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Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana Kindle Edition
by
Shaila Catherine
(Author),
Pa-Auk
(Foreword)
Format: Kindle Edition
Shaila Catherine
(Author)
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Product description
Review
All of us in our lives need to find the ways to cultivate a mind which is a friend--calm, clear, insightful and pervaded with kindness. In this book Shaila Catherine has outlined an ancient way to train the mind in stillness and wise attention. This book can be a guide for cultivating the inner calm we long for.
--Christina Feldman, author of Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World
Wisdom Wide and Deep is a clear and comprehensive account of a path of meditation leading to profound levels of concentration and insight. Based primarily on the teachings of the Burmese master Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw, it also includes a helpful collection of references from classical Theravadan sources. Shaila Catherine has clearly done her meditative homework and here she shares it with us in a systematic way that is easy to understand. This is a valuable work as both a practice guide and a reference manual for this tradition.
--Guy Armstrong, teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
"Shaila Catherine has outlined an ancient way to train the mind in stillness and wise attention. This book can be a guide for cultivating the inner calm we long for." --Christina Feldman, author of "Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World"
""Wisdom Wide and Deep" is a clear and comprehensive account of a path of meditation leading to profound levels of concentration and insight."--Guy Armstrong, teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
"Shaila's new book converts theory to practice, ideas to application, knowledge about meditation to direct experience. She has written a manual in clear, practical language. The West needs such manuals."-- Christopher Titmuss, author of "Mindfulness for Everyday Living"
"If you are interested in dharma study, then Shaila's book belongs in your library." --Phillip Moffitt, author of "Dancing With Life"
"This book is a powerful inspiration both for those who would like a glimpse of what's possible and for those intrepid explorers of the mind who want to bring these teachings to fulfillment. Highly recommended." --Joseph Goldstein, author of "A Heart Full of Peace" and "One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism"
"Catherine has managed a difficult feat--to be simultaneously encyclopedic and charming.."-- Kate Wheeler, editor of "In This Very Life: Liberation Teachings of the Buddha"
"Shaila Catherine has outlined an ancient way to train the mind in stillness and wise attention. This book can be a guide for cultivating the inner calm we long for."--Christina Feldman, author of Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World
""Wisdom Wide and Deep" is a clear and comprehensive account of a path of meditation leading to profound levels of concentration and insight."--Guy Armstrong, teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center
"Shaila's new book converts theory to practice, ideas to application, knowledge about meditation to direct experience. She has written a manual in clear, practical language. The West needs such manuals."--Christopher Titmuss, author of Mindfulness for Everyday Living
"If you are interested in dharma study, then Shaila's book belongs in your library."--Phillip Moffitt, author of Dancing With Life
"This book is a powerful inspiration both for those who would like a glimpse of what's possible and for those intrepid explorers of the mind who want to bring these teachings to fulfillment. Highly recommended."--Joseph Goldstein, author of A Heart Full of Peace and One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism
"Catherine has managed a difficult feat--to be simultaneously encyclopedic and charming."--Kate Wheeler, editor of In This Very Life: Liberation Teachings of the Buddha
"Wisdom Wide and Deep is a clear and comprehensive account of a path of meditation leading to profound levels of concentration and insight."--Guy Armstrong, teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
About the Author
Shaila Catherine has been practicing meditation since 1980, with more than eight years of accumulated silent retreat experience. She has taught insight meditation since 1996 in the U.S. and internationally. Shaila has dedicated several years to studying with masters in India, Nepal and Thailand, completed a one-year intensive meditation retreat with the focus on concentration and jhana, and authored Focused and Fearless: A Meditator's Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity. Shaila Catherine has practiced under the guidance of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw since 2006; she authored Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana to help make this traditional approach to meditative training accessible to Western practitioners. She is the founder of Insight Meditation South Bay, a Buddhist meditation center in Silicon Valley. Lectures, articles, and additional resources can be found atwww.imsb.org.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Product details
- ASIN : B007A0PHXI
- Publisher : Wisdom Publications (10 October 2011)
- Language : English
- File size : 12681 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Not Enabled
- Print length : 603 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: 220,135 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
34 global ratings
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Top reviews from other countries

