Calming The Mind
All we ever have is our own consciousness. How good or bad our lives seem depends on the contents of our own mind.
We cannot control the actions of others, but our own actions are within our control.
Meditation is available to everyone. It is a way of focusing our awareness and 
deepening our enjoyment of life. It is a way to explore the farthest reaches of our nature and our most powerful emotions. It is a way of changing our most deeply ingrained habits.
Meditation Opens Path To Change
If you have a spiritual tradition, meditation can be incorporated into your own beliefs. If you lack a traditional spiritual outlook, you can use it for relaxation and deepening your experience of life. If you turn to meditation only for calm, relaxation, and greater concentration, that works too.
Meditation for Dummies by Stephen Bodian is an introduction to meditation in many different traditions. Like many well-written books, it is recursive. It repeats again and again the important points already made.
Topics include: health benefits, cultivating spirituality, opening the heart, relaxing the body, developing a practice which works for you, healing, performance enhancement, and ending self-defeating behavior.
Stephen Bodian is an experienced teacher and a former editor of Yoga Journal. Some people are put off by the For Dummies series, but this is an excellent book. Bodian includes step-by-step instruction, and he answers questions about body posture, breathing, and focusing attention.
He also offers an overview of different styles and philosophies of meditation. You can take as much or as little as you want. But everything you need to begin is here.
From Meditation for Dummies
--"Meditation is not the crash-diet of spirituality; you won't find yourself a new person at the end of a six-week course of once-weekly practice. What you will find is that, practiced regularly and with full attention of mind and body and spirit, meditation will change your life."
--"Start now, and one day you will awaken to a new landscape…"
