What is Buddhist meditation?

Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Dhammika (BuddhaNet.net)

"It doesn't matter who you used to be. What matters is who you become."

.

What is meditation?

Meditation is a conscious effort to change how the mind works. The Pali word for "meditation" is bhavana, which means "to make grow" or "to develop." [Literally, it means "to bring into being, to make become."]

Is meditation important?

Yes, it is. No matter how much we may wish to be good, if we cannot change the desires that make us act the way we do, change will be difficult. For example, a person may realize that s/he is impatient with a spouse and may promise, "From now on I am not going to be so impatient." But an hour later one may be shouting again simply because, not being aware of oneself, impatience has arisen without one knowing it. Meditation helps to develop the awareness and the energy needed to transform ingrained mental habit patterns.

 

I have heard that meditation can be dangerous. Is this true?

To live, we need salt. But if we were to eat a kilogram of salt it would kill us. To live in the modern world we may need a car, but if we do not follow the traffic rules or if we drive while we are a little intoxicated, a car becomes a dangerous maiming machine. Meditation is like this, it is essential for our mental health and well-being, but if we practice in a foolish way, it amy cause problems. Some people have problems like depression, irrational fears (phobias), or schizophrenia, and they think meditation is an instant cure for all problems. So they start meditating, yet sometimes their problems get worse. If we have such problems, we may want to seek professional help or therapy and after we are better then take up meditation. Other people over reach; they take up meditation and instead of going gradually, step by step -- making the gradual progress the Buddha advised -- they meditate with too much energy, effort, and exertion for too long, and by going out of balance they are soon exhausted and discouraged.

• [Siddhartha the severe ascetic failed until he relaxed effort to a point of balance utilizing the blissful meditative absorptions as the basis for temporary purification and the basis for cultivating insight or vipassana; trying to practice insight without a solid foundation of concentration is almost certain to fail and leave us disappointed and discouraged. Siddhartha succeeded, he later explained, with the paradoxical statement that he neither pushed forward nor stood still, that is, neither overexerted himself into a fruitless frenzy nor sank from lack of effort. The answer is balanced-effort, persistence, strong-soft (sthirasukha) cultivation.]

As Siddhartha eventually realized, Too much exertion is as bad as not enough exertion.

.

But perhaps most problems in meditation are caused by ''kangaroo meditation." [Most are actually caused by Monkey Mind, but the venerable is making another good point.] Some people go to one teacher and do that meditation technique for a while, then they read something in a book and decide to try this technique, then a week later a famous meditation teacher visits town so they decide to incorporate some of those ideas into their practice, and before long they are hopelessly confused.[Hopping around like a marsupial when it gets tough is no way to "meditate." Pick a technique, learn it well, practice it for long enough to see if it works.]

Jumping like a kangaroo from one teacher to another or from one meditation technique to another is a mistake. But if we do not have any severe mental problem and we take up meditation and practice sensibly, it is one of the best things we can do for ourselves.

.

Eventually the heart/mind purifies and one peacefully sees things as they really are -- including sensing many kinds of unseen beings who live alongside us and often impact humans mostly to our detriment.

 

How many types of meditation are there?

The Buddha taught many different types of meditation, each designed to overcome a particular problem [he detected in the person he was instructing] or to develop a particular psychological state [hidden strength in the person]. But the two most common and useful types of meditation are "Mindfulness of Breathing" (anapana sati) and "Loving-Kindness Meditation" (metta). [The two broad classes of meditation are the cultivation of concentration and calm and the development of insight and wisdom, known as samatha and vipassana.]

If I wanted to practice Mindfulness of Breathing, how would I do it?

Follows these easy steps known as the Four P's: place, posture, practice, and problems. 

