buddhist meditation and mindfullness

[bodhigirlsmiles]

people often ask me what, exactly, meditation is and how to go about meditating. a friend on another site asked me the same thing recently, and i include part of what i wrote to him below along with a few additions. i hope that it proves somewhat useful to all of you as latter-day saints, catholics, agnostics, or anyone in between. :)

what is meditation? for something that i have been doing actively since i was 6 or 7 at least, you would think it would be very easy for me to describe. it isn't. perhaps this is because it is such a part of who i am....it's a little like describing how you breathe to someone who has never taken a breath.

when people think of meditation, they often picture a little buddhist monk in colorful robes sitting in the silence of a temple high on a mountain top, surrounded by candles and gold statues, some quiet chanting in the background, legs folded together, arms outstretched and resting gently on their knees, eyes closed, a serene look upon their visage.

i have frequently participated in this type of meditation both alone as well as with family (and, indeed, they have been some of the greatest moments of experiential gain for me), but this is not the type of meditation i do on a daily basis.

meditation for me is an awareness of the now. it is being utterly and completely in the present.

each and every morning when we open our eyes and greet the day, we have twenty-four brand new hours hours to live. this is such a remarkable gift! we have, at that very moment, the capacity and oportunity to live in such a way as to bring joy, peace, and happiness to ourselves as well as others.

we can smile, breathe, walk, eat our meals, wash the dishes, do our homework, and drive to our place of occupation in a way that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available. this is meditation at its most basic (and important) form.

my parents always taught me that i should be careful how i live my life. for a long time, i thought this meant that they were directing the decisions that i would make (or should make) so as not to disappoint them or bring misery to me. as i grew older, i came to realize that they were warning me not to dwell in the past nor contemplate the future. the past is gone, the future is unknown....we have only the present moment in which to live.

especially today, it seems that we are so good at preparing to live, but not very good at actually living. we know all too well how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so forth. don't get me wrong, i am not saying any of this is bad!! what i am saying is that we seem to have great difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment. the whole purpose of meditation is to bring us back to that remembrance. meditation centers us; refocuses our attentions on the present moment.

i guess what i am trying to say is that it is possible to meditate anywhere and at anytime. perhaps the most important (and difficult) things to master with regard to meditation is breathing. we all breathe, so what is the big deal, right?? it's all about breathing correctly.

many buddhist teachers have taught me something simple to do in order to focus my breathing and my mind. as you breathe in, you say to yourself, "breathing in, i know that i am breathing in." and as you breathe out, say, "breathing out, i know that i am breathing out." just that. seems stupidly simply (and makes a lot of people feel silly when they do it), but it is so important to focus on your breathing. i don't even say the actual sentences any more, i just think to myself "in" and "out." none of this is new, right?!? magazines and books are always telling us that we need to take deep breaths to calm ourselves. they tell us this, because there is profound truth in this practice.

i practice meditation in my meditation room early in the morning and late at night. i also practice while working at the library, while driving my car, while eating my food, wherever i am, at any time throughout my day.

so, once you've started breathing correctly, then what? while we practice conscious breathing, our thinking slows down and we rest. our mind rests. most of the time we think too much. mindful breathing helps us to be calm, relaxed....peaceful. it helps us to stop thinking so much and stop being possessed by sorrows of the past and worries about the future. it enables us to touch life in the present moment.

perhaps a real-life example will help describe what this all means. last winter, there was one night in particular that was bitterly cold. i had been walking around the hills behind our house (as i often do, no matter the weather) meditating and clearing my mind. when i got home, i found that i had left all of my bedroom windows open. all of my papers from a project on which i was working had been scattered across my bed, the desk, and on the floor. immediately, i closed the windows, lit a few candles, picked up the papers, and arranged them neatly on my desk. i then went into the hallway and turned up the heat. very soon a warm air was blowing into my room, making it very cozy.

