Natural Wakefulness: Discovering the Wisdom We Were Born With

A cultural anthropologist and a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Gaylon Ferguson approaches meditation (as you can tell from the title) as our natural state and he suggests practices that will allow a "natural unfolding of this innate awareness and kindness." His initial title for the book was "waking up from the nightmare of materialism." He says that "The root of materialism is the sense that we are, in some fundamental way, inadequate." The first part of the book focuses on awareness of our habitual "walk-around state of being `asleep'" and our true nature of wakefulness. He compares our wakefulness to our physical health. We must exercise our bodies to realize our inherent well-being. And we must practice meditation to realize our inherent wakefulness. So the next part of the book has exercises for discovering that you are a natural meditator. Finally, Ferguson discusses the importance of community to support wakefulness. Along the way he includes some Q & A with students in which I found one of my favorite quotes in the book: "Just taking the posture of meditation, sitting up, arouses energy and confidence. It's a gesture of bravery, a silent proclamation of fearlessness: we commit ourselves to working with any state of mind that arises - sadness and excitement, boredom and joy, fear and desire. They're all welcome, fundamentally welcome."

In my own personal library, I have at least 60 good books on meditation. Each one very good and offer numerous insights.However, Gaylon Ferguson's Natural Wakefulness: Discovering the Uniqueness We Were Born With, is down to earth and full of examples from our everyday life. It almost seems like Ferguson could read our thought processes. For instance, a topic sentence reads: "Much of our present experience is based on reruns." And, "I feel the pinch of the sleepwalking state. That pinch is the awakening of insight. I've caught a glimpse of my internal cage, The tight mental prison, I drag along with me wherever I go."The beauty and usefulness of this book is that it speaks of our everyday mental life. We see the patterns of our thoughts and self created identities and more. We could spend years meditating and discovering them for ourselves; however, Ferguson helps us recognize them now, and gives us methods to deal with them.

A wonderful book! I received a fantastic copy,...in excellent condition. Thank you!

Gaylon Ferguson is a Shambhala Buddhist teacher and college professor at Naropa University who has led meditation retreats for almost 40 years. This is the perfect book if you are new or looking to deepen your shamatha/vispashana/peaceful-abiding/ mindfulness-based meditation practice.

Lovely reading to make mindfulness easy and attainable for regular folks. The antidotes are helpful and I was sometimes delighted with some little golden nuggets, such as, "distraction is married to dissatisfaction." Yoga teachers will find this a great tool for class.

I loved this book it makes you aware that everyone is born with the wisdom to do anything they want to do. You have to learn how to use it.

This was one of the texts for an Acharya Melissa Moore introductory class on Contemplative Psychology. Gaylon is perceptive, insightful, and gentle in the Shambhala Buddhist way.

Every chapter was full of wise words. I would expect no less from a student of Chogyam Trungpa, especially one of his brightest.

This book contains meditation guidelines and (mostly Buddhist) background in the form of talks and exercises. Nothing particularly new in this field, but it provides a clear understanding as well as practical tips on how to view and work with meditation. In this respect it goes further in content than may other of these guides, and therefore is welll worth reading or browsing - for newcomers to meditation as well as for meditation teachers, who can dig up valuable material in this book to make their lectures more interesting and experientially accessible.

Gaylon Ferguson addresses the practical reasons for being mindful. For example, if we are failing to be present while washing our face in the morning, we are very likely to not be present during our morning meeting or other activity that we were planning for while washing our face. So while it is necessary to think ahead and plan we tend to overdo it.Ferguson provides practical exercises like “Touch and go”. That is, gently touch on an uncomfortable or painful feeling/emotion and let it go.Being awake is a natural way of being. However, we have acquired some unskillful habits that put us asleep. Ferguson show us why and how to wake up to our lives. There is nothing airy fairy trying to become enlightened about this book. It is very simple and down to earth. And that is where our lives unfold.

L'autore rielabora in chiave moderna e non settaria il sutra su I Quattro Fondamenti della Consapevolezza, con un linguaggio chiaro e fluente e con una parte di esercizi pratici precisa. Alcune frasi portano diversi insight che ci aiutano lungo il sentiero che stiamo seguendo. Da leggere