Meditation That Works

Dear Lover of Life,

Camille and I are excited to offer a new opportunity for you – a global community for sharing the experience of meditation, a place to chat with others about your discoveries, with lots of resources and handy tips to enrich your practice.

When I first began meditating in 1968, I was amazed at how effective the practice is. Just give yourself half an hour in the morning to tune in to what you love, and then enjoy the day drenched in relaxation and wide-open sensing, as if you’ve come home from a great vacation.

At the time I was working in a physiology lab at the University of California that was conducting research on meditation, and we could see measurable physical effects on brain waves, breath, the pulse of the heart, and stress hormones. It was clear then, and even more so now, that meditation is an instinctive ability that all humans have, a capacity to enter a state of deep restfulness combined with enhanced alertness.

A daily meditation practice has been shown to have profound benefits to physical, emotional, and mental health.

Scientifically speaking, meditation is the exact opposite of the stress response. Of course Nature would build into our bodies a way of quickly recovering from the wear and tear of stress.

What we call “meditation” is part of our survival instincts.

Meditation is a universal inheritance.

A gift to us all.

As a teenager, I decided to dedicate myself to sharing this gift.

Over the years, by a miracle of grace, I was tutored by a small circle of geniuses who gave me sublime coaching.

Meditators need to quickly learn how to embrace the full range of their inner experiences, and whenever I needed a bit of information, it was there. Only later did I learn that many people struggle with meditation because they are using the wrong map to navigate their inner territory.

For the next 20 years I was involved in many different aspects of the scientific research on meditation, studying the ways it helps the body to recover from stress, and also what the internal journey feels like. This culminated in my receiving a PhD from the University of California in 1987 for research on the subjective structure of meditative experience. My Master’s degree research focused on the hazards of meditation, the crisis points along the path.

I feel so lucky to have been able to listen to thousands of meditators as they report in on what is working for them, how they modify the techniques to suit their individuality so that they thrive in life, day after day and year after year.

What we call Instinctive Meditation is the essence of what we have learned from the scientific research and from the cumulative experience of the last half century of exploration and adventure.

Meditation is an intimate communion with your own life force, and each moment can be surprising. In our tradition, meditation is the practice of falling in love with the dynamic, self-renewing power of life. As with any intimate love relationship, we need to continually learn little skills of tenderness. Even the good stuff is challenging – there is a lot to learn about how to handle intense relaxation and increased energy.

We are kept alive by a symphony of rhythms – the pulsing of the heart, the wave motion of the breath flowing in and out, the rhythms of alternating restfulness and activity. Attending to this symphony, with all senses open, is the core discipline of both mindfulness and yoga meditation.

Whether you are just beginning to meditate or are a long-term practitioner, it is valuable to have a place to discuss your experiences, ask questions, and get the information you need to handle where you are on your journey.

This is why we are so happy to be offering the Radiance Sutras community platform.

The big secret to thriving in meditation and receiving the benefits is to give yourself freedom to explore, freedom to love what you love, freedom to be yourself.

Feel free to join us.

In love & delight,
—
Lorin Roche, PhD
Radiance Sutras School of Meditation