My latest book is available from November 2006. It is the second in the series on The Art of Meditation – the first was The Breath on mindfulness of breathing (Pali: anapanasati) practice. This new title is called The Heart, and is an introduction to loving-kindness meditation (Pali: metta bhavana, Sanskrit: maitri bhavana). It’s a wonderful meditation that I have been practising since 1973. Although the book starts from scratch to help complete newcomers, I have done my best to give it some depth (within the limitations of a small word count), so that more experienced practitioners can also benefit.

I’m pleased to see it published, as doing it was much more of a struggle than writing usually is for me. It was partly because my approach to the meditation has changed over the years, and I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready to make the kind of ‘final statement’ that producing a book requires. Also for once I succumbed to a bit of perfectionism. I feel a lot for this meditation, and I really wanted to communicate my feeling for it. In fact I wanted every sentence to give off the perfume of loving-kindness, which is a bit unrealistic for an introductory book! Anyway, it’s finished, and I hope it will give people some feeling for how beautiful and transformative loving-kindness meditation can be€¦

You can order The Heart from Windhorse Publications, from amazon.com or from your local bookstore.