A MEDITATION PRIMER

This small book of talks arose because there seemed to be a need to express and repeat what shikantaza, or just basically sitting, is all about. Sometimes this just basically holding still and looking is preceded by creation or formation practices as in the Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhist traditions – creation/completion or forming complicated mandalas, images, deities, seed syllables, and doing mantras before one eventually dissolves those images back into oneself and rests in the completion stage called Mahamudra or Dzogchen.