Secular Meditation

Our Learn to Meditate page highlights the free Unified Mindfulness online course, developed by renowned meditation teacher Shinzen Young. 

This secular, non-religious approach consists of 10 video-based lessons, each about 5 minutes long. The straight-forward terminology and precise instructions are easy to understand and easy to put into practice. 

This concise, well-designed course is an effective way to learn a robust system of mindfulness practice.

This well-known program for encouraging mindful living was initially developed at the University of Massachusetts by Jon Kabat-Zinn. 

Books:

• Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Pain, Stress and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn 

• Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn

• A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook by Bob Stahl and Elisha Goldstein

• Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Mark Williams and Danny Penman

• The Mindful Way Through Anxiety: Break Free from Chronic Worry and Reclaim Your Life by Susan M. Orsillo and Lizabeth Roemer

• The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Jon Kabat-Zinn, & Zindel V. Segal

Related Programs:

• Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy

• eMindful - subscription-based online programs

Another area of research and practice deals with the cultivation of positive emotions and empathy for ourselves and others as a function of a healthy mind and society. There are now documented impacts of metta (kindness) meditation, for example: 

"Results showed that this meditation practice produced increases over time in daily experiences of positive emotions, which, in turn, produced increases in...mindfulness, purpose in life, social support, and decreased illness symptoms. In turn, these...predicted increased life satisfaction and reduced depressive symptoms.” (Open Hearts Build Lives, Frederickson et al, 2008)

Resources:

• Kristin Neff, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Austin and a pioneer in self-compassion research, has an accessible and helpful site that includes studies, a self-compassion scale, a basic introduction, and guided meditations. Neff also wrote Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind and Fierce Self-Compassion.

• Christopher Germer, a clinical psychologist, offers guided meditations and handouts on his site. Germer wrote The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion. Germer and Neff co-developed the Mindful Self-Compassion course. 

• Paul Gilbert and the Compassionate Mind Foundation provide research and training materials. Gilbert, a clinical psychologist, wrote The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life's Challenges and Compassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features.

• Jim Hopper, a clinical instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School, has a very good introduction to mindfulness on his site.

• Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) at UCLA  operates "to foster mindful awareness across the lifespan through education and research to promote well-being and a more compassionate society." They also offer guided meditations and online programs. Both Diana Winston and Dan Siegel work with MARC and maintain their own websites with resources, book links, and other important information.

• Mindfulness Research Summary, created by Dr. Lisa Flook and Greg Flaxman is a brief and helpful overview.

• Also useful is the extensive Mindfulness Bibliography prepared by John C. Williams, M.S. (State University of New York, Binghamton) and Lidia Zylowska, M.D. (University of California, Los Angeles) (2009)