BUDDHIST
MEDITATION
A Way to Supreme Blissful Peace and Happiness
Sayadaw U PANNA DIPA
Kaba Aye Sayadaw
(Agga Maha Saddhama Jotika Dhaja)
World Buddhist Meditation Institute, Yangon, Myanmar
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BUDDHIST
MEDITATION
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| People in this age, in some way or other, suffer from uneasiness and discomfort due to their confused busy life. Their mind is burning all the time in great distress and misery with tension, anxieties, worries, agitation, resentment, nervousness. etc. For this reason, people definitely need meditation and should pay more attention and regard meditation as the remedy of solace or comfort which alone will make them more relaxable and comfortable for their life. Consequently, they are sure to make better progress and more development in morality, in concentration and in wisdom or enlightenment. Meditation would certainly release all mental troubles, pain and diseases. Without meditation, human mind is usually defiled with evil tendencies or thoughts, such as greed. anger, ignorance, pride, delusion, envy, jealousy, etc. This very mind is moving and flittering, so to speak, boiling all the time with impure thoughts. So long as one is deluded by ignorance and ensnared with craving his mind in nature is not clean and so cannot see the things as they really are. These impure mental states basically arise from lack of mindful awareness in the contact of sense organs and external objects. Just as rain leaks through a poor root of the house, even so, this passion of evil tendencies come into an undeveloped and untrained mind. "In this respect, I would like to point out some facts from the Buddha's Teaching. There are three kinds of aspect namely: 1. study or search for knowledge: i.e. theoretical aspect. 2. meditation or mental development - actual practice for one's experience; i.e. practical aspect and 3. attainment of wisdom or enlightenment; i.e. realizable aspect. As we have to develop ourselves according to these stages of aspects, we should not be contented just by gaining the book knowledge or speculative knowledge but we must transcend theoretical or ordinary thinking knowledge till we attain actual experience of supreme knowledge or enlightenment (Vijja). Here, according to the Buddhist Meditation you do not need to look for noble truth or supreme peace outside, but just within yourself. The noble truth or supreme peace indeed exists within your own being. i.e. in your own body and mind. We Buddhists do not rely or depend on any other powerful being in Haven or anywhere else. We believe that good or bad, in other words, purity or impurity comes out of our own actions done bodily, verbally and mentally. For instance, if we have done something bad or evil, we are sure to have bad result or effect due to our own bad action and if we have done something good, we will have only good effect or fruit. This is the principle of "Evil begets evil and good begets good." This is a clear evidence of the natural law of one's own action, If we believe this natural law of the universe, it is called (Kamma Sakatanana) meaning you have got a proper understanding of action and reaction or cause and effect. You may find it difficult to attain the noble truth or supreme peace unless you know how to look for it within yourself. In fact, the noble truth or supreme peace is available in each and everybody. Man is potentially a perfect master of himself without depending or relying on any other powerful Being or Brahma, Buddha or God. Buddha is only a teacher who showed us the way to end all our sufferings. If you really search for it within yourself through the practice of meditation, you are sure to find the real supreme peace and enlightenment. Ordinary people usually observe things from the superficial or conventional point of view. Thus they cannot see a thing or a person as it truly is. And thus they usually imagine things of impermanent as permanent, painful as pleasurable, miserable as happy, insubstantial as substantial and unpleasant as pleasant. Depending on this wrong view of self or ego, the impurity or defilement does arise all the time in the mind. If you really wish to get rid of the wrong view of self or ego, you must definitely have the remedy to cure these impure evil mental ills or pains. The remedy is nothing but concentration and meditation through the breath of the nose. Buddhist meditation is not confined to any particular person or faith or sect. It is, of course, not apart from you, but just what you really have within yourself. Here I would like to talk about how you will have to practise meditation. The technique is simply universal, it is common to all, just a mindfulness of in-and-out breathing at your nostril. For your meditation practice, you should have a quiet place where you won't have any disturbance during your meditation. Then you have to sit on the floor either cross-legged form for man or courtesy form for woman or on a chair keeping your feet flat on the floor, your body straight and then relax every part of your body as comfortable as possible. After that put your right palm on the left and keep your mind as quiet and calm as possible and then close your eyes lightly. Please don't consider or think anything, but you have to focus attentively just on the nostril. While you are breathing in and breathing out, you must be mindfully aware of the touch and then aware of the awareness. As long as you are meditating on the touch and awareness, your mind gradually becomes more and more concentrated and won't go away here and there or now and then. And thus you have obtained a firm tranquillity of mind and you are thus fully conscious, alert and aware of what you see or of what you hear, of what you smell, of what you taste, of what you touch and of what you think. Eventually you come to know that there arise only two elements or phenomena, i.e. physical element and mental element. If you realize yourself what you really are and how you are composed of these two constituents of elements, you come to see the true perspective of yourself and have gained the knowledge of differentiation between matter and mind or physicality and mentality. This experience can be duly obtained by virtue of meditation practice on the touch and awareness of your breath. You can also apply this technique to other senses, such as seeing and awareness, hearing and awareness, and so on. When you thus know of yourself in the ultimate sense, you will know of others too in the same way. You now come to realize yourself and the whole world in its intrinsic nature in such a way that you will fully understand the real nature of man and the universe that all conditioned things are impermanent, all conditioned things are suffering and all things are impersonal, insubstantial, selfless or egoless. Thus you will be completely occupied with the insightful knowledge ( Vipassana, meaning particular penetration into the real nature of mind and body. In this stage, you will always be conscious and aware of seeing just what you see, of hearing just what you hear, of smelling just what you smell, of tasting just what you taste, of touching just what you touch and of thinking just what you think without any emotional feeling whether good or bad. Once your mind is fully aware of each and everything in its true perspective at the moment of seeing, hearing, etc., no impure or evil thought can enter your mind. This mental state indeed escape from two wrong extremes, namely, severe asceticism on the left-hand side and enjoyment of pleasure on the right-band side. Thus you are now on the right path of the Middle way (Majjhima Patipada) because you are perfect with the stages of morality, concentration and wisdom or enlightenment. As a consequence, your mind will be utterly liberated from all evil thoughts, words and deeds. Here your mind becomes free from all taints of evil thoughts of passion or defilement only because your are fully meditating on each and everything you have come across just at the very present. On this point, the Buddha taught the following stanza: "Don't be sorry for the past, Don't worry about the future, too. But if you keep your mind attentively meditating everything just at the present, your mind will be free from impurities And so you will be really happy." Finally your mind is quite matured, aware and awakened of each and every thing in the Noble Truth and you are virtuously assured to attain supreme Blissful Peace and Happiness, i.e. the Utter Liberation of Nibbana. May you all be well, happy and enlightened in Supreme Peace! |
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