Behind Closed Eyes- A Book on Meditation in the Form of a Novel

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About the Book Behind Closed Eyes is the companion novel for Jason Siff's two other books on meditation, Unlearning Meditation and Thoughts Are Not the Enemy (Shambhala Publications). Written in 1999, this novel starts off showing what people coming to Vipassana meditation would most likely encounter in the form of meditation instruction, as well as the types of experiences they might have. At about a third. of the way through the book, Jason teaches Recollective Awareness Meditation to a group of American meditation students, presenting his ideas on meditation, interviewing them about their experiences, and offering them guidance.

On another level, meditation is a way to expand and develop one's consciousness. In Behind Closed Eyes, Jason also touches on the philosophical issues of a higher self, transcendence, emptiness, and nibbana (nirvana). He discusses how he sees tranquility and insight manifesting in a person's meditation practice, and also explores how people conceptualize and put words to their inner experiences.

Introduction Behind Closed Eyes is a book on meditation in the form of a novel. I wrote it in 1999, shortly after the first draft of my book, Unlearning Meditation. My initial intention in writing this novel was to go inside the minds of meditators and show their struggles with certain traditional Vipassana meditation practices and what a process of "unlearning meditation" might look like. At that time, it seemed like the only way I could distinguish my approach to meditation, which later became called, "Recollective Awareness Meditation," was to contrast it with other Vipassana methods.

I have wanted to publish this book for many years, but only recently have I been motivated to do so. After 18 years, I still agree with most of what the meditation teacher says in his instructions and talks, though I would ask different questions and have longer dialogs with students if I wrote a similar book today. One thing about this novel, which I could never have predicted, is that certain strands of Vipassana meditation practice have moved more in the direction of Recollective Awareness Meditation over the past decade. If I had published it 18 years ago, it would have been seen as something radical, and probably would've been met with greater resistance, but now it can speak to a larger circle of Vipassana meditators, even though it is still outside of the mainstream.

**Contents and Sample Pages**