WTF is meditation?

Meditation

?

Mystical practice

Stop thinking

Way to different realms

Asian thing

Meditation is:

Right?

Mystical practice

Stop thinking

Way to different realms

Asian thing

Meditation is:

Meditation

bhavana (sanskrit)

the repeated practice of generating and focusing on a

beneficial state of mind in order to build it up as a

habit.

What kind of states ?

More relaxed, less tensed and worried

More focused and quieter

With more understanding of ourselves and life

With more love and compassion towards others

Why would I want to

meditate ?

Because worried mind:• makes us troubled

• causes unhappiness

• prevents us from functioning at our best

• ruins our health

• brings problems with family and at the workplace

So it is a problem. And if we see it as a problem, out goal is to get

rid of state of a worried mind.

We might be completely fed up and disgusted with a state of

difficult mind. !

!

«Enough, already. I’ve got to get out of this situation. I’ve got to do

something about it»

But

It is unrealistic to think that meditation alone will solve all

our problems.

Meditation is a tool; it’s a method.

And of course meditation could also be used to

build up a negative state of

mind

Example:

I could meditate on how terrible my enemy is.

I could use meditation to develop hatred,

which then causes me to seek and and to kill my enemy.

But that’s not how meditation is

generally used.

Meditation is something you do

just with your mind

not with your body

We need:not just to be able to generate that

state of mind while sitting quietly in meditation, but to build up this

positive state so thoroughly that it becomes a habit, that we can apply whenever we need it, at any time

during the day. Ultimately to make it something

natural that is there all the time: we are more loving, understanding,

focused, and calm.

Example:

we find ourselves losing our tempers with someone

we immediately notice it and remind ourselves, either consciously or

unconsciously:

!

then we close this “session” of bad temper and regenerate our attitude into

one of love toward the person.

“I don’t want to be like that!”

Conditions for meditation

not necessary

candles incense music

!

quiete clean neat place

necessary

How to do it?

meditation on breath

1

to have blank mind

to turn mind off

to stop thinking

Goal: to quiet the mind

Aim is to quiet all disturbing* states of

mind

*anger, craving, ignorance, wandering

!

that is very clear and alert !

where we are able to generate love and understanding

!

or to express the natural, human warmth that we all have

We want to achieve a state of mind:

PoseStraight spine

Comfortable position

On a cushion

Or on a floor

Or on a chair

Tibetans meditate with their eyes open

!

Gentle, unfocused gaze, down toward the floor

If it’s uncomfortable you can meditate with closed eyes

Eyes

But not wide open and looking around

not too fast

not too slow

not too deeply

not too shallow

Breathing

breath normally

focus on the sensation of inhaling and exhaling

focus on the sensation of the breath at the nose*

* if you tend to feel sleepy and dull

or focus on the sensation of the stomach

!

moving up and down as you breathe* * if your mind is wandering a great deal

the point is to be focused on the breathing with awareness

turn mind off

be aware of the sensation of breathing

commentary in your mind

The real work is to recognize as soon as possible when your

attention wanders away and then to bring it back

loving-kindness meditation

2

to be more loving, we need to have some

understanding of why we need to be more

loving

That’s why: You are a human being just like I am

You have feelings just as I do

You want to be liked and not ignored or disliked – the same as I do

We’re all here together on this planet and we need to get along with each

other.

We think about it until we understand it and it makes

sense to us.

And then, while sitting quietly in meditation, while

imagining other people around us, either people that

we know or strangers,

we try to generate the state of mind of love and compassion.

then concentrate on this state

conclusion

The goal of meditation is:

To win the Olympic gold medal for being able to sit perfectly in meditation

To win the Olympic gold medal for being able to sit perfectly in meditation

We want to meditate in order for the meditation practice to help us in our lives, both personally and in our interactions with others. And to do

that, we need to build up more beneficial habits

thank you

based on an article of my perfect teacher, Dr. Alexander Berzin http://tinyurl.com/legmw65

!