{"id":3720,"date":"2015-02-10T12:01:56","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T17:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/?p=3720"},"modified":"2015-02-10T12:01:56","modified_gmt":"2015-02-10T17:01:56","slug":"visit-with-an-old-friend-three-steps-to-awakening-by-larry-rosenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2015\/02\/visit-with-an-old-friend-three-steps-to-awakening-by-larry-rosenberg.html","title":{"rendered":"Visit With an Old Friend: Three Steps to Awakening By Larry Rosenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"threestepsawakening\"<\/a>Larry Rosenberg’s latest book came out in 2013 and I am just getting to it. I’ve been holding offer, like saving something precious that you know will likely not be replaceable. Larry is now in his 80s, and while he certainly may publish another book, this may be his last. It’s been a delicious pleasure to visit with my first mindfulness teacher.<\/p>\n

Larry comes from a skeptical, educated, and intelligent perspective. He is a no nonsense guy from Brooklyn who cuts through hype to get to the heart of the teachings.<\/p>\n

Three Steps to Awakening: A Practice for Bringing Mindfulness to Life<\/em> is largely based on Larry’s talks at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, some of which I’ve likely attended over the years. The book has his warm, direct, conversational tone that I so appreciate in his teachings. Larry is very funny and his humor is upaya<\/em>–skillful means–that makes the Buddha’s teachings more available to people. I laughed out loud when I read this passage:<\/p>\n

Interested in religion? What kind? Buddhism? What flavor? Vipassana? Oh, you’ve tried that? A little too dry, perhaps to much talk about suffering and impermanence? You might prefer Dzogchen, the innate perfection of the mind. Besides, most vipassana teachers are not even monks; they just wear sweatpants …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the title suggests, Larry’s approach is practical–meaning practice based. He presents methodology grounded in the Buddha’s original teachings that are just as relevant today as they were 2500 years ago (mostly because we still have bodies that breathe).<\/p>\n

In this book, he condenses the 16-part Buddha’s teaching of the anapanna sati to 2-parts. It’s not meant as an economical short-cut for busy yogis. Rather, it is a distillation of the practice in a way that makes it more available and less likely to distract (after all, think of all the perfectionism you might bring to bear on a method with 16 steps!).<\/p>\n

Let’s look briefly at the first part. The Buddha said, “Being sensitive to the whole body, the yogi breathes in. Being sensitive to the whole body, the yogi breathes out.” When you focus on your breathing, you don’t lock it down tight on any one or more features of the breathing apparatus. Instead, you place the breath in the context of the wider, where it actually resides.<\/p>\n

Investigate this the next time you do some breathing meditation. The breath is obvious at the nose, the mouth, throat, chest, and abdomen. But where exactly do the sensations linked to these anatomical parts end and the rest of the body begin. As you pay attention, you may notice a feeling of spread, as if the breath expands into your entire head, neck, and torso.<\/p>\n

If you pay very careful attention for prolonged periods of time, you may also notice that the whole body participates in the process of breathing as the blood flows carrying oxygen. We are breathing bodies. The Buddha knew this and he took this awareness all the way to awakening.<\/p>\n

We can do the same.<\/p>\n

Three Steps to Awakening\u00a0<\/em>is a valuable read that can deepen and further your practice as it has done for my practice. It also contains questions and answers from students and I find this is the best way to teach and learn the dharma–the lessons of the Buddha and the truths these lessons point towards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Larry Rosenberg’s latest book came out in 2013 and I am just getting to it. I’ve been holding offer, like saving something precious that you know will likely not be replaceable. Larry is now in his 80s, and while he certainly may publish another book, this may be his last. It’s been a delicious pleasure…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,9,14,11],"tags":[520,863,21,894],"class_list":["post-3720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-shelf","category-buddha-101","category-mindfulnesss","category-recommended","category-teachers-and-talks","tag-breathing-meditation","tag-larry-rosenberg","tag-mindfulness","tag-three-steps-to-awakening"],"yoast_head":"\nVisit With an Old Friend: Three Steps to Awakening By Larry Rosenberg - Mindfulness Matters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Visit With an Old Friend: Three Steps to Awakening By Larry Rosenberg - Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Larry Rosenberg’s latest book came out in 2013 and I am just getting to it. 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Dr. Kozak's ability to translate ancient healing traditions into pragmatic applications suitable for modern lifestyles through the use of metaphors have made him a strong voice in healthcare and business. Beginning with a journey to India in the 80\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where he took the Bodhisattva vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arnie Dr. Kozak began his lifelong practice in mindfulness meditation. Intent on finding a way to bring the practical healing attributes of mindfulness he began incorporating these techniques in his private practice. In 2002 Dr. Kozak created Exquisite Mind in Burlington, Vermont as a vehicle that could expand his wisdom to larger audiences beyond individual psychotherapy to professionals and corporations, health care providers, public groups and, most recently with Exquisite Mind Golf, amateur and professional golfers. His award-winning new book, Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants: 108 Metaphors for Mindfulness (Wisdom Publications, 2009) is a thoughtful, funny, and inspiring translation of mindfulness practice through the inventive use of metaphor applicable to our daily lives. In addition to his work with Exquisite Mind, Arnie Kozak, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist\u00e2\u20ac\u201dDoctorate has been a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Vermont and is a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Medicine, University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has studied and practiced clinical psychology, meditation, and yoga for more than 25 years. He has studied with several meditation masters, including S. N. Goenka, Larry Rosenberg, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After receiving his bachelors degree with honors from Tufts University, he was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to get his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University at Buffalo. He completed his training as a Psychological Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. Prior to founding the Exquisite Mind in 2002, Arnie worked ten years in the private sector for the PKC Corporation consulting on mental health content for this revolutionary software company.","sameAs":["http:\/\/exquisitemind.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/author\/akozak"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3720"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3724,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3720\/revisions\/3724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}