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Lecture notes Meditation
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Lecture notes of 10 pages for the course Meditation at OCR (Meditation Notes)
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MeditationWhat is Meditation?
Meditation is a means of transforming the mind. By learning to Meditate, you learn the
patterns and habits of your mind, and the practice offers a means to cultivate new, more
positive ways of being. With regular work and patience these nourishing, focused states of
mind can deepen into profoundly peaceful and energised states of mind. Meditation can
have a transformative effects.
“It is not entirely clear which Buddhist technical term the English
word ’Meditation’ corresponds to.”1
The Concepts of Mediation
- Bhavana (Bringing into being or cultivating): the idea that Buddhists try to cultivate
different virtues such as patience, kindness etc. it can also refer to the idea that one
cultivates the mind, by transforming it from one state to another.
- Samadhi (Concentration): Buddhists will often talk about concentrating or focussing the
mind on particular ideas or mental events. It can refer to a range of different activities or
exercises that are used to train the mind.
- Sati (Mindfulness): keeping something in the mind, it is being mindful as in being
attentive of something one has brought to mind, or being in the moment.
- Samantha (Calming): The systematic process of quieting the mind through focus on
concentration (samadhi). Through the practice, one can enter into a peaceful but
conscious state called Jhana. Jhana is a very hard word to translate. By practicing this,
the Buddhist is able to develop a mode of consciousness that is undistracted, tranquil,
and stable. The state of mind is also understood to be pleasant.
- Vipassana (Insight or analytic mediation): Valued in the Theravadin traditions, Vipassana
depends on skill in Samantha mediation. In order to access Vipassana, the Buddhist must
use Samantha to achieve the state of Jhana and when the mind is focussed, they are
able to see the workings of the mind (Thoughts and volitions). In these sessions, they
can observe everything to be impermanent and that is passes us by.
- Jhana: the heightened state of consciousness that is achieved through Samantha
meditation and forms the basis of Vipassana mediation.
What is Samantha Mediation?
1
Rupert Gethin
, Translated as ‘calm abiding’ and it is the development of our concentration and it brings
peace of mind. It allows our busy thoughts to settle until we are able to rest peacefully until
we are at ease with ourselves. It is sometimes dubbed ‘tranquillity medicine.’ It develops
concentration and focus, allowing our busy thoughts to settle and for us to become at ease
with ourselves. However, this mediation alone will not lead someone to enlightenment.
In Theravadin Buddhism, meditation is designed to transform people’s minds so that they
can detach from the confusion or distraction of this life and to gain peace and clarity in our
thinking. This purifies our minds, to help us to achieve enlightenment.
“Like some farmyard dog on a chain, which surges first this way
and then that, without ever making any real progress.” 2
Fowler’s analogy to the dog illustrates that sometimes we can be so keen to do something,
that we rush in and act, before we really stop to think and this can lead to us going around
in circles, achieving little. Meditation allows Buddhists to control their emotions and
thoughts so we can achieve wisdom, compassion, and peace.
Our mind is wild, and it requires taming, we must ease in, not rush in, we must slowly
improve, not fully improve over one day. Little by little, we gain sovereign over our
primitive, innate desires that help keep us running, but are outdated in a rational world.
The Buddhist, through Meditation can learn to control their emotions. Meditation frees the
mind from negative thoughts such as greed, craving, anger, ill will, laziness, anxiety, doubts,
and hesitation. Instead, we develop positive thoughts of concentration: awareness,
intelligence, will power, diligence, confidence, joy, and tranquillity.
To do the meditation, the practitioner must be sat in a comfortable position, sitting up or in
the lotus position, with the hands loosely resting on their laps. They may start chanting, as a
warm up exercise (The Three Refuges Chant) and to prepare them to focus,
The mediation starts with mindfulness, or the awareness of ourselves and the state we find
ourselves in. there are four types of mindfulness:
- Being mindful of the body
- Feelings
- Mind
- Mental States
These are the Five Skandhas (Sensations, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness.
A starter form of mediation is focussing on breathing (mind of body). This is just focussing
on the breath, and if the mind wanders, then bringing it back and focussing on the breath.
2
Merv Fowler
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