What is the correct way and proper form of meditation? Is it really as simple as focusing on one's breathing and emptying the mind of all thoughts? What are the benefits of meditation and if you meditate is it because of religious reasons or something else? I've been looking into meditation as a means of helping me deal with stress and negative emotions I'm facing, to help me try to be more at peace with myself. I've also been researching Buddhism more as of recent.
There are multiple different kinds of meditation.
The kind where you do nothing but focus your attention on your breath is a good one to try since it obviously doesn't require a lot of elaborate explanation or special training to do. It's called anapanasati.
There are some weirder kinds like asubha bhavana where you focus your attention on the repulsiveness of living e.g. visualizing the putrification of your corpse after dying.
Fascinating, but ultimately do these differing variations of meditation all result in the same outcome? From a Buddhist perspective what is the reason for meditation? What does one get from it, if you will?
>ultimately do these differing variations of meditation all result in the same outcome?
No.
>From a Buddhist perspective what is the reason for meditation? What does one get from it, if you will?
The meditating on repulsiveness one is meant to help you stop being addicted to the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth by reminding yourself how abhorrent things really are.
The meditation on breath is meant to help you train your sense of attention so instead of getting caught up in unproductive short term oriented thoughts and impulses you form more of a mental foundation or shelter you can use to direct yourself towards a better path.
After following the eightfold path for a long time and developing your basic ability to work with attention, the idea is you would eventually take that further and apply it towards entering the eight jhanas for example.
But before that you're supposed to do a lot of things most people don't, like establish a moral / decent / non-stressful livelihood (ideally that means becoming a begging monk, but next best thing might be working as a farmer), developing and sticking to good moral conduct like not lying or speaking idly, having the right intentions, etc.
It's all meant to be done over a lifetime rather than anything you get something out of in any direct / immediate sense.
In contrast though, Zen Buddhism is sometimes oriented towards sudden realizations, where the goal is to be shocked into seeing reality the right way.
Like most any other religion, you can find all sorts of contradictory examples and conflicting denominations.
Ah I understand now, thanks for clarifying. I somewhat relate to what you said about having a moral and non-stressful livelihood. I think that such a lifestyle would be best but it seems so hard to attain in the modern world. Sometimes I wish I could just live off the land, but you and I both know it's not so easy to do that.
The idea of maintaining a good Buddhist meditation practice while working and living a lay life is very new. Meditation is something that up until the 20th century you were expected to become a monk if you wanted to make serious progress, with the exception of tantric practices. I'm not as familiar with other forms, but just don't be hard on yourself when you have trouble with your meditation.
What he's speaking of is Theravadha Buddhism, Vipassana etc.
What I spoke of is mostly Tibetan Buddhism, specifically Dzogchen(Rigpa).
The difference is gradual vs sudden realization although the goal is the same thing, in Zen as well. The unborn, the unconditioned.
My interest might be unproductive here, but Waking Up really isn't corporate. They do zero advertising and the app is available for free.
You can't follow instructions without prerequisite concentration or mindfulness and with pith instructions you won't know what they're pointing to. You can read or listen to Recognizing the Thinker by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Or you can read Joseph Goldstein's Mindfulness which covers the entire Satipatthana Sutta and realize that too would be challenging.
Mipham Dorje's A Lamp to Dispel Darkness sets up such an expectation,
>Without having to study, contemplate, or train to any great degree,
>Simply by maintaining recognition of the nature of mind according to the approach of pith instructions,
>Any ordinary village yogi can, without too much difficulty,
>Reach the level of a vidyādhara: such is the power of this profound path.
Something like the visuddhimagga is extremely elaborate and extensive, do you think a lay person should start with that and somehow manage to benefit? All the whilst browsing IQfy with the software of ordinary attention?
The Buddha had right speech in various situations, I can't remember the guy but someone asked him while he was busy to just tell it quickly and he dropped the 'in the seen there is just the seen, in the felt just the felt etc.' line to help the guy.
