Synopses & Reviews
Wakefulness is our natural state: enlightened, complete, perfect in wisdom and compassion. It’s not something outside ourselves that we need to attain or become. But it’s also true that some effort is required to get in touch with it — and that effort is what spiritual practice is about. Gaylon Ferguson highlights two essential aspects of the path of awakening: learning to trust that we are already naturally awake and committing to meditation practice. And he shows how each supports the other in our efforts to become fully who we are.
He begins by showing how to understand natural wakefulness in ourselves and how to gain confidence in it. Then he teaches the fundamentals of meditation and goes on to provide exercises and guided contemplations intended to help us experience innate wakefulness. Along the way, he shares selections from question-and-answer sessions with students from retreats that he's led that provide practical advice for manifesting awareness in daily life. Finally he shows how we can reinforce and support each other in wakefulness through community.
This long-awaited first book from this renowned meditation teacher is a complete introduction to meditation and the spiritual path — suitable for both beginners and seasoned practitioners as a source of inspiration and insight.
Review
"This welcoming book offers a wise, warm-hearted, and practical understanding of the awakened heart. Reading it is like talking with your best dharma friend, who helps you to shift from being lost in thought to spacious and kind attention." Jack Kornfield
Review
"The advice in this book will be of tremendous benefit to those who have the courage to engage their mind and heart and develop their potential. As a result, it will benefit the greater world." Sakyong Mipham, author of Turning the Mind into an Ally
Review
"Many essential questions on the view and meditation practice of Buddhadharma — and everyday life — are answered here with great clarity and with a genuine heart of caring and loving-kindness." Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, author of The Healing Power of Mind
Synopsis
The capacity to awaken is inherent in all of us, and each and every one of us can do it. That's the heart of Gaylon Ferguson's remarkably encouraging message in his long-awaited first book — and it's backed by more than thirty years of study and teaching, during which time he's inspired thousands of people on the spiritual path. The meditative mind is not something we need to attain, he says, it's our very nature, and our desire to follow the spiritual path is nothing other than a manifestation of that nature already being there, just below the surface.He encourages us to assess our spiritual progress with honesty and without judgment in order to see where our sticking points are and to get past them, and he provides exercises and much practical advice. His friendly and supportive approach to meditation practice is perfect for new meditators, and it will also provide renewed inspiration for anyone who's been practicing for years.
About the Author
Gaylon Ferguson grew up on a farm in strictly segregated East Texas. After moving east to graduate from the Phillips Exeter Academy, he studied philosophy and psychology at Yale University. There, Gaylon encountered D.T. Suzuki who confirmed "that it's not possible to learn Buddhist meditation entirely from a book." He dropped his studies and took up work on a radical Catholic fruit farm near Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Soon after reading Meditation in Action, Gaylon heard the Vidyadhara teach several summer seminars in Vermont. In 1973, after giving a "particularly panic-stricken and disorganized " open house talk, Gaylon joined Tail of the Tiger Buddhist Community (now Karme Choling) where he worked in the garden, set the tractor on fire, and took people into retreat. After attending the 1975 Vajradhatu Seminary, Gaylon taught briefly at The Naropa Institute, led a dathun at the now deceased Padma Jong, and finally returned to Karme Choling, first as a staff member in the practice and study department, and then as Executive Co-director. In 1979, Gaylon journeyed west again to serve as teacher-in-residence for the Berkeley Dharmadhatu and in 1983, he joined the Office of Three Yana Studies in Boulder. Last summer, he taught View and Practice of the Buddhadharma at the 1999 Vajradhatu Seminary.
Gaylon returned to Yale in 1987 to finish his undergraduate degree, this time in African Studies. In 1994, he was a Fulbright Fellow to Nigeria and completed a doctoral degree in cultural anthropology at Stanford University two years later. After several years teaching cultural anthropology at the University of Washington, Gaylon moved to Karme Choling as teacher in residence through 2005. For the Spring Semester of 2006, Acharya Ferguson was Visiting Professor in Religious Studies at Naropa University. His article, "Making Friends with Ourselves" (from the collection Dharma, Color, and Culture) was selected for inclusion in The Best Buddhist writing: 2005. Beginning in the fall of 2006, Gaylon will join the core faculty in Interdisciplinary Studies at Naropa.