NAUTILUS BOOK AWARDS  GOLD-MEDAL WINNER FOR 2015 There’s no trying in meditation. Just as water runs naturally downhill … just as leaves float naturally to the ground … we can all settle naturally into meditation. Not trying, just allowing—not doing, just being. The key is effortlessness. Whether you’re a complete novice or you’ve “tried it before,” if you can breathe you can meditate. Guided by veteran teacher Dean Sluyter’s easy-going, down-to-earth approach, you’ll test-drive a variety of meditative “vehicles,” such as breath, sound, the senses, the sky, and the simple sense of “I,” and discover which ones fit you best. You’ll find all the practical tips you need for adapting these methods to your daily life, even for a few minutes a day on the subway or in an office cubicle. And as your life opens to deep happiness, clarity, peace, and creative energy, you’ll be inspired to keep on practicing—naturally. "The mind wants to settle down. Sluyter shows you how to allow it." - LA Yoga In the few months that Natural Meditation has been out, I've received messages from people all over the U.S. and beyond who've read it and, in some cases, attended my workshops. Getting this kind of feedback is one of the best parts of what I do. Here are a few excerpts:   "Your book explains it all. I am telling every person who tells me they just can't meditate to get your book. You have given the world a great gift--thank you so very much!!"   "Throughout my life I've experienced many hardships, from molestation as a young boy, drug and alcohol abuse, physical disabilities, mental and psychological disorders since I was 10 years old, and the list goes on and on. I had many reasons to feel that life was unfair. For the last 5 years I've been researching and practicing guided meditations, sound meditation, focused meditation, breathing meditation, and pretty much whatever I could think of. The only problem is I always felt like I was doing it wrong, or I was missing something and that it wasn't working. Yesterday, when I finished your book I felt like for the first time I knew what I was doing. I can't even explain how ecstatic I am. Thank you for putting this information out there for the rest of us."   "I just wanted to reach out and thank you from the bottom of my little heart for conducting such an awesome workshop. For my first time really sitting down with a teacher to meditate, it was something I'll be talking about for a long time. I actually found such comfort in your book that I recommended it to my ex and he said he bought it and he'll start reading it shortly."   "I recently bought  Natural Meditation  and was blown away by it. So, I bought and read Why the Chicken Crossed the Road  and was blown away by it. So I bought and am reading Cinema Nirvana  and am being blown away by it. The Zen Commandments sits on my shelf and waits for me. I will always be grateful to the person who recommended your books to me."  Dean Sluyter (pronounced “slighter”) has spent a lifetime learning authentic methods of natural meditation from Eastern and Western sages and sharing them with thousands of students, including prisoners, tech innovators, filmmakers, high-school students, and entrepreneurs. He has completed numerous retreats and pilgrimages in Tibet, India, Nepal, and Europe, and for decades has led workshops throughout the U.S. 1. Meditation for the Rest of Us Please try this: Turn your head to the left. See whatever you see. Now turn your head to the right. See whatever you see. OK. You saw two different views, but what remained the same? Now scrunch up your shoulders into an awkward position. Feel whatever you feel. Then drop them back into a comfortable position, and feel whatever you feel. Two different feelings, but what remained the same? What always remains the same? Please recall leaning forward to blow out the candles on (let’s say) your seventh birthday cake. There were the glowing flames filling your visual field . . . their warmth against your face . . . the sound of your family shouting, “Make a wish!” . . . the smell of sugary icing and melting wax . . . the feeling of being inside a highly excited seven-year-old body. Now recall hanging out with friends at seventeen. All the sights and smells and sounds were different: maybe cigarettes . . . beer . . . pizza . . . wisecracks . . . loud music. You had a different voice, and you were in a different body, one with hair in new places and prone to recurring storms of sexual arousal. Your range of emotions was very different, with levels of sarcasm and romantic desperation unknown at age seven. But what remained the same? And now please recall the last argument you were in. Recall eating dinner yesterday. Falling asleep last night. Opening this book a few moments ago. Different, different, different. But what remains the same? Here’s a hypothesis: No matter how much our experiences change, one thing always remains the same: the presence