GWV retreat center

[Jhanananda]

Every since I started the first GWV forum there has been an interest in forming a contemplative community.  I receive emails from people on this topic as well. This thread started as an email in response to such an inquiry.

I am not convinced that the most egalitarian communities have been migratory; however, seasonal migration was common, even among the sedentary Puebloans.  For instance Chaco Canyon had too many rooms and not enough fields to support the apparent occupation level that the rooms suggest. 

Because Chaco Canyon is clearly at the nexus of a labyrinth of foot trails, and Puebloan societies have an annual ritual cycle that begins after harvest and runs through the winter until sewing, and there is ample evidence of numerous small outlier habitation site in association with agriculture, then I am inclined to believe that Chaco Canyon was a winter ritual site where a large community of Puebloans gathered for the winter months only. So, seasonal migration seems to be a good idea, which I agree with.

It is also known that most Puebloan societies were egalitarian with consensus decision making.  I believe a GWV retreat center should be based upon egalitariansim with consensus decision making.  So, I still believe that the Puebloan societies deserve serious scrutiny as a successful social model.

Humans require water and seafood for optimum health.  It is not a coincidence that most Puebloan communities were in close proximity to year round water sources, and their art reveals fish iconography, which suggests to me that they ate fish.

Also, it just so happens that the earliest Europeans who came into contact with Native Americans found that the most valuable commodities in the minds of the native population were salt and sea shells.  And, inland Native American communities often had an annual ritual of sending off adolescents, with some adult supervision, to the ocean to gather salt.  This behavior among the Puebloans has been well documented.  Additionally, I am convinced that the sea shells that were commonly traded among Indian societies was because sea shells are a durable transport mechanism for salt. So, a successful community would have to have access to water and salt. 

I have mentioned to some of the members of the GWV that I know of an 80 acre property that may still be for sale for only $80,000. It is surrounded by National Forest, and has a perennial creek flowing through it, and has buildings.  It might make an ideal beginning community for the GWV.  It is in the Gila National Forest near the town of Kingston.

In the social sciences the terms ‘fusion’ and ‘fission’ are used to describe the forces that bring communities together, and drive them apart. The most powerful force that drives both social ‘fusion’ and ‘fission’ is ideology, not a lifestyle. 

Most people and religions believe that humans are broken (sin/karma) and can only be fixed by embracing an ideology (doctrine/dharma); however, history proves that to be a deeply flawed belief system.

A sustainable lifestyle is essential for sustaining a community, and Permaculture is one lifestyle that has been shown to be relatively sustainable.  However, no matter how sustainable the lifestyle, behavior of a community’s members must also be sustainable.

Some religions offer a lifestyle, such as the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism; however, it seems today almost no Buddhists understands the Noble Eightfold Path of Siddhartha Gautama.

I have found there are 8 major stages of depth in meditation, and most people never make it past the first or second stage.  I have also found that when one masters the stages up to the fourth they are free of neuroses and addictive behavior, and they are relatively free as they approach the 4th stage.  So, if a community was founded upon people who can consistently meditate to these depths, then you will find that community is more likely to survive than one that is formed by people who only have a belief system, or only a lifestyle.

From living closely with human societies, and in the wilderness, humans have proven to be deeply flawed.  And, too many of any animal per square foot, such as in a zoo, is likely to make those animals as neurotic as most humans.  So, space/human is an important factor to consider when building a community.

While most of us do not have the money to invest in our community-building ideas, it does not mean that we could not join in community with a sustainable social model, so that money can be pooled to build the kind of community that we agree is worth trying.

I have been working on building such a community for 15 years.  In that time I have met a number of people who have some wealth that they could contribute to help establish such a community.  The problem that I have encountered is a profound lack of GWV community members willing to take some risks and make the investment to establish that kind of community. 

For instance, some of you seem to think I have something right or you would not have invested your time and/or money in supporting the GWV. We have members on this forum who would happily invest time and/or money to develop such a community; however, no cohesion seems to ever take place here due to a profound lack of active participation from people. So, it becomes a chicken and egg problem.  Who is going to have the courage to start moving forward? If more people had been participating in this forum, then we would have been able to move forward on our common interests years ago.

My health has been in decline for 5 years, which indicates to me that I am not going to live long.  So, if a sustainable contemplative community is ever going to emerge from my work, then the community who values this work simply must start cooperating before I am gone, or it will never take shape.

