10 Steps to Becoming a Better Meditator

1. Meditate.
2. Meditate more.
3. Meditate even more.
4. Meditate even more than that.
5. Meditate when you don’t want to.
6. Meditate when you do.
7. Meditate when you have something to meditate on.
8. Meditate when you don’t.
9. Meditate every day.
10. Keep meditating.

Seriously though there is a lesson in there. Think like a meditator, be like a meditator. Which is by the way the title of a forth coming blog post I’m currently working on.

The Joy of Meditation

The Buddha said more than two and a half millennia ago, all beings want happiness and wish to avoid suffering. At first glance, this may seem like a simplistic observation however, a closer examination will reveal an extraordinary implication.

Everyone has this innate wish, the wish for greater happiness, it is not a selfish wish, however, we often use erroneous methods in our endeavors to find it. Many people believing that happiness can be found through physical stimuli or financial security, spend their entire lives chasing after money, power and fame only to be exhausted by their efforts. Buddhism asserts that although external conditions, such as, money or a nice car do play a role in a good life, they are not the real causes of happiness. You don’t need to look too far to find people who are materially well off, yet experience unhappiness, which if left unchecked can lead to depression. This does not mean we should not have material things or work towards providing for our families. Owning a nice car, a big house or having a highly paid career is not the issue. The issue is how we relate to these things. The real source of life’s problems and their resolutions can be found within our mind.
What I find most compelling about the Buddha’s statement is he hints at our fundamental capacity to expand and develop our experiences of happiness. Not the kind of happiness that is generated by forcing yourself to laugh or the kind of happiness that is sometimes jokingly described as happy happy joy joy. The happiness that is referred to here, is a genuine feeling of joy that naturally arises due to the cultivation of functional states of mind. It is a feeling of contentment with yourself, your life and the things and events that you encounter. It is not a passive experience. It makes you want to embrace life and the people you encounter through it. So his statement, all beings want happiness and want to avoid suffering, is not merely an observation but rather a supremely optimistic statement.

This statement of the Buddha also hints at our current situation. Like it or not, most people experience unwanted problems. Be they big or small, they are problems nonetheless and they are unwanted! No one wakes up in the morning and thinks, today I hope nothing but problems come my way. In fact the opposite is often the case. We wake up thinking about all the good things that might happen. We plan our day, thinking of the things we need to get done. Yet unexpected problems do arise. We can find ourselves experiencing the tension of a strained relationship, the stress of deadlines, or even the boredom of work. The Buddha points this out as a means of motivating us to begin our journey. Don’t live in denial. Face up to the fact that we do, even if just occasionally, experience these problems but, understand there is something you can do about this situation. You have the power to change your life, no one else can do it for you. In this regard the Buddha once said,

You are your own protector,
who else will be this protector?

This is great news, you can change your life and it is not that difficult. However, it is a journey, and like all good journeys, it starts with making the decision to go. To sum up then, the basic framework of the Buddha’s message is. All of us want happiness, yet what happiness we currently experience is fleeting at best. However, it is possible to experience real and lasting happiness that transcends any experience of happiness or bliss that is generated from physical stimuli, and that the methods which enable this can be found within our own mind.
This is where meditation comes in. Meditation is the tool used in the Enlightenment Project. It is both a diagnostic and therapeutic tool in this endeavor. Meditation introduces you to the world of your mind. A world that for many has remained hidden. Meditation brings the world of your mind to the forefront of life. Making it work for you rather than letting it enslave you. Many people are unaware of the potential of their mind or the role it plays in your life. Many unaware of this go through life acting out in habitual ways, reacting with events habitual tendencies, many of which lead to the problems describe earlier. The removal of dysfunctional states of mind, such as anger, jealousy or pride and the development of functional minds such as the minds of loving-kindness, compassion and wisdom constitutes the Enlightenment Project.

Dalai Lama in Australia 2008

His Holiness is coming to Australia in 2008 to expound on the famous text called Stage of Meditation by the Indian pandit Kamalasila.

I have blogged about this previously but now there is a nice looking website http://dalailamainaustralia.org to go along with the tour. Thank ’someone’ because the last one was rather plain to say the lest!

Anyways here is a little from Stages of Meditation.

Moved by compassion, Bodhisattvas take the vow to liberate all sentient beings.

Then by overcoming their self-centered outlook, they engage eagerly and continuously in the very difficult practices of accumulating merit and insight.

Having entered into this practice, they will certainly complete the collection of merit and insight. Accomplishing the accumulation of merit and insight is like having omniscience itself in the palm of your hand. Therefore, since compassion is the only root of omniscience, you should become familiar with this practice from the very beginning.

The Compendium of Perfect Dharma reads, “O Buddha, a Bodhisattva should not train in many practices. If a Bodhisattva properly holds to one Dharma and learns it perfectly, he has all the Buddha’s qualities in the palm of his hand. And, if you ask what that one Dharma is, it is great compassion.”

The Buddhas have already achieved all their own goals, but remain in the cycle of existence for as long as there are sentient beings. This is because they possess great compassion. They also do not enter the immensely blissful abode of nirvana like the Hearers. Considering the interests of sentient beings first, they abandon the peaceful abode of nirvana as if it were a burning iron house. Therefore, great compassion alone is the unavoidable cause of the non-abiding nirvana of the Buddha.

Hope to see you there.

