instructions. And when that happens repeatedly, we may feel frustrated or stuck in a rut even to the point of abandoning meditation altogether. Jason Siff invites us to approach meditation in a new way, one that honors the part of us that doesn't want to do the instructions. He teaches how to become more receptive to what we experience in meditation and to become more tolerant of intense emotions, sleepiness, compelling thoughts, fantasies the whole array of inner experiences that are usually considered detrimental to meditation. With keen interest in the workings of the mind in meditation, he brings to light what can develop in a meditation practice that is gentle, flexible, permissive, and honest. It's an approach that has been wonderfully effective for students in Jason's workshops and retreats, opening up meditation for people who thought they couldn't do it, and injecting a renewed energy for practice into the lives of seasoned meditators.

Jason Siff is cofounder of the Skillful Meditation Project, based in the Los Angeles area. He was a Theravadin monk in Sri Lanka in the 1980s but returned to the U.S. in 1990 to study counseling psychology. He teaches regularly at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Cloud Mountain, and the Esalen Institute. He leads retreats widely, including in the Los Angeles area, Vermont, Washington, New Mexico, and Australia.

	Contents: Unlearning Meditation: What to do When the Instructions Get in the Way
	Introduction	ix
	PART ONE: UNLEARNING MEDITATION
1.	Being Realistic about Meditation	3
2.	Gentle Intentions	11
3.	Instructions as Rules	21
4.	Unlearning for Beginning Meditators	27
5.	Inconsistencies	31
6.	Putting Meditation Experiences into Words	39
7.	Personal Stories	47
8.	Qualities	57
	PART TWO: IMPASSES AND CALM SPACES
9.	Impasses in Meditation	71
10.	An Impassable Impasse	75
11.	A Partially Cleared Impasse	83
12.	Getting Through an Impasse	93
13.	Effortless Calm	105
14.	Meditating with Drifting Off and Waking Up	113
15.	Drifting to Absorption	123
16.	Questions Surrounding Samadhi	131
	PART THREE
17.	A Theory of the Meditative Process	137
18.	The Primary Transition	149
19.	Unlearning Meditation and the Generative Process	157
20.	The Three Developed Meditative Processes	161
21.	The Non-Taking-Up Process	173
22.	The Connected Process	181
23.	How to Use these Meditative Process Skillfully	185
	PART FOUR
24.	Assessing Meditative States	191
	A Postscript to Unlearning Meditation	199
	Acknowledgments	201
	Index	205