[Michel]

What a wonderful idea this is. But unfortunately for me it's a matter of health. My liver is beginning to show symptoms. Recently I have noticed sharp pains in that region. Also, the doctor is very concerned about my spleen which appears to be swelling. It may have to be surgically removed at some point and I would be very susceptible to various types of infections. So for me the possibility of joining a GWV retreat community is out of the question since I need to be close to medical resources here in Canada where I live, and there is the power of attorney issue and the psychiatrist. But you have my support for such a retreat center.  I hope this idea of yours, Jhananda, becomes a reality some day.

[jay.validus]

I can agree with this, however, I am Canadian and laws are different in each country.  To top that off, I have not met anybody on here.  A proper meditation community may be a great benefit, and that is something worth living to do, but I am not ready. I am twenty-five years old.  Maybe one day, if I do a bicycle tour south to the US, I will pass by many of you and could befriend the community.  Until that day comes, I am only working on myself and hoping I can be a better person for the family and friends. Sorry Jeffery, not my time yet, but I support the cause.

[Jhanananda]

Thank-you friends, for voicing your kind support.  Yes, I can understand that Canadians might want their own retreat center that supports their mystics, so I urge you to join in community to form a safe place for mystics to take refuge and engage in deep meditation practice.

Yes, Michel, both of us are getting old, and decrepit, so we are not likely to meet in this world, for which I am sorry.

[Michel]

I too am sorry for that, Jhananda. But, maybe you can come and visit me when you're out-of-body, haha.

[Jhanananda]

That is a for sure.

[Jhanananda]

This thread is more about developing a sustainable lifestyle than it is focused upon starting a whole new deeply flawed religion; however, my hope is that people will come to understand that the GWV's concept of a sustainable community/retreat center is a well reasoned sustainable community concept.  This is where I am working out the concept, with input from the GWV community, so I hope that others will contribute to this discussion.

I have been focused upon understanding the hunter/gatherer lifestyle since I was 6.  Then I started stockpiling camping gear and canned and dried foods for an eventual escape from the madness of my family of origin, and the rest of the insane industrialized world.

However, I have also come to learn that the hunter/gatherer lifestyle is not the only answer to the problems of human culture.  Nor is migration the only answer, nor is Permaculture the only answer, nor is buying into a deeply flawed belief system the only answer.

Noenetheless, a blend of the above could work, if deep meditation were added to the model, along with a cogent and logically true belief system.

The Noble Eightfold Path describes a cogent and logically true philosophical system, which includes essentially a migratory hunter/gather lifestyle with deep meditation; however, the Buddhist priesthood have screwed it up until it is no longer a functional system.

So, if someone were to purchase a water shed on the side of a mountain, that runs from the ocean up the flank of a mountain to its peak, and offer 3 Permaculture properties in that watershed, and offer people an opportunity to live there, I am sure that person would have many takers. Let me know when when it happens and I will happily move in.

Otherwise, those without the wealth to purchase and build such a sustainable community could participate in a community of people who are working to manifest the behavioral transformation that is brought about by: living a sustainable lifestyle, subscribing to a cogent and logically true interpretation of the Nobel Eightfold Path, which includes cultivating deep meditation, and together we can all manifest a sustainable intentional community that will survive generation after generation.

It is hard to say when agriculture arrived on the scene, but archeological evidence suggests that it arrived late during the last ice age, not millions of years ago.  This suggests that most humans evolved just hunting and forging.

The archeological community postulates that we, and many of the proto-human species, evolved on the savannah.  I happen to disagree.  I believe we evolved beach combing, and plying estuaries, swamps, tidal pools and rivers, where there is so much abundance of edible life, and the weather tends to be milder, and there are many other useful resources that it makes survival for us all too easy.  For this lifestyle to work, then there had to be a significant amount of mobility, if not migration.

However, I will agree that adding the hunter-gather lifestyle to a sustainable small-scale agricultural system, such as Permaculture, makes the small-scale agricultural system more sustainable, and more like our ecological niche, which suggests humans are going to be happier there.  However, sustainable small-scale agricultural systems do not lend themselves to migration.

However, migration via jet-setting is not a definition of the hunter-gather lifestyle; nonetheless, it could be argued that many human behaviors, such as jet-setting, owe their origins in our deep evolutionary psyche.

