I've been meditating off and on for most of my life, and it's probably been the best thing I've done for myself. Reading is a good way to go for some, and the book Mindfulness in Plain English [1] is a place good start. His other books are really good, too. Especially "The Four Foundations of Mindfulness". There are many other good books about meditation, so feel free to look around. Spend some time at a book store and see what strikes you.
When I was starting out I especially liked Shinzen Young's [2] teaching style a lot. He's been meditating for a long time, taught math and comparative religions at a university, and he does an excellent job of presenting Eastern meditation in a way that an educated Westerner can understand.
There are a lot of resources available online, but you might try poking around in the Something's Happening [3] radio archives for KPFK. Tuesday and Thursday night they play talks from Alan Watts, Shinzen Young, and a lot of other people. Some of the talks are extremely hokey, full of New Age gibberish, but some of them are really good and it's a good way to get exposed to a range of teachers. Go to the archive page and search for "Something's Happening" and give it a try. There's also an Alan Watts program that good, too.
When I was starting out I especially liked Shinzen Young's [2] teaching style a lot. He's been meditating for a long time, taught math and comparative religions at a university, and he does an excellent job of presenting Eastern meditation in a way that an educated Westerner can understand.
There are a lot of resources available online, but you might try poking around in the Something's Happening [3] radio archives for KPFK. Tuesday and Thursday night they play talks from Alan Watts, Shinzen Young, and a lot of other people. Some of the talks are extremely hokey, full of New Age gibberish, but some of them are really good and it's a good way to get exposed to a range of teachers. Go to the archive page and search for "Something's Happening" and give it a try. There's also an Alan Watts program that good, too.
[1] http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html [2] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=shinzen+young [3] http://archive.kpfk.org/