sometimes in a crowd we feel tired, cold, lonely. we may wish to withdraw to be by ourselves and become warm again as i did when i closed the windows and sat under a thick blanket on my bed, protected from the damp coldness that wanted to get in. our senses are our windows to the world. sometimes the wind blows through them and disturbs everything within us. some of us leave our windows open all the time, allowing the sights and sounds of the world to invade us, penetrate us, and expose our sad, troubled selves. we can feel so cold, lonely, and even afraid.

when this happens, we become our emotions. we become the fear and the sadness and the heartbreaking loneliness. if we are angry, we are the anger. alternately, if we are in love, we are love. if we look at a frozen lake in the winter, we are the lake. this is about being present in the moment. this is about forgetting everything else in order to really live.

many people who begin to practice meditation find themselves wanting to leave the hurry of the city and go off to the countryside to help close those windows that trouble our spirit. there we can become one with the quiet forest, and rediscover and restore ourselves, without being swept away by the chaos of the "outside world." the fresh and silent woods help us remain in awareness, and when our awareness is well-rooted and we can maintain it without faltering, we may wish to return to the city and remain there, less troubled. too often, however, it isn't practical to leave the city, and we have to then find the refreshing and peaceful elements that can heal us right in the midst of our hurried lives. we may wish to visit a good friend who can offer comfort, or go for a walk in the park and enjoy the trees and the cool breeze. whether we are in the city, the countryside, an office in a high rise building, or in a kitchen surrounded by the cocophony of boistrous children, we need to sustain ourselves by seeing our surroundings carefully and nourishing our awareness in each moment. we have to live now in order to live at all.

i would be more than happy to go into specifics of techniques (traditional or otherwise) if you'd like. i'm sure you are quite tired of reading this message at this point, and i can hold you at no fault for that! please let me know what questions you may have.

[pam]

That was awesome. It gives me much to "meditate" on. But you bring up so many good points about not worrying about the past or the future. To concentrate on each day and live each day to the best of our ability. The way we live each day will determine so much of our future.

[bodhigirlsmiles]

That was awesome. It gives me much to "meditate" on. But you bring up so many good points about not worrying about the past or the future. To concentrate on each day and live each day to the best of our ability. The way we live each day will determine so much of our future.

thank you pam, that was very kind. it is precisely this attribute that so many lds people display that attracted me to your faith. lds people have a great sense of now. this is so admirable.

[pam]

My understanding is the goal of a Buddhist is Nirvana which results in one no longer entering the reincarnation cycle and becoming one with the universe, aka one with everything (now whether that means, in harmony with, aware of or something else I've no clue). I'm sure one of the board Buddhists will be along to correct me, or at least someone with a better understanding.

This was brought up in another thread. Could you elaborate on it?

[bodhigirlsmiles]

This was brought up in another thread. Could you elaborate on it?

i would be happy to!

My understanding is the goal of a Buddhist is Nirvana which results in one no longer entering the reincarnation cycle and becoming one with the universe, aka one with everything (now whether that means, in harmony with, aware of or something else I've no clue). I'm sure one of the board Buddhists will be along to correct me, or at least someone with a better understanding.

this may take a while....how much time do you have? i have written on this in the past on more than one occasion, and i hope that it won't offend you too terribly if i borrow from the words that i have written before. i will change them up a bit, as well, so as to hopefully make it more meaningful to my present audience.

in order to answer, please allow me to give a brief overview of karma....

karma, i think, is one of buddhism's most misunderstood concepts and teachings. first off, karma is neither good nor is it bad; it is not the result of action, and it isn't one's fate. such misconceptions are obstacles in understanding the dharma (or buddha's teaching) concerning the continuing of the individual creation process through intention, volition and action.

science's law of cause and effect is a close parallel to the buddhist "law" of karma, but it isn't exactly the same either. the biblical, "whatsoever a man shall soweth so shall he also reap," isn't either, although it is in the same ballpark.

