Buddhist-Meditation-Systematic-and-Practical

about the preparations which must be most thoroughly
completed before there can be any true Chan experience.
The necessary groundwork is well laid out in the Tian
Tai doctrines, very suitable to the West and to those
having false ideas such as: the rejection of all gods,
rejection of a conditioned "soul," of an afterlife, or of
the need for renunciation. All false views due to lack of
preparation are well-combated by the thoroughness of
Tian Tai.
The huge book written by this patriarch, Great
Concentrations and Meditations, is a very practical and
comprehensive account of the various stages and their
division into preparation and practice. Very helpful to
the neophyte is his shorter work, Meditation for
Beginners, translated in Dwight Goddard's Buddhist
Bible, and later by Lu K'uan-Yu in his Secrets of
Chinese Meditation. In this concise survey with ten
chapters, the first four are: "Gathered Conditions of
Meditation," "Subduing the Five Sense Desires,"
"Giving up the Five Hindrances," and "Harmonizing
Conditions" (of mind, food, sleep, etc.) The fifth deals
with resolve, diligence, mindfulness, skill in
meditation-conditions, and making one's insight clear.
All five are preparation for the remaining chapters on
meditation. This small but useful book should be read
by all those beginning to take interest in meditation and
its preparation.
Within Buddhism we have treated the three yanas: from
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