However, the problem with humans is when they have too much time on their hands, then they start becoming neurotic, and start self-medicating their neuroses with the “seven-deadly-sins” of obsessive and compulsive behaviors.

So, postulating that all humans have to do is take on a belief system, or a lifestyle, to get away from their neuroses, has always been proven to be wrong, because it is only a partial solution.  However, if a cogent and logically true philosophy/belief system is embraced, along with a sustainable lifestyle, and founded upon a contemplative life, which leads to deep meditation, then we find ample evidence for a complete lifestyle system that truly does lead toward freedom from neuroses.

Thus, Permaculture and feralculture are only partial solutions.  Since the major religions have completely lost track of a contemplative life that leads to the cultivation of deep meditation, then they too are only partial solutions. Because humans have some deep social flaws, then any solution that does not deal with resolving those social flaws are partial solutions, and therefore are ultimately prone to failure.

[Michel]

I live in a townhouse owned by the family. I kind of got dumped here when I was in a fragile mental state. It's a long story. If I had a choice, I wouldn't live here. It's an unhealthy environment psychologically, physically and spiritually. Some kid this morning was playing his hip hop music with a thundering bass. It's a real pain to get them to stop. Cats and dogs all over the place tearing up the sod, crapping and urinating. The dogs barking. Then the condo board is on your back with violation notices to clean everything up and repair the sod or you get fined. Kids everywhere running about screaming, ringing your door bell and taking off. Sales people continuously at your door trying to sell you stuff you don't need. The postman delivering mostly junk mail tell your mailbox is overflowing, and if there's important correspondence, it is buried in there somewhere. Then there's the parties on the weekends. Add to the list lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and weed wackers, and it's no wonder we're all going nuts.

The last couple of days I've put up with a complete upgrade  of windows and doors to my unit. They put in foam insulation, and I've got a headache with itching eyes and a throat irritation from the off-gases. These foam products are toxic. I just did some research on them.

Everything we do is complete lunacy. How can we get things so wrong?

Anyways Jhananda, what you propose is a prescription for sanity and health.

[Jhanananda]

I live in a townhouse owned by the family. I kind of got dumped here when I was in a fragile mental state. It's a long story. If I had a choice, I wouldn't live here. It's an unhealthy environment psychologically, physically and spiritually. Some kid this morning was playing his hip hop music with a thundering bass. It's a real pain to get them to stop. Cats and dogs all over the place tearing up the sod, crapping and urinating. The dogs barking. Then the condo board is on your back with violation notices to clean everything up and repair the sod or you get fined. Kids everywhere running about screaming, ringing your door bell and taking off. Sales people continuously at your door trying to sell you stuff you don't need. The postman delivering mostly junk mail tell your mailbox is overflowing, and if there's important correspondence, it is buried in there somewhere. Then there's the parties on the weekends. Add to the list lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and weed wackers, and it's no wonder we're all going nuts.

Clearly this is a hell plane.

The last couple of days I've put up with a complete upgrade  of windows and doors to my unit. They put in foam insulation, and I've got a headache with itching eyes and a throat irritation from the off-gases. These foam products are toxic. I just did some research on them.

At least you will be warm, and spend less money keeping warm, next winter.

Everything we do is complete lunacy. How can we get things so wrong?

Anyways Jhananda, what you propose is a prescription for sanity and health.

I agree, that is why I am working toward a sustainable lifestyle in the middle of no-where.  Sadly, it has taken me 62 years to get there, and I am still working on it!!!!

[jay.validus]

Your idea is well thought out.  A sustainable community and lifestyle based on farming and mild migration near watershed areas, plus deep meditation and other deep experiences, are wonderfully needed.  I watched a Ted Talk where a woman theorizes modern humans enjoyed a semi-aquatic existence in our past.  One piece of evidence she cites is we are hairless... that would only happen if we were in water often.  Also, our bodies are quite pliable in water as we go deeper in the water, making us great swimmers. 

To side track for a moment, I met some people who did deep sea diving, and they were talking about the pros going without equipment.  They mentioned the human body being great at swimming at about thirty feet under.  They were also interested in the stillness of the mind, the bliss one experiences, when in life and death situations, their example being deep sea diving.  I plan to try this at some point -- get some strong bodies happening.  The human body is strong, but people treat it like it is weak. 