(SunriseJetPhotoGallery/flickr)

1. First, find a suitable place, perhaps a room that is not too noisy and where you are not likely to be disturbed.
2. Second, sit in a comfortable posture. A good posture is to sit with your legs folded, a pillow under your buttocks, your back straight, the hands nestled in the lap and the eyes closed. Alternatively, you can sit in a chair as long as you keep your back straight. 
3. Next comes the actual practice itself. As you sit quietly with your eyes closed you focus your attention on the in and out movement of the breath [just under the nostrils]. This can be done by counting the breaths or [alternatively being mindful of the grosser] rise and fall of the abdomen. 
4. When this is done certain problems and difficulties will arise. You might experience irritating itches on the body or discomfort in the knees. If this happens, keep the body relaxed without moving. Keep focusing on the breath. You will probably have many intruding thoughts coming to mind and distracting your attention from the breath. The only way to deal with this normal occurrence is to patiently keep returning your attention to the breath. If you keep doing this, eventually thoughts will weaken, your concentration will become stronger, and you will have moments of deep mental calm and inner peace. [Remembering the breath, and bringing it back to mind, is said by some to be the definition of "mindfulness," known in Pali as sati and in Sanskrit as smirti.]

How long should I meditate for?

It is good to do meditation for 15 minutes every day for a week and then extend the time by 5 minutes each week until you are meditating for 45 minutes. After a few weeks of regular daily meditation, you will start to notice that your concentration gets better, there are fewer distracting thoughts, and you have moments of real peace and stillness.

 

What about Loving Kindness Meditation? How is that practiced?

Once you are familiar with Mindfulness of Breathing and are practicing it regularly, you can start practicing Loving Kindness Meditation. It should be done two or three times each week after you have done Mindfulness of Breathing.

1. First, turn your attention to yourself and say to yourself words like, "May I be well and happy. May I be peaceful and calm. May I be protected. May my mind/heart be free of hatred. May my heart be filled with loving friendliness. May I be well and happy." 
2. Then one by one you think of a loved and respected living person of the same sex (like a teacher), a neutral person, that is, someone you do not know and neither like nor dislike, and finally a disliked person, wishing each of them well as you do so.

What is the benefit of doing this type of meditation?

If you do Loving Kindness Meditation regularly and with the right attitude, you will find very positive changes taking place within yourself. You will find that you are able to be more accepting and forgiving towards yourself. You will find that the feelings you have towards your loved ones will increase. You will find yourself making friends with people you used to be indifferent and uncaring towards, and you will find the ill-will or resentment you have towards some people will lessen and eventually be dissolved. Sometimes if you know of someone who is sick, unhappy, or encountering difficulties you can include them in your meditation, and very often you will find their situation improving. [These and the benefits the Buddha mentioned are more likely to result from practicing metta meditation to the point of absorption or jhana, a deep calm and concentration that brings about the benefits. It is not positive or wishful thinking, but an awakening of the heart/mind's latent powers to make our reality.]

How is that possible?

The mind, when properly developed, is a very powerful instrument. If we can learn to focus our mental energy and project it towards others, it can have an effect upon them. You may have had an experience like this. Perhaps you are in a crowded room and you get this feeling that someone is watching you. You turn around and, sure enough, someone is staring. What has happened is that you have picked up that other person's mental energy. Loving Kindness Meditation is like this. We project positive mental energy towards others and it gradually transforms them.

Do I need a teacher to teach me meditation?

A teacher is not absolutely necessary, but personal guidance from someone who is familiar with meditation is certainly helpful. Unfortunately, some monastics and laypeople set themselves up as meditation teachers and gurus when they simply do not know what they are doing. Search and pick a teacher who has a good reputation, a balanced personality, and who adheres closely to the Buddha's teachings. More

What is Mindfulness Meditation? (video)

(meditationrelaxclub) New Age mantra relaxation music for the early stages of meditation

Defining Mindfulness

Ven. Thanissaro edited and expanded by Wisdom Quarterly

What does it mean to be mindful of the breath? It is something very simple: keeping the breath in mind.  How do we keep remembering (which is the literal meaning of sati) the breath each time we breathe in, each time we breathe out, and -- during intensive practice -- all the time in between?

 

The British scholar who coined the translation of the Pali word sati as “mindfulness” was probably influenced by the Anglican prayer to be ever mindful of the needs of others -- in other words, to always keep others' needs in mind. Even though the word “mindful” was probably drawn from a Christian context, the Buddha himself defined sati as the ability to remember (be vigilant, conscientious, conscious, and have presence of mind), illustrating its function in meditation practice with the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (satipatthanas). 