in order to fully understand karma, it is necessary to first understand buddhism's response to the age old question, "who am i?" five khandhas, or aggregates, constitute a "human" or a "being", according to buddha's teaching.

the first is our body or form, with its four elements of solidity, fluidity, heat and motion, including sense organs (eyes, ears, nose, etc.).

the second is our sensations or feelings (about things).

the third, our perceptions.

the fourth, our mental formations or the mulling over in our mind, the choosing and intent of the action we take.

the fifth is our consciousness or awareness.

these five "parts" if you will of a being are constantly changing; none are permanent. there is no permanent "self' in buddhism, only this unbroken chain of aggregates, this evolutionary continuity of existence.

when the body "dies," it is the first aggregate of organic matter that is dead. the other four cannot experience death, because they are not material in nature. they are the unseen and intangible essences, sometimes called energy or spirit. some religions might refer to them as the soul, but in buddhism the idea of a permanent, unchanging soul or spirit, is rejected.

so what, then, causes us to change? it is our intention, volition and action. just as the seed we plant and nourish in the earth grows into its intended and resulting flower or fruit, so we grow into the result of the seeds "inside" us that receive our nourishment. we have many kinds of both positive and negative seeds in our "store consciousness." some are inherited from our ancestors or from previous existences. choosing which seeds to nourish creates who we are to become. because we control our decisions and actions, we also determine our destiny. by deciding what we do, we are deciding who we are to be.

i know some of this is drastically different from lds views of "original sin," so to speak (at least from my understanding).

this process of choosing and doing is called karma. karma is not something that someone has, because there is no someone. according to buddhist teachings, what is mistaken for a "someone" is this ever-changing process. in short, karma is who and what each of us is. it is the answer to the question, "who am i?" the answer: "i am karma."

now for the concept of nirvana....(what??!!?? we've finially arrived at the original question?!)

nirvana can be literally translated as "extinction", "blowing out", "freedom from desire", the absence of dukkha or to cease. but those words or phrases do not really explain nirvana. in fact, it is a concept that is almost unexplainable. frustrating, right?!?!

trying to explain nirvana is a little like trying to explain the taste of salt to someone who has never tasted it, or trying to explain a color to someone who is and was born blind. i think you would agree that it is difficult, if not impossible!

clever answers may be given to the question, "what is nirvana?" answers may be explained in glowing terms, but no words can really give us an answer. nirvana is beyond words, logic and reasoning. it is, perhaps, easier to speak of what nirvana is not. it isn't nothingness or annihilation of self, because the dharma teaches there is no self to be annihilated.

in our attempt to explain it we use words which have limited meanings. it isn't heaven; it isn't purgatory or hell; it isn't pure land, and it isn't the end. nirvana is the absolute reality, which is realized through the highest mental training and wisdom.

the buddha said:

"it occurred to me....that this dhamma i have realized is deep, hard to see, hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, beyond mere reasoning, subtle and intelligible to the wise....hard, too, is it to see this calming of all conditioned things, the giving up of all substance of becoming, the extinction of craving, dispassion, cessation, nirvana."

from this it is clear that even the buddha himself thought that the extinction of desire (nirvana) is difficult to see, difficult to understand.

interestingly, one doesn't have to die to experience nirvana. most of us have already had momentary glimpses of it. i am partial to this quotation from the famous lebanese-american writer kahlil gibran:

"yes, there is a nirvana: it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem."

this hearkens back to meditation that i briefly went into earlier in the thread. we must live in the present moment.

so we go through life collecting both good and bad karma, reflective of our decisions. while it is true that the accumulation of any karma, both good as well as bad, will prevent us, ultimately, from achieving the state of nirvana, i do not believe that the good will hinder us along the path. good karma works to negate the bad, acting as a kind of counterbalance. there are buddhist scholars who may disagree with this.