Back on track, a proper retreat, ashram, spiritual community, has been on my mind lots the past year, even before I came to this forum.  When bringing many like-minded people together, there becomes a tendency for disagreements to occur.  One idea I was debating with was how expanded to make such a community.... is this something kept within a Buddhist context or does it expand further from that?

I would not agree to have such a place in the west conform to eastern orthodoxy.  I have always gotten the sense that when eastern teachers come to teach in the west, they give a limited version.  Not to mention, many practices and mannerisms become the standard, forgetting our own values and behaviours.  This is important because our own culture evolved a world-viewpoint, mannerisms, and wisdom from our ancestors.  We inherit much of ourselves from them, and to disregard that fact is to ignore large parts of ourselves. 

I am not saying we should not take the best of each culture to better ourselves... of course we should.  We should also learn and embrace other cultures too.  But this is a place for contemplatives, who would primarily come from the west, and mostly be English speaking.  Why are we not embracing our own culture within a contemplative lifestyle, focused on deep meditation?

Jeffery seems to have research quite extensively the history of religion, focusing on the ecstatic components.  Buddhism, now that I am slowly reading the Sutta Pitaka, is a great read on the mind, the divine experiences, etc., but we also have ways of describing the experience outside of Buddhism.  In popular culture, Nine Inch Nails is a great example of a drug addict experiencing deep divine states, all without reading in-depth into Buddhism.  My own divine experience has been shaped my upbringing, without any knowledge of what was happening to me, I seemingly pieced together separate experiences to create my own understanding of the mind and body.

My point becomes, does such a place stay centred on Buddhism, or is it something more than that?  Of course the base is deep meditation and a contemplative life.  Although I think the Buddhist element is the key part, I would hate to see it be the only conception available.  What about traditions and wisdom passed orally from generation to generation?  How about Yoga, Paganism, etc.  In keeping the focus on a sustainable spiritual community and people within it, I would want to see the people inside the community to define their beliefs, experiences, and themselves, not indirectly by some religious aristocrats from another continent.

[Jhanananda]

Your idea is well thought out.  A sustainable community and lifestyle based on farming and mild migration near watershed areas, plus deep meditation and other deep experiences, are wonderfully needed. 

Thank-you.  I have been working on this idea for decades.  However, getting a contemplative community of mystics together has been quite difficult, so GypsyMeditator's idea, expressed in his thread Outdoor Living, is also something that I have been working on for decades as well.  At first it might just be one or a few contemplative mystics living in the wilderness by him/her/their self.  Mobility is useful, but it does require a money-stream to be sustainable.

I watched a Ted Talk where a woman theorizes modern humans enjoyed a semi-aquatic existence in our past.  One piece of evidence she cites is we are hairless... that would only happen if we were in water often.  Also, our bodies are quite pliable in water as we go deeper in the water, making us great swimmers. 

Yes, I recall reading an article published by a woman archeologist, or anthropologist, perhaps the same person, who used the same argument.  The argument seems sound to me.  But, we should not forget that humans tend to swim, and bath in water, which is not characteristic of other primate species.  However, I am reminded of the snow monkeys in Japan bathing in hot springs.  I happened to also notice that the snow monkey are also pale skinned, like Northern Europeans, which might suggest a more direct line of shared DNA.

To side track for a moment, I met some people who did deep sea diving, and they were talking about the pros going without equipment.  They mentioned the human body being great at swimming at about thirty feet under.  They were also interested in the stillness of the mind, the bliss one experiences, when in life and death situations, their example being deep sea diving.  I plan to try this at some point -- get some strong bodies happening.  The human body is strong, but people treat it like it is weak. 

I took some scuba diving lessons when I was a teenager and found the experience of buoyancy quite blissful, and very reminiscent of the OOBE.

Back on track, a proper retreat, ashram, spiritual community, has been on my mind lots the past year, even before I came to this forum.  When bringing many like-minded people together, there becomes a tendency for disagreements to occur. 

Yes, I have been in dialog via email with a student who is very interested in the community idea.  He brought up the problem of cohesion in such communities.  It is in part why he believes migration is important.  When community cohesion suffers, then it is time for migration.  He also mentioned a need for a "boot-camp" style indoctrination program as a prerequisite of membership.  I do not happen to like the idea of a "boot-camp" style indoctrination program; however, I do understand that there has to be some shared ideas, or community cohesion will suffer.  A long retreat should build the necessary community cohesion. 

