Reverse Meditation: How to Use Your Pain and Most Difficult Emotions as the Doorway to Inner Freedom

Why do we meditate? The main reason most modern people start meditating is because it helps us feel better-reducing anxiety, improving sleep, decluttering the mind, and so forth. "But where does your meditation go when things go bad?" asks Andrew Holecek. "Where is your spirituality when 'rock meets bone,' as they say in Tibet-when the crap hits the fan?" Any meditator who sticks with it long enough will hit a turning point, when the methods that once brought inner peace stop working like they used to. In Reverse Meditation, Holecek reveals that's when our practice really begins-when we are called to throw out any assumption that meditation somehow insulates us from the confusion, suffering, and uncertainty of life. "By putting your meditation into reverse," he teaches, "you'll actually find yourself going forward. Step into your pain and you can step up your evolution." With his signature blend of depth and accessibility, Holecek teaches three expansive approaches to meditation- shamatha-based mindfulness, open awareness, and the boundary-smashing reverse meditations-along with on-the-spot practices for snapping into a meditative mindset even in trying moments. "What you once tried to escape with meditation now becomes your practice," he says. "This leads you to the discovery of unconditional happiness, basic goodness, and true freedom in the most turbulent situations."

About the Author :
Andrew Holecek teaches seminars on spirituality, meditation, and dream yoga. He studied with the greatest living meditation masters in India and Nepal, and has completed the traditional three-year Buddhist meditation retreat. His books include Preparing to Die: Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition and Dream Yoga: Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep. For more information, visit andrewholecek.com.

Review :
"Andrew has done it again! First he nudged us toward lucidity in the sleep bardo with his awesome book Dream Yoga. Then toward more lucidity in the life bardo with the even more awesome Dreams of Light. Now he brilliantly demonstrates how there need be no gaps, even when we confront the untoward, when we are jarred out of positive awareness by adversity and pain and injury, and we turn it all into advantage in his latest great work, this wonderful Reverse Meditation. I cannot recommend it highly enough--a great read and immensely useful for thriving and evolving positively in this world of obstacles." --Robert Thurman, professor emeritus, author of Wisdom Is Bliss and the Bantam Books translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead "Reverse Meditation is a brilliant masterpiece that illustrates that Andrew Holecek's extensive exploration of inner space has given him a unique perspective of outer space. Andrew understands that each and every one of us is in space at this very moment. Not only are we all traveling through the Universe on this spaceship that we call Earth, but we also generate the illusion of solid ground through our individual egos. Andrew clearly demonstrates that many of the problems we all face can be traced to our futile attempts to give our egos a place to stand. Through reverse meditation, we can mold ourselves into the softest, most open, yet strongest and most indestructible thing in the Universe--space itself. Nothing can hurt space! A must-read for anyone who wants to improve their life and expand their horizons." --Ron Garan, former NASA astronaut, author of Floating in Darkness "Meditation sometimes becomes dualistic: we learn to let go of thoughts and feelings, to cultivate an empty mind. What do we lose when we split ourselves like that? What might we realize if, instead of contracting in the face of pain and other unwanted experience, we open up to them--realize our nonduality with them? Reverse Meditation shows us how to do that and how it can transform our lives." --David R. Loy, author of Money, Sex, War, Karma "Holecek encourages active attention and diligence toward disarming the harsh inner critic that can surface within; the practices and anecdotes presented in this book will provide readers with an opportunity for doing just that. His aim is to help release the tension that we can create through the fear of failure, and ease into an expansive space of open, loving awareness." --Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Life "Cleaning the mirror of the heart, so that our True Face can be clearly reflected--free of all distortion that comes from, as Andrew Holecek writes, the 'contraction'--is the fruit of all spiritual practice. In this wonderful, wise, and insightful book, we find a clear path... a deep intuitive explanation of where we are, where we are going, and how to get there." --Krishna Das, Grammy(R)-nominated musician "One of the most important books on meditation to ever be written, Reverse Meditation is a must-read how-to manual for transforming our painful contractions into expansive freedom. Reversing our habitual tendency to turn away from our pain and discomfort, Andrew Holecek masterfully adapts ancient technologies of awakening into contemporary, accessible practices of transformation, skillfully showing us how to turn toward our suffering in order to experience the spacious freedom that abides at the heart of every moment." --Zvi Ish-Shalom, PhD, professor of world wisdom at Naropa University and author of The Kedumah Experience and The Path of Primordial Light