Starting with the first time that you sit down to meditate, the Travel Guide to the Buddha's Path takes you all the way to the end of the path. It starts with how to establish a physical posture, a daily meditation routine, breath meditation, and how to end your sitting. This helps you establish a sense of well-being. Next, it goes into the wisdom teachings of the Buddha: the Four Noble Truths, virtue, karma, causality, and the "Three Marks" of existence: stress, impermanence, and non-self. This gives you a foundation and framework for your meditation. A common problem for meditators is how to integrate a meditation practice into daily living. There are discussions of how to relate to money, politics, eating, romantic relationships, and community. There is an enhanced discussion of right speech, as well as the daunting challenges of aging, illness, and death. Finally, there are descriptions of mindfulness - the Four Foundations of Mindfulness and Mindfulness of Breathing - concentration - the four material jhanas and the immaterial attainments - and the Buddhist cosmology and awakening. The Travel Guide to the Buddha's Path shows how the different teachings of the Buddha interweave to form a whole fabric. The Buddha's discourses are extensively quoted so you can see what he said, what he taught, and how he taught it. The human mind has not changed in 2400 years, and the Buddha's message still works for attaining greater happiness and final liberation.
About the Author: Eric Van Horn was born and raised in Lower Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania. He graduated Pottsgrove High School in 1970 and went to college at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. He graduated from Goddard in 1973 with a B.A. in Liberal Arts. His senior thesis was about his experience as a community organizer for a drug abuse prevention program in Pottstown, PA. After graduation he worked in a number of social service jobs, but eventually discovered a love of computer programming. He spent the next 33 years working as a software engineer. In his last job he spent 18 years working in the field of medical informatics at the PKC Corporation in Burlington, Vermont. He retired from PKC in 2011 to devote his life to his Buddhist practice. His interest in Buddhism began in 1991 when he attended a "spiritual support group" at the Burlington Unitarian Church. Over the next 20+ years he attended many retreats at the Insight Meditation Center in Barre, MA, the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Barre, MA, the Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Temper, NY, the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, the Bhavana Society and Monastery in High View, WV, the Embracing Simplicity Hermitage in Asheville, NC, Kharme Choling in Barnet, VT, and Maple Forest Monastery in Woodstock, VT. He went to India on Buddhist Pilgrimage in 2004. Eric has written several papers on Buddhism, including "Jhana in the Majjhima Nikaya" and "Reverse Engineering the Buddha's Enlightenment." These can be found at http: //nobleeightfoldblog.com/resources/. in 2015 he published the "Travel Guide to the Buddha's Path," a practice guide that provides an outline of the whole of the Buddha's path as described in the Pali canon. He moved from Vermont to New Mexico in 2014 because it was "sunnier, warmer, and cheaper." He also found a living situation that is quieter and more conducive to meditation. He has two adult children, Seth and Rebecca, a daughter-in-law Britomarte, and a grandson James.