Another method of building community cohesion, is starting potential members off with a 10-day to 2-week meditation retreat. If they can make it through that without demonstrating that they are going to be a problem, and we find that they seem to like our ways and ideas, then their membership could be extended to another 2-weeks, then 1-month, then a quarter, then a year, etc.

One idea I was debating with was how expanded to make such a community.... is this something kept within a Buddhist context or does it expand further from that?

I would not agree to have such a place in the west conform to eastern orthodoxy.  I have always gotten the sense that when eastern teachers come to teach in the west, they give a limited version.  Not to mention, many practices and mannerisms become the standard, forgetting our own values and behaviours.  This is important because our own culture evolved a world-viewpoint, mannerisms, and wisdom from our ancestors.  We inherit much of ourselves from them, and to disregard that fact is to ignore large parts of ourselves. 

I am not saying we should not take the best of each culture to better ourselves... of course we should.  We should also learn and embrace other cultures too.  But this is a place for contemplatives, who would primarily come from the west, and mostly be English speaking.  Why are we not embracing our own culture within a contemplative lifestyle, focused on deep meditation?

Jeffery seems to have research quite extensively the history of religion, focusing on the ecstatic components.  Buddhism, now that I am slowly reading the Sutta Pitaka, is a great read on the mind, the divine experiences, etc., but we also have ways of describing the experience outside of Buddhism.  In popular culture, Nine Inch Nails is a great example of a drug addict experiencing deep divine states, all without reading in-depth into Buddhism.  My own divine experience has been shaped my upbringing, without any knowledge of what was happening to me, I seemingly pieced together separate experiences to create my own understanding of the mind and body.

My point becomes, does such a place stay centred on Buddhism, or is it something more than that?  Of course the base is deep meditation and a contemplative life.  Although I think the Buddhist element is the key part, I would hate to see it be the only conception available.  What about traditions and wisdom passed orally from generation to generation?  How about Yoga, Paganism, etc.  In keeping the focus on a sustainable spiritual community and people within it, I would want to see the people inside the community to define their beliefs, experiences, and themselves, not indirectly by some religious aristocrats from another continent.

Yes, I agree, there is no sense in being strictly Buddhist, or Christian, after all none of these religions have demonstrated that they value their own mystics.  So, I would be more inspired by such a community, if that community embraced mystics in every religion.

[bodhimind]

I truly wish that I could be part of the effort, if only my financials were not strictly dependent on my parents. I wish to contribute in any other way I can, until at least, I am sufficiently financially-independent and can pay out of my own pocket for such a cause. I truly wish for something this beautiful to take fruition. Perhaps I can do well enough in my medical career to lend support to it in future.

I was wondering if we could find another way to do it, perhaps through one of those fund-raising campaign sites such as Kickstarter.com or IndieGogo.com. Or we could publish affordable e-books that sell at $0.99-2.99 - It's nearly free, so it doesn't restrict people from the dharma. I am sure books such as "Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle or "Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond" by Ajahn Brahm are selling in huge numbers despite their higher costs.

I happen to publish books via Kindle in several niches, learnt psychology in persuasion and marketing, as well as studied direct-response/web copywriting. So I do know how to get something selling. I remember Jhanon had a similar intention, but I am not sure why he hasn't updated his progress with it yet. The only problem is that I am not enlightened, hence any book that I write will not be insightful enough to guide people on the right path.

[Jhanananda]

I truly wish that I could be part of the effort, if only my financials were not strictly dependent on my parents. I wish to contribute in any other way I can, until at least, I am sufficiently financially-independent and can pay out of my own pocket for such a cause. I truly wish for something this beautiful to take fruition. Perhaps I can do well enough in my medical career to lend support to it in future.

Yes, I understand your wish to attend, but your finances will not allow it.  This is true for most of us here.  Eventually you will be able to attend a GWV retreat, if you keep your focus on that as a goal.

I was wondering if we could find another way to do it, perhaps through one of those fund-raising campaign sites such as Kickstarter.com or IndieGogo.com.

This is a good idea, but there is such a profound lack of support for the GWV that I doubt much money would come our way to make a difference.

Or we could publish affordable e-books that sell at $0.99-2.99 - It's nearly free, so it doesn't restrict people from the dharma. I am sure books such as "Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle or "Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond" by Ajahn Brahm are selling in huge numbers despite their higher costs.

