"The practice of meditation is not so much based on becoming a better person, or for that matter becoming an enlightened person. It is seeing how we can relate to our already existing enlightened state." _Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche_
As meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein has quipped, "it's not what you think." So let's take a look at what it is- and what it is not.
Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard busts the myths and explains why beginning to meditate is like embarking on a great adventure.
Continue reading below to see Matthieu Ricard explanations of what is mediation and what it is not.
Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard busts the myths and explains why beginning to meditate is like embarking on a great adventure.
Continue reading below to see Matthieu Ricard explanations of what is mediation and what it is not.
In our modern world, we are consumed from morning till night with endless activity. We do not have much time or energy left over to consider the basic causes of our happiness or suffering. We imagine, more or less consciously, that if we undertake more activities we will have more intense experiences and therefore our sense of dissatisfaction will fade away. But the truth is that many of us continue to feel let down and frustrated by our contemporary lifestyle. But no change can occur if we just let our habitual tendencies and automatic patterns of thought perpetuate and even reinforce themselves, thought after thought, day after day, year after year. But those tendencies and patterns can be challenged. That's where meditation comes in. Its aim is to transform the mind. Every one of us has a mind and every one of us can work on it.
WHAT MEDITATION IS
Meditation is a practice that makes it possible to cultivate and develop certain basic positive human qualities in the same way as other forms of training make it possible to play a musical instrument or acquire any other skill.
Meditation is a practice that makes it possible to cultivate and develop certain basic positive human qualities in the same way as other forms of training make it possible to play a musical instrument or acquire any other skill.
Among several Asian words that translate as "meditation" in English are bhavana from Sanskrit, which means "to cultivate", and its Tibetan equivalent, gom, meaning "to become familiar with." Meditation helps us to familiarize ourselves with a clear and accurate way of seeing things and to cultivate wholesome qualities that remain dormant within us unless we make an effort to draw them out.
The traditional Buddhist texts say that every being has the potential for enlightenment just as surely as every sesame seed contains oil. Despite this, to use another traditional comparison, we wander about in confusion like a beggar who is simultaneously rich and poor because he does not know he has a treasure buried under the floor of his hut. The goal of the Buddhist path is to come into possession of this overlooked wealth of ours, which can imbue our lives with the most profound meaning. The goal of meditation, specifically, is not to shut down the mind or anesthetize it, but to make it free, lucid and balanced.
WHAT MEDITATION IS NOT
Sometimes practitioners of meditation are accused of being too focused on themselves, of wallowing in egocentric introspection and failing to be concerned with others. But we cannot regard as selfish a process whose goal is to root out the obsession with self and to cultivate altruism. This would be like blaming an aspiring doctor for spending years studying medicine before beginning to practice.
There are a fair number of cliches in circulation about meditation. Let me point out again that meditation is not an attempt to create a blank mind by blocking our thoughts - which is impossible anyway. Nor is it engaging the mind in endless cogitation in an attempt to analyze the past or anticipate the future. Neither is it a simple process of relaxation in which inner conflicts are temporarily suspended in a vague, amorphous state of consciousness. there is not much point in resting in a state of inner bewilderment, There is indeed an element of relaxation in meditation, but it is connected with the relief that comes from letting go of hopes and fears, of attachments and the whims of the ego that never stop feeding our inner conflicts.
Meditation is not, as some people think, a means of escaping reality. On the contrary, its object is to make us see reality as it is, right in the midst of our experience, to unmask the deep causes of our suffering, and to dispel mental confusion. We develop a kind of understanding that comes from a clearer view of reality. To reach this understanding, we meditate, for example, on the interdependence of all phenomena, on their transitory character, and on the nonexistence of the ego perceived as a solid and independent entity.
Meditations on these themes are based on the experience of generations of meditators who have devoted their lives to observing the automatic, mechanical patterns of thought and the nature of consciousness. Then they taught empirical methods for developing mental clarity, alertness, inner freedom, altruistic love, compassion. However, we cannot merely rely on their words to free ourselves from suffering. We must discover for ourselves the value of the methods these wise people taught and confirm for ourselves the conclusions they reached. this process requires determination, enthusiasm, perseverance, and what the 8th-century monk and scholar Shantideva called "joy in virtuous ways."
Thus we begin by observing and understanding how thoughts multiply by association with each other and create a whole world of emotions, of joy and suffering. then we penetrate the screen of thoughts and glimpse the fundamental component of consciousness: the primal cognitive faculty from which all thoughts arise.
ADVENTURE TOWARD HAPPINESS
If we consider that the potential benefit of meditation is to give us a new experience of the world each moment of our lives, then it does not seem excessive to spend at least twenty minutes a day getting to know our mind better and training it toward this kind of openness. The fruition of meditation could be described as an optimal way of being, or as genuine happiness. This true and lasting happiness is a profound sense of having realized to the utmost the potential we have within us for wisdom and accomplishment. working toward this kind of fulfillment is an adventure worth embarking on.
WHAT MEDITATION IS NOT
Sometimes practitioners of meditation are accused of being too focused on themselves, of wallowing in egocentric introspection and failing to be concerned with others. But we cannot regard as selfish a process whose goal is to root out the obsession with self and to cultivate altruism. This would be like blaming an aspiring doctor for spending years studying medicine before beginning to practice.
There are a fair number of cliches in circulation about meditation. Let me point out again that meditation is not an attempt to create a blank mind by blocking our thoughts - which is impossible anyway. Nor is it engaging the mind in endless cogitation in an attempt to analyze the past or anticipate the future. Neither is it a simple process of relaxation in which inner conflicts are temporarily suspended in a vague, amorphous state of consciousness. there is not much point in resting in a state of inner bewilderment, There is indeed an element of relaxation in meditation, but it is connected with the relief that comes from letting go of hopes and fears, of attachments and the whims of the ego that never stop feeding our inner conflicts.
Meditation is not, as some people think, a means of escaping reality. On the contrary, its object is to make us see reality as it is, right in the midst of our experience, to unmask the deep causes of our suffering, and to dispel mental confusion. We develop a kind of understanding that comes from a clearer view of reality. To reach this understanding, we meditate, for example, on the interdependence of all phenomena, on their transitory character, and on the nonexistence of the ego perceived as a solid and independent entity.
Meditations on these themes are based on the experience of generations of meditators who have devoted their lives to observing the automatic, mechanical patterns of thought and the nature of consciousness. Then they taught empirical methods for developing mental clarity, alertness, inner freedom, altruistic love, compassion. However, we cannot merely rely on their words to free ourselves from suffering. We must discover for ourselves the value of the methods these wise people taught and confirm for ourselves the conclusions they reached. this process requires determination, enthusiasm, perseverance, and what the 8th-century monk and scholar Shantideva called "joy in virtuous ways."
Thus we begin by observing and understanding how thoughts multiply by association with each other and create a whole world of emotions, of joy and suffering. then we penetrate the screen of thoughts and glimpse the fundamental component of consciousness: the primal cognitive faculty from which all thoughts arise.
ADVENTURE TOWARD HAPPINESS
If we consider that the potential benefit of meditation is to give us a new experience of the world each moment of our lives, then it does not seem excessive to spend at least twenty minutes a day getting to know our mind better and training it toward this kind of openness. The fruition of meditation could be described as an optimal way of being, or as genuine happiness. This true and lasting happiness is a profound sense of having realized to the utmost the potential we have within us for wisdom and accomplishment. working toward this kind of fulfillment is an adventure worth embarking on.
0 comments:
Post a Comment