“And what is the faculty of sati? A meditator, a disciple of the noble (arya, the enlightened) ones, is mindful, highly attentive, remembering, able to call to mind even things that were done and said long ago. [And here begins the Four Foundations of Mindfulness formula:] One remains focused on the body in and of itself -- ardent, alert, and vigilant -- setting aside greed and grief with regard to the world. One remains focused on feelings (sensations not emotions, which come under formations or sankaras) in and of themselves... the mind in and of itself... mental objects (or qualities) of themselves -- ardent, alert, and vigilant -- setting aside greed and grief with regard to the world” (SN 48.10).
 

The full discussion of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (DN 22) starts with instructions on the simplest exercise of 14 mentioned to be ever mindful of the breath.

Directions such as “bring bare attention to the breath,” or “accept the breath,” or whatever else modern teachers tell us that mindfulness is supposed to do, are actually functions for other qualities in the mind. They're not automatically a part of sati but should nevertheless be brought along wherever they are appropriate.

 

One quality that is always appropriate in establishing mindfulness is being watchful or alert, attentive or vigilant. The Pali word for alertness (sampajañña) is another term that is often misunderstood. It does not mean being choicelessly aware of the present or comprehending the present. Examples in the Pali canon show that "clear comprehension" (sampajañña) means being aware of what we are doing in the movements of the body as well as the movements in the mind.

 

After all, if we are going to gain insight into how we cause suffering (disappointment, distress, dissatisfaction, ill, woe), our primary focus always has to be on what we are actually doing. This is why mindfulness and alertness should always be paired as we meditate.

 

Thai meditation hut, or kuti, turned into a devotional shrine (Richard-Perry/flickr)

.

In the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Sutra (Satipatthana Sutta, literally the "Discourse on the Fourfold Setting Up of Mindfulness") they are combined with a third quality, ardency. Ardency means being intent on what we are doing, doing our best to do it skillfully. This does NOT mean straining and overexerting -- which is out of balance and retards and often derails practice -- just that we are persistent, dedicated to continuously developing skillful habits and as well as abandoning unskillful ones.

Bear in mind that, in the Noble Eightfold Path to freedom, right mindfulness grows out of right effort, which itself has four features. Right effort is exerting ourselves skillfully (with balanced effort). Mindfulness helps that effort along by reminding us to stick with it without lapsing, without letting it drop. We would not be able to sustain overexertion and would instead lapse, but balanced effort can be maintained until it is brought to fruition, to culmination, to perfection.

 

All three of these qualities get their focus from what the Buddha called "wise attention" (yoniso manasikara). Wise attention is appropriate attention, not bare attention, which is mindfulness free of evaluation, thinking, and judging. The Buddha discovered that the way we attend to things is determined by what we see as important, such as the questions we bring to the practice, the problems we want the practice to solve. No act of attention is ever completely bare.

If there were no problems in life we could open ourselves up to choiceless awareness of whatever came along. But the fact is there is a big problem in the middle of everything we do -- the suffering that results from acting in ignorance. This is why the Buddha does not tell us to view each moment with a beginner's eyes. We have got to keep the issue of suffering and its cessation ever in mind.

 

Otherwise inappropriate attention will get in the way, focusing on questions like, “Who am I?” “Do I have a self?” -- questions that deal in terms of being and identity. Such questions, according to the Buddha, lead us straight into a meandering thicket of views soon stuck on thorns.

The questions that lead to freedom, on the other hand, focus on comprehending suffering, letting go of the cause of suffering, realizing that there is indeed freedom from suffering, and developing the path that leads to the cessation of suffering.

Our desire for answers to these four ennobling questions is what makes us alert to our actions -- our thoughts, words, and deeds -- and ardent to perform them skillfully (beneficial or at least harmless to ourselves and others).

Mindfulness is what keeps the perspective of wise attention in mind. Modern research in psychology shows that attention comes in discrete (separate, distinguishable, composite) moments. We can be attentive to something for only a very short period of time and then we have to remind ourselves, moment after moment, to return to it if we want to keep being attentive. In other words, continuous attention -- the type that can observe things over time -- has to be stitched together from short intervals. This is what mindfulness is for. It keeps the object of our attention and the purpose of our attention in mind.