I happen to publish books via Kindle in several niches, learnt psychology in persuasion and marketing, as well as studied direct-response/web copywriting. So I do know how to get something selling. I remember Jhanon had a similar intention, but I am not sure why he hasn't updated his progress with it yet. The only problem is that I am not enlightened, hence any book that I write will not be insightful enough to guide people on the right path.

We have been discussing various book publishing ideas for years now.  My book of poetry was the first attempt.  I have yet to see a single check from it, so I doubt if it would go anywhere.  Also, Kindle format is just text only, which would not work, because the book the "fruit of the contemplative life" requires numerous font changes to accommodate all of the language translation.  It also has many charts, so it would not work in text only format.  If; however, a PDF could be published, then we could go that rout.

[bodhimind]

This is a good idea, but there is such a profound lack of support for the GWV that I doubt much money would come our way to make a difference.

That is true. Perhaps we could start a fund-raiser for the center, and give away a copy of the book that is marketed for the masses in exchange for the pledge. The problem is that the masses always want something in reciprocation - it is always about "What is in for me?" One thing I've learnt in copywriting psychology is that people want to buy and not be sold to, so if they have something to gain in return, they would gladly support a cause.

We have been discussing various book publishing ideas for years now.  My book of poetry was the first attempt.  I have yet to see a single check from it, so I doubt if it would go anywhere.  Also, Kindle format is just text only, which would not work, because the book the "fruit of the contemplative life" requires numerous font changes to accommodate all of the language translation.  It also has many charts, so it would not work in text only format.  If; however, a PDF could be published, then we could go that rout.

I think it was a message-to-market mismatch. The problem is that there is a very small pool of mystics that go into deep meditation and recognize its value, and hence the probability of one chancing upon the book and then purchasing it is very low. I understand how poems help to express, but people are always thinking selfish thoughts about what they can gain, so if there is no clear immediate benefit such as "mindfulness or bliss" shown, then it would be hard to attract their attention.

As for those two books I mentioned ("Power of Now" & "Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond"), their messages were made for beginners who know absolutely nothing about meditation. Some were probably proto-contemplatives, just as I were, so I can understand their perspective. Also, this market has a much greater number. And if a book gains traction in this market, no doubt that word will spread, and eventually it will also have a higher chance of reaching the ears of mystics, who will then realize the value of the book too.

What I had in mind as a beginner, when I wanted a book, was to find good, clear and concise meditation instruction. When I started getting experiences, then I wanted a book that talked about the various phenomena that happened. Also, their book titles have a clear benefit that answers the "what is in for me" question. So at different stages, I had different needs as well.

If you look inside their books, you will also see that the Foreword or Prologue question starts from where they are, empathises with their problem (people like people who understand them) and then tells them the solution and why they should read the book. I found that people often need some kind of persuasion upfront to tell them what they were going to get in return for reading the book.

Gary Bencivenga, a very famous copywriter, or salesperson, said that there were four elements to persuasion (this link is excellent):

1. Urgent Problem (eg. "getting nowhere in meditation", "don't know how to meditate", "lost in the conflicting interpretations of Buddhism", etc)
2. Unique Promise (eg. a different approach, I don't think this is a problem either, GWV is quite unique)
3. Unquestionable Proof (eg. credentials and "why must I trust you", which isn't a problem)
4. User-Friendly Proposition (eg. ease of getting it)

It seems like there is absolutely no problem in these factors, so there is no problem in convincing a person that the book is good and high-quality. These things, while obvious, just need to be stated. The only problem is how the message is delivered, such that they feel they are getting their money's worth. I find that it is straightforward because it is just a rearrangement to make it more appealing to the masses.

There was a study conducted, that found that the deal-breaker for many books was not the content, but rather, the headline and the cover of the books. The headline, in sales, was responsible for 80% readership, which means that people either get attracted to it and read on, or skip on without reading anything inside.

---

For the font changes, I am not too sure what you mean by that. Do you mean Pali/Sanskrit words? I think it might be possible to use them as images. Charts can also be converted into images - with basic free tools like a screenshot cropper. I do not mind helping out if I am able to.

[Jhanananda]

Thank-you, bodhimind, for all of the recommendations.  From experience I seem to only have success working with people who have already stumbled upon deep meditation, so I have no plans to write a how-to, or beginner level meditation book.  I will just keep it as it is, and let it sell on face value.

As for adding captured images instead of charts, and fonts, etc. remember Kindle format is text only.  That means no charts, no images, no fonts.