The Brightened Mind – A Simple Guide to Buddhist Meditation

Sumano speaks to the modern seeker from a unique perspective, as a former law school graduate and real estate professional in Chicago. He abandoned his comfortable American lifestyle for the begging bowl and simple cave home of an ordained Buddhist monk in the tradition of the Thai forest meditation masters. Now a spiritual teacher in Tibet, Sumano walks the reader through the workings of the mind and how thought processes often affect our experiences. He shows how to quiet the mind, turning off the "rolling documentary of your past and future" to experience the freedom of quiet focus. Through easy-to-follow guided meditations called "mind trainings" or "mind-fitness techniques," he teaches the reader how to think productively tapping into the ultimate source of wealth, our own divine consciousness. Sumano posits that we all have within us this abundance simply waiting to be utilized. Using these practices readers will find themselves free from the body and the mundane, the I-ego mind. From this place of insight life’s challenges can be navigated with much less stress and with much more hope. As Sumano says, "In order to progress and prosper in peace, we must respond to the challenges of our times not from fear and anxiety but from a place of circumspection —from a brightened mind."