buddhists hold that the retributive process of karma can span more than one lifetime. rebirth, or reincarnation, has always been an important tenet in buddhism; and it is often referred to as walking the wheel of life (samsara). It is the process of being born over and over again in different times and different situations, possibly for many thousand times.

as long as there is delusion, greed, and aversion, and as long as passions are not extinguished, we generate karma. Because we eventually accumulate unmaterialised karma in this or in a past lifetime, there is a next lifetime in which the accumulated karma will take form. only when all accumulated karma is realised and the generation of new karma is calmed, one can enter the stream that leads to nirvana. this process continues until nirvana is reached, which signifies the cessation of rebirth and, hence, suffering.

it is notable that this also entails the avoidance of "good karma". once the stream that leads to nirvana is entered, creating wholesome karma is not an object anymore. although wholesome karma leads to entering the stream, it does not necessarily lead to nirvana, only the extinguishment of all karmic forces will lead to nirvana.

how was that?? clear as mud, i'm sure!........but i hope that answers your question at least a little....

[pam]

It is clear actually. I can see how we can relate that to an LDS perspective as well. The gaining of "karma" would equate to the good works we do daily...the good thought processes we have...the compassion we feel for one another and how we take action on that compassion. So many other things could be related to that exactly.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I find so many things about what Buddhists believe to be fascinating.

[prospectmom]

A good read from both of you.... I know when I practice my breathing and meditation I am a much calmer person. I was taught breathing and meditation to deal with my chronic pain problem...... Thanks Bodi.. and Pam... you both just reminded me of tools I need to use on a daily basis...

[Dravin]

To give some context to Pam's question it was my attempt to explain the joke:

A Buddhist walks up to a hot dog vendor and say, "Make me one with everything."

The way you are describing karma to my mind makes me think of electrons, one picks them up and they are part of what we are and positive electrons (aka positrons) combined with electrons kinda cancel each other out.

[bodhigirlsmiles]

To give some context to Pam's question it was my attempt to explain the joke:

A Buddhist walks up to a hot dog vendor and say, "Make me one with everything."

one with everything other than the hotdog (meat), of course.

[bodhigirlsmiles]

and then there's the one someone told me about a buddhist vacuum cleaner....it comes with no attachments.

[Dravin]

one with everything other than the hotdog (meat), of course.

Oh good, its actually funny. When Pam asked for clarification I started worrying I was passing on misinformation about Buddhism and telling a unfunny joke to boot.

I like the vacuum cleaner one. :)

[Moksha]

This is an enjoyable and informative thread. Bodhigirl, I would love to hear more details on meditation.

BTW, I think the concept of good and bad Karma comes from its usage in the Hindu Vedas.

:)

[bodhigirlsmiles]

This is an enjoyable and informative thread. Bodhigirl, I would love to hear more details on meditation.

BTW, I think the concept of good and bad Karma comes from its usage in the Hindu Vedas.

:)

oh those crazy hindus!! i thought we (buddhists) had escaped their influence long ago....and here we are, tied down to their definitions.

(is that bad karma to say that?)

[Newcomer4831]

"Remember you don't meditate to "get" anything, but to "rid" of things. We do it, not with desire, but with letting go. If you "want" anything, you won't find it."

"We don't meditate to see heaven, but to end suffering."

"You're blind and deaf without meditation. Dhamma isn't easily seen. You must meditate to see what you've never seen. Where you born a teacher? No. You must study first. A lemon is sour only when you have tasted it."

"When sitting in meditation, say "That's not my business!" with every thought that comes by."

"Of course there are dozens of meditation techniques, but it all comes down to this - just let it all be. Step over where its cool, out of battle. Why not give it a try?"

"Merely thinking about practice is like pouncing on a shadow and missing the substance."

"If you have time be mindful, you have time to meditate."

-Ajahn Chah

[Newcomer4831]

oh those crazy hindus!! i thought we (buddhists) had escaped their influence long ago....and here we are, tied down to their definitions.

