The Experience of Insight: A Simple and Direct Guide to Buddhist Meditation

I first read this book 25 years ago in the midst of a late-20s existential crisis. It led to a complete left turn in life. Changed jobs, changed country of residence and ended up much happier.I gave copies of the book to various people over the years - some got it, some didn’t. I realized that the book only gives you the answers if you have the questions in the first place. Nevertheless the book changed my life and it could change yours.

I practiced meditation when I was 15 years-old and again now at 32 years-old. I always had so many questions about what exactly I was supposed to be doing. Goldstein's book is the second book that I have read this month while doing Sam Harris' Waking Up app meditations, and this book was exactly what I was looking for. Goldstein's instructions are clear and relevant to all of the picky questions that I had about meditation such as: 'Why am I concentrating on the breath but then also some other times concentrating on anything that arises?', 'If I feel a vacuous mind, I must be on to something good...?' (The answer there is 'no'.), 'How does the idea of the "self" tie into this?'.I really appreciated the medium speed pace of this text. It was elaborate enough and slightly ponderous, but not repetitive or too long. Although I was interested in fairly explicit instruction on meditation, I appreciated the tie-in to Buddhist tradition. And the book gave me some unexpected 'aha!' moments by getting me to think about life in some novel ways.

Goldstein writes with pure humility and truth. Easy to read and relatable. He gives the reader practical tools on applying meditation into your life, and understanding the mind from an unorthodox approach. The Buddhist and Tao view of non action to achieve your true nature, is heavily applied here and can help anyone find the peace their nature asks them of. I am thankful to have found his book during the pandemic. At a time when there is so much uncertainty and ego-driven tendencies of self preservation, Goldstein helped me in directing myself towards my inner compass of peace.

Joseph Goldstein is one of my top teachers of all times. He has a way of making the teaching available and so attractive that it makes the actual practice not only possible, but applicable to all people.He has reached my heart, and his way of teaching has allowed me to enhance my daily practice into a most committed way of life.I sincerely recommend this book to anyone who is seriously trying to engage in insight oriented meditation and might find as a side effect an unbelievable skill to enjoy and navigate through life.

This is the first publication of a sincere and deeply involved vipassana meditator, although he draws upon training from other traditions in order to be the effective teacher that he is. This text shows its training wheels, he uses the crutch of documenting one meditation retreat and sharing and elaborating the teaching that went on during the retreat, both practical pointers and Buddhist theory underlying mind development, bhavana.His second book, Insight Meditation, is my preferred read and the one that I buy for other beginning meditators.

Many insights are clearly expressed. I will follow another books by the author. Words cannot express the experience but he does list many books in suggested words (books).

I downloaded what I thought was the newer version of this wonderful book (August 2020) and when I open it in Kindle it looks like the 1976 version (which I own in paperback). Can anyone tell me what year the kindle edition is?Thank you!

While not as daunting as some of the meditation related books I've checkout out lately, Joseph Goldstein's books are definitely not for the casual reader, or even 'serious beginners' (the Ven. Henepole Guratana's book, "Mindfulness in Plain English," is the one I'd recommend to those readers).That said, once a person's started a daily practice, and are trying to understand the nut's and bolts of working with one's thoughts, or sitting with difficult emotions, Goldstein's books are invaluable, providing the knowledge and inspiration to keep at it, esp. when, one's, "internal weather" gets rough. (Also, check out his dharma talks & guided meditations at dharmaseed.org).

I really like the way Joseph Goldstein teaches aspects of Buddhism. I heard one of his talks on 'letting go', which is one of the Four Noble Truths and he explains it so fluently and easily in a way that one grasps it right away. He approaches the Four Noble Truths in this book plus the Noble Eightfold Path. Essentially this book is about Buddhist meditation and it is fascinating reading, I often read sections of it.

Superb condition, highly readable - and arrived quickly - delighted.

Simply great reading. And always to the point.

Ok