Surely some principle has to apply
>do you think a lay person should start with that and somehow manage to benefit?
Not that person but you shouldn't underestimate anyone's ability or effort. I didn't understand what I was reading for years until I went to a meditation retreat but I wouldn't have gone to a meditation retreat without reading some out there stuff and getting curious. The ability to say the perfect thing/teaching to a given person is considered a psychic ability in Buddhism and not everyone has the privilege of knowing or trusting someone that can point them to their ideal path.
With all due respect, I was wondering where you are at with Buddhism? Are you aiming for an escape from Samsara or just rebirth into a higher realm? Are attempts at enlightenment futile unless devotes their life to monkhood?
the abhidhamattha-sangaha is a short one
I always just lurk but I'm autistic enough to desire to help you,
You might listen to Sam Harris, Joseph Goldstein the Path and the Goal on YouTube. Sam Harris' Waking Up App really is the best resource out there, I'd caveat from personal experience that the high effort path. <20m a day. And a continued emphasis on effort is what makes and breaks progress.
You also have to pay attention to every moment of your life. There's nothing happening there's nothing that you're doing in formal practice that you can't in any other moment. There is always just consciousness and its contents.
The goal of meditation is to make certain aspects of experience clear, so that they can be clear to you in all other moments of life. What is made clear is the prior freedom of consciousness, the selfless and therefore free nature of it. This is what's called emptiness in Buddhism, it's what experience is like prior to conceptualization, prior to identification with thought. At least that's the main practice and the one that most powerfully relieves ordinary psychological suffering.
Anything that arises during meditation is not the point, the very fact that it has arisen proves it will pass away. What you're looking for is that which is ever present, simply this- open condition wherein everything is in its own place. ^^Which will make more sense as you get more familiar with .. all of that.
There is to me, two reasons to practice. One is love, right, desiring yourself to be happy, to be free from suffering and ultimately extending that wish to other/all conscious beings. And I really view the effort one puts into meditation to be synonymous with that.
The other is curiosity. Wanting to know what is really true about consciousness, directly. You are consciousness afterall, it is the context of every sorrow and joy you ever experience. The meditator, the meditation etc. all appear in this condition. What could be more interesting than that?
Now is this some sort of religious experience for you, or is it scientific, and neurological, for you?
Look up the original texts to the best of your ability and only turn to a teacher if you get stuck. There are meditation manuals from thousands of years ago, written in plain and easy to understand language with clear instructions. And in those thousands of years, someone with your exact questions has probably had them answered already. Instructions written by religious groups during the Sramana Movement are written in a surprisingly technical way that doesn't require much previous knowledge, because there were so many different religions at the time in India. There are people that have dedicated their lives to making this material easy to access online so just look it up and avoid getting sucked in to corporate mindfulness.
I hope I don't sound foolish but would I find these texts in the Tipitaka?
vimuttimagga
visuddhimagga
abhidhamatta sangaha
That's one, but I would encourage you to try others if you find it's not working for you after a year or so of honest effort. Take advantage of the fact that knowledge that was literally hidden in mountain fortresses for centuries is now free and instantly accessible. Pic related. It's literally just yoga, and it was considered a powerful secret worth keeping from 99.99% of Tibetans.
watch this series:
Thanks, watched the first video and will look at the others.
I hope to achieve a state of mindfulness. I want to be able to control the roaring tide of overwhelming thoughts, I want to be able to live without letting my past and my emotions dictate my future. In essence I want to find some form of peace.
>What is the correct way and proper form of meditation?
There are millions of different techniques of meditation, what do you expect to achieve?
>stress and negative emotions
Well, stress is easily dealt with some meditation, but negative emotions you have to work on them by paying attention to the mind and applying an antidote be it tantric or otherwise.
>Buddhism
This religion is rich in said antidotes.
Is medidating a real thing or is it just some fancy way of saying praying for brown religious morons?
yes, no
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavana