conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Meditation, Among, Christian with the genre: Religion & Spirituality, New Age & Spirituality?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'The Art of Meditation'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a description for a book titled The Art of Meditation about Christian, Century""Joel, American with the genre: Self-Help, Spiritual?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: "An able manual of introduction to the declining meditative art and an elaboration of its vital and productive role in Christian living and worship." --"The Christian Century""Joel the author was a genuine American Christian mystic and spiritual teacher. His books, including... "The Art of Meditation" are known and cherished all over the world and source of inspiration and help to millions."-- "Spiritual Frontiers"
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a description for a book titled The Art of Meditation about DIV><B>the, Body, Spirit with the genre: Health, Fitness & Dieting, Alternative Medicine?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: <DIV><B>the author</B> provides a contemporary synthesis of religion, psychology and metaphysics for the Body, Mind & Spirit market. His books are designed to help readers unlock their own strengths to find greater health, creativity, success and life's ultimate goal of finding the Eternal Self. the author was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1940. At the age of 15 he emigrated to Austria, and then to New Zealand where he still lives. He immersed himself in yoga, Zen, Sufism, Catholicism, Eastern Mysticism, tarot, astrology, numerology and psychology. the author began writing full-time in 1980 and has lectured extensively in Australasia, Asia, Europe and North America.</DIV>
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first three paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Art of Meditation
  It is essential to maintain the continuity of meditation day after day, because in this way your practice can gradually gain substance and stability. This works just the same way as a small trickle of water that little by little turns into a stream and then a river. The traditional texts state that it is better to meditate regularly and repeatedly for short periods of time than to do long sessions every now and then. For example, you could devote twenty minutes a day to meditating formally and also take advantage of short breaks in your daily activities to call up the experience you had during your formal sessions again, even if only for a few moments.
  Short regular sessions have a better chance of being high in quality than occasional long ones, and they will keep up a sense of continuity in your practice. For a plant to grow well, you have to water it a little every day. If you just pour a bucket of water on it once a month, it will most likely die between waterings. The same applies to meditation. This does not mean that you shouldn't occasionally meditate for longer periods if the opportunity arises.
  If your meditation is too sporadic, there will be long periods during which you will fall back into your old habits and be overcome by negative emotions without being able to call on the support that meditation offers. But if you meditate frequently, even for short periods, it is possible to maintain a certain amount of your meditative experience between those formal sessions.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Art of Meditation
  It is essential to maintain the continuity of meditation day after day, because in this way your practice can gradually gain substance and stability. This works just the same way as a small trickle of water that little by little turns into a stream and then a river. The traditional texts state that it is better to meditate regularly and repeatedly for short periods of time than to do long sessions every now and then. For example, you could devote twenty minutes a day to meditating formally and also take advantage of short breaks in your daily activities to call up the experience you had during your formal sessions again, even if only for a few moments.
  Short regular sessions have a better chance of being high in quality than occasional long ones, and they will keep up a sense of continuity in your practice. For a plant to grow well, you have to water it a little every day. If you just pour a bucket of water on it once a month, it will most likely die between waterings. The same applies to meditation. This does not mean that you shouldn't occasionally meditate for longer periods if the opportunity arises.
  If your meditation is too sporadic, there will be long periods during which you will fall back into your old habits and be overcome by negative emotions without being able to call on the support that meditation offers.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know four more paragraphs? End with the sentence ' When you have absorbed, transformed and eliminated all their pain and trouble, feel a great joy, mixed with a feeling of non-attachment.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Picture all kinds of suffering in your mind with graphic precision. Imagine old or sick people suffering from the agonies of disease, poor people who barely have enough to live on. Think of those who have been deprived of everything they need and also of people who are victims of their own minds and are being driven mad by desire or hatred.
  Do not forget to include in your love and compassion all those people you consider to be your enemies and who cause you trouble. Visualize in front of you all humanity gathered into an immense crowd and recall that, like you, they have suffered in many ways through an infinite cycle of lifetimes.
  When an intense feeling of compassion arises, begin the practice of exchange. Think that as you breathe out, along with your breath you send out to those who are suffering all your happiness, your vitality, your good fortune, your health and so on, in the form of refreshing and radiant white nectar. Imagine that you give them these benefits without any reserve and that this nectar fulfils all their needs. If their life is in danger, imagine it is prolonged; if they are poor, imagine they receive whatever they need; if they are sick, imagine they are healed; and if they are miserable, imagine they find happiness.
  As you breathe in, imagine you are taking upon yourself, in the form of a dark mass, all the illness, physical and mental problems, as well as the emotional disturbances of these beings, and that this exchange relieves their torments. Imagine their suffering comes back to you like a mist blown by the wind. When you have absorbed, transformed and eliminated all their pain and trouble, feel a great joy, mixed with a feeling of non-attachment.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Meditation is a process of training and transformation. For it to have meaning, it must be reflected in every aspect of your life, in all your actions and attitudes. If it is not, you have wasted your time. Therefore you have to persevere with sincerity, vigilance and determination. You need to make sure that over the course of time real changes are taking place in you. Though there is no denying that the goal of training the mind is to make us capable of maintaining a certain way of being in the midst of our activities, to say right from the beginning that your whole life and work has become a meditation is probably a bit premature. The hustle and bustle of daily life rarely provides an opening to experience the strength and stability necessary for meditative practice.
  This is the reason it is important to devote time to meditation itself, even if it is only thirty minutes a day. Of course, if possible, more is better. Especially if you practise in the morning, meditation can give your day an entirely new 'fragrance'. In a subtle but profound way, its effects can permeate your outlook and approach to the things you do as well as to your relations with the people around you. As you continue through the day, you can be strengthened by the experience you have had in your formal meditation session. You will be able to refer to it inwardly because it will remain alive in your mind. During pauses in your daily activity, it will be easy for you to re-immerse yourself in the meditation experience, which is now familiar, and you will be able to maintain its beneficial effects.
  Practising meditation as described above is compatible with an active professional and family life. Meditation makes it possible to see the events of your life within a larger perspective. It allows you to experience them with greater serenity without falling into indifference, to accept whatever happens without a sense of resignation and to envisage a future on the basis of altruism and confidence. Thus little by little, through training the mind, you can change your habitual way of being. You can develop a more accurate understanding of reality and a finer understanding of the laws of cause and effect, so you will be less shaken by the drastic reversals that inevitably occur in people's lives and less carried away by superficial successes. These are the signs of a genuine personal transformation, a transformation that will enable you to act more effectively in the world you live in and contribute to building a wiser and more altruistic society. 
  Needless to say, I owe everything of worth in it to the goodness and wisdom of my spiritual masters, the main ones being Kyabje Kangyur Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Trulshik Rinpoche, Pema Wangyal Rinpoche and Jigme Khyentse Rinpoche, as well as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who, according to the great teachers I have just mentioned, is the most accomplished Tibetan Buddhist master of our time.
  I am also very grateful to those friends who have had the patience to read this text and who have improved it considerably both in form and substance through their informed suggestions: Christian Bruyat, Carisse and Gérard Busquet, my dear mother, Yahne Le Toumelin, Raphaële Demandre, Gérard Godet, Christophe André and Michel Bitbol.