His Holiness the Dalai Lama writes in the foreword of the book Be the Change, “Meditation is an important instruments for shaping and transforming our minds.”
The authors Ed and Deb Shapiro, who have taught meditation and personal development for more than twenty five years, interweave their thoughts with comments of more than one hundred meditation practitioners including teachers, scientists, activists, musicians, environmentalists, yogis, therapists, and doctors about how meditation had changed them.
These practitioners of meditation have explored how meditation can awaken human potential and transform the world with a caring and compassionate environment. Robert Thurman, the celebrated Buddhist scholar says in his comments, “We can recover from helpless addiction to externalities, impermanent possessions, distracting entertainment, and disappointing preoccupations by turning on our freely intuitive intelligence, tuning in to our deepest heart through mindful meditation, and dropping out of despairing self-centeredness into the embrace of the lovingness of creation!”
Researchers have concluded that even two weeks of practice of meditation for thirty minutes a day can produce measurable improvements in the human brain. “The qualities of acceptance, kindness, generosity, and compassion are the only choices we have in order to transform both ourselves and society,” Ed and Deb Shapiro advise.
There are various forms of meditation, from silence to unified sound. We can create a powerful form of meditation by unifying our voices when reciting mantras and shlokas. Ed and Deb Shapiro add, “Sounding together loosens the barriers of separation which allows for a healing of both cells and souls.”