 

Popular books on meditation, however, offer a lot of other definitions of mindfulness, a lot of other duties it is supposed to fulfill -- so many that the poor word gets stretched completely out of shape, becomes a catchall term, and loses meaning. In some cases, it even gets defined as enlightenment or awakening, as in the phrase, “A moment of mindfulness is a moment of awakening” -- something the Buddha never said nor would say, because mindfulness is conditioned whereas nirvana is not.

 

These are not merely minor matters for nitpicking scholars to argue over. If we do not see the differences among the qualities we are bringing to our meditation, they glom together, making it hard for liberating insight to arise. If we decide that one of the factors on the path to enlightenment is awakening itself, it is like reaching the middle of a road and then falling asleep right there. We will never get to the end of the road, and in the meantime we are bound to get run over by old age, sickness, and death (which are also manifestations of suffering). So we need to get our directions straight, and that requires, among other things, knowing what mindfulness is and is not.

 

Some even refer to mindfulness as “affectionate attention” or “compassionate attention,” but affection and compassion are not the same as mindfulness. They are separate things. If we bring them to our meditation, let us be clear about the fact that they are acting in addition to mindfulness, because skill in meditation requires seeing when qualities like compassion are helpful and when they are not. As the Buddha says, there are times when affection is a cause of suffering, so we must watch out.

 

Sometimes mindfulness is even defined as appreciating the moment for all the little pleasures it can offer, the taste of a raisin in the sun, the feel of a warm cup of tea in our hands, and so on. In the Buddha's vocabulary, this kind of appreciation is called contentment. Contentment is useful when we are experiencing physical hardship, but it is not always useful in the area of the mind. In fact, the Buddha once said that the secret to his own enlightenment was that he did not allow himself to rest contented with whatever attainment he had so far reached. He kept reaching for something higher when there was something higher yet to attain until there was no higher to reach. So contentment has a time and place: coming too soon, it may way derail our efforts. Mindfulness, not mismatched with contentment, can help keep that fact in mind.

 

Other teachers define mindfulness as “non-reactivity” or “radical acceptance.” If we look for these words in the Buddha's vocabulary, the closest we find are equanimity and patience. Equanimity means learning to set aside our preferences so that we can watch what is actually there. Patience is the ability to refrain from getting worked up over the things we dislike, to stick with difficult situations even when they do not resolve as quickly as we would like them to. But in establishing mindfulness we stay with, tolerate, and stand by unpleasant things not only to accept them but to watch and understand them. Once we have clearly seen that a particular state, like aversion or lust, is harmful to the mind/heart, we do not stay patient or equanimous about it. We have to make whatever effort is needed to rid  ourselves of it and to nourish skillful qualities in its place by bringing in other factors of the Noble Eightfold Path like right resolve and right effort. More

Will my cyborg meditate for me?

I. Rony, Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; MindfulCyborgs.com

Does she remember me? Is she meditating without me? (mindfulcyborgs.com)

  

IN THE FUTURE we will be rich then we'll have time to do the things we don't do now as wage slaves and sidelined automatons in the post-industrial age.

In the future, cyborgs -- sensitive, half-human, half-machine humanoids -- will do it for us.

Robotic lotus (dreamstime)

In the future we will say, "Siro, do a half hour of mindful breath-awareness to get into absorption, emerge, then give me a good 25 minutes of vipassana, you know 'insight contemplation,' and wrap it all up with five minutes of loving-kindness."

"Do you want a relaxing massage afterwards," Siro will ask, "or how about some soothing genmai tea for your nerves? Also, remember to call your mother. It's been awhile." "Siro, call her for me," we will add, "and make my tea extra strong.

Now 
In the present we aren't rich enough to meditate -- you know how much those zafus and zabutons cost, and who has the time?
 

In the present we're plugged in and on the move 24/7. What if someone texts us and thinks we're ignoring them when we don't text right back?
  

He remembered!

In the present we say, "Siri, am I free to sit for 15 minutes?" She answers, "Only 15 minutes, yes, you have lots of 15-minute openings on your calendar."

"No, Siri, I meant an hour -- then, well, with getting set up and cleaning up -- an-hour-and-15-minutes."

"No, you don't have any 75-minute openings, unless you..."

"OH, too bad! I was really looking forward to having a good sit like Siddhartha. Well, maybe in the future. Siri, sext my girlfriend."
 

What's that? - They say in the future this devi will meditate for us. (mindfulcyborgs.com)

(Mindful Cyborgs) Hosts Chris Dancy and Klint Finley with guest Kate Darling on "Extending Legal Rights to Social Robots") Episode 32: Emoji-ing Robots Seek to Fathom Their Origin

Buddhist Geeks in Los Angeles (InsightLA)

Wisdom Quarterly; Buddhist Geeks coming to Los Angeles (InsightLA.org)

Buddhist Geeks Conference 2014

Buddhist Geeks are excited to announce that their new workshop, "Mind Hacking," will be offered on August 2, 2014 from 10:00 am-1:00 pm at InsightLA in Santa Monica.
 
The workshop will be led by geeks, mind hackers, and Buddhist teachers Vincent Horn and Emily Horn.

 

Over the course of this 3-hour interactive workshop they plan to explore the basics of the hacking mindset as well as discussing four meditative skill-sets for hacking the mind, including:

• Concentration Meditation
• Investigation Meditation
• Meditative Inquiry
• Formless Awareness

During this time together all participants will be engaged in both silent meditation as well as a social form of mindfulness called "social noting." There will be plenty of time for fine-tuning and questions as all journey into a process of hacking the mind, awakening the heart, and rebooting the world.

The Buddhist Geeks Team

25 Mildred Ave., Asheville, NC 28806

The opening keynote at the Buddhist Geeks Conference 2014 will be offered by Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara. She will be joining Geeks in the exploration of convergence. She brings years of experience as both a teacher and practitioner of Zen Buddhism.

"She asks me, 'Why Zen?'
clear blue sky
sunlight dancing off the bare branches
sound of leaves
the little black-headed chickadee whistles
my life so clear, so direct
gratitude for this mind moment."
- from Roshi O'Hara's book: Most Intimate: A Zen Approach to Life's Challenges

Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara received priest ordination from Maezumi Roshi and Dharma Transmission and Inka from Bernie Tetsugen Glassman. She founded Manhattan's Village Zendo, New York. 

• Before Mindfulness: Joseph Goldstein in LA
• About InsightLA and Trudy Goodman
• Heal GRIEF with Induced After Death Communication Some psychotherapists can help the grieving experience a reconnection with someone who has passed away, resulting in the healing of deep sadness associated with grief. The method of inducing this experience, called IADC, was discovered in 1995 by Dr. Allan L. Botkin and works for PTSD.

Free your mind, the rest will follow

Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; David G Allen, Wise Up (BBC.com, 6-2-14)

“You can’t shut it up by trying to shut it off.” [Observe it without judgment.] (Thinkstock)

 

Is it Zen, or just the art of getting things done?

The new hot trend in Silicon Valley office culture is a Buddh-ish encouragement of workplace mindfulness. Guided meditation is the new free cafeteria meals.

 

But David G Allen, author of the international bestselling productivity bible, Getting Things Done, has been teaching people how to reach higher levels of cognitive thinking for almost two decades. Like Eastern [Buddhist] mindfulness, his solution is simple but challenging to fully implement.

If that doesn’t raise any follow-up questions you can stop reading and get to it. But the truth is most people don’t know how to clear their mind.

 

Combat expat homesickness

Buddhism encourages you to focus on the breath or a single thought to calm the mad monkey screeching in your skull. Such practice has been empirically shown to strengthen emotional resilience and increase happiness.

 

But then the nagging thoughts start to creep in. You know the ones. Not big thoughts, but the mundane, seemingly benign nagging mental memos: “Did I send that email?” “I need to tell my boss something before the meeting.” “What was that idea I had this morning in the shower?” “I know I’m forgetting something.”

 

“We have to shut the mundane up,” Allen said to me in a phone interview a few months after we met on a stage in Austin, Texas, in the US at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival to discuss his well-known productivity method. Allen’s route to freeing the mind of its detritus is a more practical one than prescribed by most religions.

 

Would you work here?

