The author, student and teacher is good at making meditation easier and less weird.

You know by the titles of his books, Cinema Nirvana: Enlightenment Lessons from the Movies and Natural Meditation: A Guide to Effortless Meditative Practice, that Dean Sluyter (pronounced “slighter”) is here to demystify meditation. Although he has hippie credentials – seeking answers in San Francisco’s Eastern philosophy scene in the ’60s, studying Advaita Vedanta, Vajrayana Buddhism and Bhakti Yoga in Nepal, India, Europe and Tibet – his thoughts aren’t unmoored from reality or clouded by pot smoke. See for yourself when he reads and signs his book at the Weekly’s Press Club 6:30pm Thursday, or does a talk 7-8:30pm Friday and a workshop ($30 suggested donation) 12:30-4:30pm Saturday at the Big Sur Grange (622-9950). “Permanent transcendence,” he writes in New York Magazine, “doesn’t mean you become a grinning, drooling vegetable parked somewhere in a cave.”

~ ~ ~

Weekly: Why should I meditate? Sluyter: Well. There are mundane answers: lower blood pressure, to handle stress better, to sharpen mental clarity. That is fine. If it were just that, I wouldn’t do it. We’re all looking for happiness all the time – deciding what to order off the menu or going to the online dating service. All the great sages have concluded that the only lasting happiness comes from within – nirvana or the kingdom of heaven within. That’s a very real thing. Meditation is a way of settling into that. What are you writing?

I’m trying to sell a book to Tarcher Penguin, an independent publisher. In the ’70s they pioneered mind, body and spirit. I’ve started a [Huffington Post blog] on meditation myths. Number one: “I’m not the meditating type.”

Have you come across enlightened thought in John Steinbeck?

Of Mice and Men. The title is from Scottish poet Robbie Burns: “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, gang aft agley” – often go awry. That’s great enlightenment thinking. The ego thinks it can manage the universe and arrange the external circumstances of our life so it will yield us these dewdrops of happiness that we can sip like from blades of grass. In natural meditation, you gravitate toward the happiness in us.

What is natural meditation?

A plain-English, down-to-earth, no-weirdness distillation of all the teachings I’ve been exposed to. They all come down to “let it go.” Release your grip on the steering wheel and allow your mind to sink into this essence at the core of your own being.

What will you teach here?

I have no idea. The person who is my main teacher, an incredibly awakened human being named Mooji, some years ago said “When you lead these workshops, do you have an outline?” I said not really. “Good. There’s a chance for some truth to come through.”

What are recent films where you’ve detected enlightenment teachings?

Birdman. I love it so much. The Michael Keaton character is trying to get at some deeper truth. With him, it’s theater as opposed to film – the real versus the bullshit fantasy. Her was also a fantastic enlightenment film. The operating system the Joaquin Phoenix character falls in love with continues to evolve from human to boundless consciousness.

You come from a family of political activists. Does meditation alleviate the agitation that inspires activism?

The most effective political activists of the last 50-100 years: Ghandi, Dr. King, Nelson Mandela. Do you have a sense they’re enraged, stressed-out people, or that they have silent wisdom inside them?

What kind of meditation regimen do you recommend for work?

If you’re sitting in your cubicle you can sit with your eyes open and let your gaze rest on the edges of your monitor. It looks like you’re intensely focused on your work. You’re letting your attention rest – the method of all the techniques.

Does something get lost in translation when Eastern beliefs come to the U.S.?

That’s an important and delicate question. There is nothing essentially Eastern or Tibetan about enlightenment teaching. It’s your innermost self. It’s more intimate to you than the most intimate things.

How do you know meditation has worked?

When you go back into activity and somehow everything feels a little lighter.