Peace Of Your Mind

Dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt, Matthew Johnstone doesn't look like a meditation guru. He isn't bald, claims to know nothing of chakras and has never been to an ashram. But he has written and illustrated Quiet the Mind, a beginner's guide to meditation.


Johnstone is the creative director of the Black Dog Institute, which raises awareness of mood disorders. He discovered the benefits of meditation when he was working in advertising and took a course to cope with stress.


''Advertising is like a never-ending sand dune,'' he says. ''You get to the top and fall back to the bottom. There are never-ending deadlines and there was pressure to be creative, win awards, be relevant and contemporary.''


Twenty years later, he says his life is definitely better when he meditates than when he doesn't: ''It's like cleaning the windows and turning down the volume.''


Illustrated by Johnstone in the style of a beautiful children's picture book, Quiet the Mind is a kind of ''Meditation for Dummies''. ''People often have a bit of fear of the unknown and associate meditation with airy-fairy, fringy-hippie stuff. They don't want to waste time. I wanted the book to be pragmatic.'' (MORE)

Source: Stock and Land