MaryL
3.0 out of 5 stars
Different emphasis from 'Focused and Fearless'
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 September 2014Verified Purchase
I really loved 'Focused and Fearless', and found it both practical and inspiring. This book was rather more technical, and I didn't take to it as much. I appreciate that there are important traditions to the practice of jhana, but I felt the emphasis in the earlier book on the experience got lost here in the need to memorise lists and sequences. The best section for me was on ways to use the 'nimita' as a visualisation of light - I found this was a useful addition to my meditation practice, so the book did give me something, but I think you'd need to be an experienced practitioner to gain the most from this book (I'be only been practising for 20 years!).
8 people found this helpful
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Osaka
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed feelings
Reviewed in Canada on 15 February 2017Verified Purchase
This book is a presentation of techniques for jhana and vipassana meditation. It draws very heavily from abidhamma material. I was already somewhat familiar with some abhidamma charts from having read Bhikkhu Bodhi's manual on the subject, but I was under the impression that those very long and complex charts and lists mainly existed for those who wished to explore buddhist doctrine on a more scholarly level. The author of Wisdom Wide and Deep seems to suggest a meditator needs to memorize dozens of pages of charts before even beginning to meditate, which is most apparent in the second part of her book. I know there are countless techniques that can help a meditator realize the three marks of existence, and maybe this approach will bring good results for some. But I don't think it would be helpful for me to memorize all those things and then try to ¨force¨ them unto my vipassana practice, instead of just continuing in the more receptive and simple methods of Ajahn Chah or Mahasi Sayadaw. Ajahn Chah said that scholarly lists where fine but that it happened way to fast for a meditator to be able to clearly distinguish dozens of mind-moments per second, likening it to a person falling from a tree - while the person indeeds goes by dozens of tree branches on her way down, there's no hope of counting them all while you're in the process of falling. Mahasi Sayadaw said that observing the three marks of existence on a few easily accessible objects, for exemple bodily sensations, brought faster results. On the other hand, the first part of the book, concerning jhana, is very good and useful and helped me understand better how absorbtion works. So I have mixed feelings about the book, while at the same time aknowledging the tremendous amount of research and work such a large volume of material represent. If you are very, very analytical and think a heavy scholarly approach to vipassana would suit you, then this is the book for you. If not, you might prefer some more straightforward approaches to meditation, as those proposed by the aforementioned masters.
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Rob I MacDonald
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thank you Sheila Catherine for this amazing book
Reviewed in Canada on 4 February 2017Verified Purchase
Wow I wish I had discovered this book sooner!!! Such a thoughtful and completely thorough exploration of Jhana states, Samadhi, and how to get there... Rigorous yet approachable discussion of concentration, insight and mindfulness meditations... Lots of incredible wisdom here, as the title would suggest. This would be good for a beginner if they are willing to dive into the deep end, but it's not the easiest choice for a newbie because the author goes into some very meaningful depth... So it would be good for an ambitious newbie to meditation. Otherwise it is extremely helpful for myself, I consider myself an intermediate meditator (I've been to a couple 10 day silent retreats, and been meditating for about 2 years consistently). This book gets me quite excited because it is so much more thorough than the other 20 or so Buddhist novels I have purchased and read. I would say with confidence this is the best book on Meditation I own. Sheila Catherine has really put a lot of Metta into this creation, I thank her from the bottom of my heart.

Philip Starkman
5.0 out of 5 stars
Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on 11 September 2015Verified Purchase
An outstandingly thorough guide.

Mr.W.Shakespear
5.0 out of 5 stars
Full of tips
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 December 2013Verified Purchase
I ordered it for a friend who is into meditation; she says it is really useful and helps her get into the zone.