“The strange paradox is you actually have to use your mind to shut your mind up,” he said. But not by meditation or mantras. “You can’t shut it up by trying to shut it off. What you have to do is [ask yourself,] ‘Why is this on my mind?’” More

Psychology: "mindfulness" in science (audio)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka; Professor Ellen Langer (Harvard/ellenlanger.com), Krista Tippett (onbeing.org, 5-29-14)

What could Sid or the Buddha teach Ziggy Freud on the psychotherapeutic couch?

Note the Buddha heads behind Dr. Freud's chair. This is the original therapy couch (HW)

Langer says keep it simple; notice things rather than practicing mindlessness (Kris Krug)

 

Science of Mindlessness and Mindfulness

Counter Clockwise

Harvard University social psychologist Prof. Ellen Langer's unconventional studies have long suggested what brain science is now revealing: 

Our "experiences" are formed by the words and ideas we attach to them, that is, the labels we add to our cognitions. Naming something "play" rather than "work" can mean the difference between delight and drudgery. 

She is one of the early pioneers -- along with figures like Buddhist researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn and Herbert Benson -- drawing a connection between mindlessness and unhappiness and between mindfulness and health. 

Going deeper

"Mind" (citta) is a process, not a thing.

Buddhism is not mere material "science" (the particle physics the Buddha talked about in terms of kalapas) but goes beyond materiality to mental- and mystical-experience, detailing processes that science has yet to acknowledge, detail, or come anywhere near explaining.

 

The Buddha meant two distinct practices, mindfulness/clarity (sati-sampajañña) -- present time awareness that does not reach back into the past or project forward into the future -- and the fourfold setting up of mindfulness (satipatthana/vipassana) as a formal meditation practice that, on top of absorption, leads to insight and liberation of mind and heart.

 

Buddha's Brain (Dr. Rick Hanson)

Dr. Langer describes just the initial practice of "mindfulness," bare awareness, which is possible without formal meditation or yoga.

She recommends the basic practice of “the simple act of actively noticing things.”

 

This is bare awareness, which in a Buddhist context is practiced as "presence of mind" in the absence of the internal distractions that come from discursive elaboration (thinking about), mental proliferation (papañca), and interpretation/color-commenting based on our mental formations and fabrications (sankharas).

• What is mental "proliferation" (prapañca)?

Psychologists distinguish "top-down processing" (projecting, seeing what one thinks is there, going from the mind to the outside world) from "bottom-up processing" (going from what's actually there to the mind that perceives it and attempts to understand it free of prejudice).

What is "mind"?

This gray material goo is not "mind."

MIND in Buddhism can refer to consciousness (viññāṇa), knowing (ñāna, one of the "psychic powers" or iddhis, a synonym of wisdom/paññā, the best and hightest being aññā), discrete mental processes (cittas), the "mind door" near the heart, perception (saññā), the ~50 mental formations (sankharas) led by volition/will (which is the basis of karma), or more comprehensively as the Four Aggregates (Sanskrit skandhas, Pali khandhas) apart from the first, namely, form or materiality (rūpa). More

• What is the equanimity-knowledges of existence?
• How to contemplate for intuition and insight
• Mind/heart is susceptible to perversions, distortions (taints/defilements, and fetters/bonds) 
• "Consciousness" in Abhidharma's Buddhist psychology

• 5 Mindfulness Steps that Guarantee Increased Success and Vitality
• Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity
• Mindfulness in The New Yorker
• Paths to Mindfulness
• On Being interview with Krista Tippett

BuddhaFest (June 19-22, 2014)

Ashley Wells and CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; BuddhaFest.org via Tricycle.com

BuddhaFest 2014: A Festival for Heart and Mind. The fest is inspired by the principles of mindfulness and compassion and features four days of films, talks, Buddhist meditation, and music at the Spectrum Theatre at Artisphere in the Rosslyn area of Arlington, VA, just outside of Washington, D.C. (See complete BuddhaFest Schedule)

Opening Night Film: "Blood Brother," Sundance Grand Jury and Audience Award winner!

"Good Morning America" (GMA/ABC) panicky Weekend Anchor Dan Harris will speak on opening night about the spiritual odyssey that led him to Buddhist principles and mindfulness.

Sign up for updates, and events (buddhafest.org/sign-up-for-updates/)