The lamas mind leaves his body

Geshe Jampa Gyatso has finished his meditation on Clear Light almost 7 days after he stopped breathing. This means his mind has left his body and in Buddhism this is the actual point of death.

It is believed that only holy beings can remain in meditation on the Clear Light for this period of time, and so it is very inspirational to see Geshe-la show us his skill as a final teaching.

In another event related to death…
In the last couple of days I was asked to counsel a Buddhist student dying of cancer and who had only days to live. We did Medicine Buddha puja together, recited his mantra and meditated on Lojong - a meditation where one visualizes taking on the suffering of all living beings and giving ones happiness and good qualities to others. She also passed away today.

In Tibetan Buddhism there is a detailed description of the death process. How the mind dissolves from course to subtle levels of consciousness and how that relates to the body.

As it has been a week for death, I thought it timely to write something about the death process, which I will do in an upcoming post.

Tricycles Caption Me!

Over at the Tricycle blog Phil is looking for a headline to go with this photo.

Here is mine!

1: Meditation, what rubbish!

2: They never told me it was used for meditation. I thought it was a pillow!

3: Gone dancing

 

Well that is the best I can do in 2 minutes, how about you?

What is Buddhism anyway

Who was the Buddha?

The Buddha was a real person. He was born into a royal family in what would nowadays be southern Nepal. As it was the custom in those days, the Buddha’s father asked an astrologer to outline the baby boys future. After a quick observation of the baby, the astrologer announced that he would become either a universal monarch or a great spiritual leader.

Hearing this the Buddha’s father shielded his son from sick and dying people. If any of the palace staff got sick they were quickly removed from the young princes sight as the father did not want to arouse any spiritual aspirations in his young son.
As time went by, the young prince become more and more disillusioned with his circumstances, surely there is something more to life than just sport, food and sleep, he thought. So he began to sneak out of the palace at night to visit the townships surrounding the royal palace. This is when he first came across sick, dying and diseased people. Seeing their plight, the young prince was overcome with compassion. Finally he went to his father to tell him he was leaving the palace to find a freedom from the dissatisfactory events that condition our existence. So at the age of 29 he set off on a journey that would culminate in the development and finally the direct experience of infinite compassion and infinite wisdom - this we label as Enlightenment or Buddhahood - he was 35 by this time.

What the Buddha taught

The Buddha taught that all living beings have a natural disposition that seeks greater happiness and wishes to avoid even the slightest suffering. Not only that, he said that we also have the right to be happy. It is not selfish to want happiness. Unfortunately we sometimes employee erroneous methods, thinking that happiness will be found in things and events. More often than not these things and events become a cause of our unhappiness. The new car breaks down, the new hair-do never looks the same after leaving the salon.
Does that mean the Buddha said we shouldn’t have nice cars or get new hair cuts? No it doesn’t. It is how we relate to things and events that is the real problem not the thing themselves.

The greatest potential

Not only do we have this natural wish for more and more happiness, because of the very nature of our mind, we have the capacity to develop infinite compassion and infinite wisdom just like the Buddha did. He called this potential Buddha Nature. Because the basic or fundamental nature of the mind is not permanently clouded by conception it is possible to remove these dysfunctional states of mind.
Therefore every living being regardless of age or gender, all have the potential to become a Buddha. One could say that in essence the teachings of the Buddha show us, either directly or indirectly, how to replace dysfunctional states of mind with functional states of mind.

The process of transformation

The primary source of happiness and unhappiness is in fact our own mind. Therefore consciousness itself is the principal object of investigation for Buddhists. The principal tool used in this investigation is meditation and the Buddha has developed many techniques for refining and stabilizing consciousness. So, just as scientists use telescopes or microscopes to investigate the physical universe. Buddhists use meditation to investigate the inner world of the mind and to develop healthier, balanced and constructive states of mind - the real causes of happiness.
What are these dysfunctional minds? There are said to be six main types of minds that at face value appear to be useful but, at closer inspection are in fact the cause of many of our problems. The six are anger, attachment, ignorance, pride, doubt and holding opinions that take us away from happiness. A Buddha doesn’t suffer from any of these as they have replaced them with compassion and wisdom.

Dispelling misconceptions

Ok, let me ask you a question.

Question: Is non-attachment and detachment the same? Do they mean the same thing? I ask this because out of the six main minds anger, attachment etc, attachment is the most misunderstood.

My answer: I would say they are not the same. Detachment implies a factor of not caring about others. Whereas non-attachment does not imply this, it is simply an experience free from a mind that is clingy. Thus giving your mind space for unconditional friendliness and love - the wish for another to be happy without any feeling of gain or loss.

Spirit of enquiry

One of the things I love about Buddhism is it encourages the spirit of enquiry, much as science does. The Buddha said not to believe what he taught out of mere respect or through faith alone but, to experience the path for ourselves. Does that mean we can just make stuff up? No but, as with science, we are encouraged to experiment and see for ourselves if what he has said was true is true.

Some people, not only in western cultures, think that religion is about giving up free thought. They believe that being religious is about accepting a given set of instructions and bending your own ideas and believes to match the ideas of a given religion. Buddhism is not like this, in fact, it is the very opposite of that. It is youthful enthusiasm and a thirst for knowledge and understanding that will yield the most of any field of study. Buddhism is no different. Conducting experiments using the Buddhist tool of meditation with a sense of discovery and openness is the key to progression along the path.

In a future post I would like to expand on the theme of enquiry as I feel it is something that is not discussed often.