(is that bad karma to say that?)

depends on your intentions

[Newcomer4831]

one with everything other than the hotdog (meat), of course.

Are you aware of the Sangha Devadetta was trying to create?

[LittleWyvern]

I've gotta try this sometime. :)

[Newcomer4831]

I've gotta try this sometime. :)

Believe it or not, you probably have. If you ever thought of something, or just tried to calm yourself, that is meditation. I for example go on long walks and contemplate certain situations.

[LittleWyvern]

Believe it or not, you probably have. If you ever thought of something, or just tried to calm yourself, that is meditation. I for example go on long walks and contemplate certain situations.

Ha! Maybe this is why I like random hiking trips! :)

[bodhigirlsmiles]

Are you aware of the Sangha Devadetta was trying to create?

i am familiar with the sangha devadatta, but i am not sure i follow what you mean?

[HiJolly]

Thanks for posting this thread. Meditation has many flavors. Visualization is a common component in some traditions, such as the occult/kabbalah related ones.

I myself have always found it fairly easy to empty my mind and live in the moment. I once had the experience of complete forgetfullness and simply 'witnessing' everthing around me, as though I were a new 'Adam'.

'Witness' consciousness is natural to me, though I only lost my memory that one time. It was restored about 5 minutes later. What a strange experience!

I have been focusing on equinamity for about 6 years now, it is a blessing indeed. Sometimes I focus on energy flows within/nearby my physical body. There is much I can do with meditation. It is as inexhaustible as the things I can find to pray about to my Heavenly Father. Which is a type of meditation. Or, if we are mindful, can be.

HiJolly

[Newcomer4831]

i am familiar with the sangha devadatta, but i am not sure i follow what you mean?

I always thought that Buddhist were hardcore vegans. Well in the Dhammapada, Devadatta tried to create another Sangha with additional rules, one of which is that monks had to be vegans. So being a vegetarian is not a requirement, and what I mean by that, if meat happens to fall in your begging bowl and is the only thing you have to eat, then eat it right? But you can't ask for meat or "prefer" it.

[Traveler]

I have always been interested in the power of the human mind. Among the ancient Egyptians was a counter understanding of immortality or eternal. It is interesting that in one form or another their idea is expressed in almost all religious thinking. In this concept temporal order of past, present and future are all the same. The past is not separable from the present and future but all are interwoven and part of the other. Thus wholeness or completeness is in a sense is a grasp of the eternal.

Without such grasp of the eternal there is no justice, no peace and no awareness. Most western religious ideals want to divide the past, present and future into parts giving each a beginning and an end. The prophet Joseph Smith taught that without knowledge of past, present and future one’s knowledge is incomplete. Incomplete knowledge can only result in incomplete conclusions.

It is my understanding that mediation is at its core awareness. One is not aware of that to which they have no connection. There must be a connection to be aware; be that connection of spiritual and transcendental or physical and carnal. Gandhi made an astonishing connection between what we do and what we think when he stated, “I am my sermon”. Such a concept should not be foreign to a Christian because thousands of years before the same notion and thought was issued to Moses when G-d spoke, “I am that I am”.

To the LDS, the beginning of awareness begins with the awareness of where we came from. This awareness of what seems to be the past is in reality an understanding of what we are in the present and in the future. We are the children of G-d. Without this connection our awareness is incomplete.

The Traveler

[pam]

Oh good, its actually funny. When Pam asked for clarification I started worrying I was passing on misinformation about Buddhism and telling a unfunny joke to boot.

I like the vacuum cleaner one. :)

I only asked for clarification because I was ignorant of the whole "everything" thing. I'm actually glad you brought it up so that I could ask more about it on this thread.

[Moksha]

... Sangha Devadetta ...

Wasn't there a song by Iron Butterfly called ""Inna Sangha Devadetta", or am I thinking so something else?