The Breath of Love
Author
Most Venerable Bhante Vimalaramsi Mahàthera
Prelude to Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation (TWIM)
Before you start practicing the meditation, it is very important
to build a strong foundation of morality (sãla). If you don’t even
practice the five precepts, you will lose interest and finally stop
meditating, because you think that the technique is incorrect.
Actually the Buddha’s technique works very well. This is just a
case of not having the complete practice and not doing it in the
correct way. Keeping the precepts is essential to the development
and purity of mind. If you break any of these precepts, you will
experience a lot of restlessness, remorse, and anxiety due to your
guilty feelings. This causes mind to be tight and clouds your
thoughts.
These precepts are absolutely necessary for any spiritual
attainments. They support your general mindfulness and
awareness to help you to have a peaceful mind that is clear from
any remorse due to wrong doing. A peaceful calm mind is a
mind that is tension-free and clear.
Thus, it is a very good idea to take these precepts every day,
not as some form of rite or ritual, but as a reminder for your
practice. Taking the precepts every day helps to keep your mind,
speech, and actions uplifted. There are people who recite these
precepts in the Pàli language. However, it can turn into an empty
exercise if you don’t completely understand Pàli. For the earnest
meditator it is best to recite these precepts daily in a language
that you understand so that the meanings are clear without a
doubt.
These precepts are:
1.] I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from killing or
harming living beings on purpose.
This precept includes non-killing of beings like ants, mosquitoes,
wasps or cockroaches, etc.
2.] I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from taking what
is not given.
This covers any forms of stealing which even includes taking a
pencil from work without permission or using equipment like
copy machines for personal use.
3.] I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from wrong sexual
activity.
Basically, it means not having any sexual activity with another
person’s partner, or having sexual activity with someone that is
still under the care of a family member. It also means that one
must follow the sexual laws of the land.
Any sexual activity that causes undue pain to another being will
cause one to have remorse and guilty feelings to arise.
4.] I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from telling lies,
using harsh speech, slandering others, and speaking gossip or
nonsense talk.
This means abstinence from any type of speech which is not
true or helpful to others. It also includes abstinence from telling
white lies.
5.] I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from taking drugs
and alcohol which dulls mind.
Many people think that drinking one glass of beer or one social
glass of wine or smoking a joint of marijuana would not affect
their mind. But this is not true! If you are seriously practicing
meditation, you become very sensitive and will notice the effects
of even taking something as harmless as aspirin. It can dull your
mind for a whole day. How much more will this happen with
alcohol and other drugs?
However, when you are sick and the doctor says that you must
take a certain drug as medicine, then please take the medicine.
This precept refers to taking drugs or alcohol in order to relax
and escape from the stress of the day.
As soon as you realize that you have broken a precept, you
should first forgive yourself and acknowledge that you are not
perfect. This helps you to free your mind a little. You then retake
the precepts as soon as possible and make a determination not
to break the precepts again.
Taking the precepts again will help to re-purify mind. Over
a period of time, you will become more aware and naturally
abstain from breaking them because you realize these harmful
effects.
Please practice only one meditation technique at a time because
mind will become confused if you try to mix and match various
meditations. Mixing and matching only stops your progress.
How do you find a good teacher? The best way is to pick only one
teacher who truly understands the meditation and can explain
things clearly and precisely.
The way to select a good teacher is by seeing if the teacher is
teaching you about how to know and recognize the links of
Dependent Origination and the Four Noble Truths. Then,
stay with that teacher for a period of time and see for yourself
whether your mind becomes more happy and peaceful; not just
while meditating, but in daily life as well. This is ultimately the
best way to choose.
Does your awareness of mind states become clearer and easier to
recognize, can you let go of them, relax and smile during your
daily activities as well as during the sitting practice? If not, check
with the teacher and the suttas to see if what is being taught
agrees with them. As your practice deepens and the meditation
becomes better, the suttas get easier to understand. This always
happens when the teacher is using the suttas as their guide.
The Hindrances
Lastly, it is very important for the meditator to recognize
whenever the five hindrances” arise. They are:
1.Lust or greed,
2.Hatred or aversion,
3.Sloth and torpor or sleepiness and dullness,
4.Restlessness or remorse, anxiety or scatteredness, and
5.Doubt.
A hindrance is an obstacle or a distraction because it completely
blocks your progress during sitting meditation or it can make
things difficult during your daily activities. It keeps you from
seeing things clearly in the present moment. It also causes you
to take an impersonal process, personally.
Whenever these hindrances arise, you identify with them very
strongly and you take them personally i.e., “I am sleepy, I am
restless, I like and I want, I dislike and I hate, I have doubt”.
These hindrances completely cloud your mind and stop you
from seeing clearly whatever happens in the present moment
due to the ego involvement of “I am that”.
When you are practicing “fixed absorption concentration’ you
let go of any distraction and then redirect your mind’s attention
back to the meditation object. On the other hand, while you are
practicing “Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation” (TWIM), you
let go of the distraction, and this part is exactly the same as the
‘fixed absorption concentration’, but then, you relax the tightness
in the head and feel mind become open, expanded and calm.
Now, you smile. Only then do you redirect mind’s attention back
to the object of meditation.
Over the past fifteen years, the author has developed a training
aid to assist the student to practice this technique which is in
line with the suttas and which improves mindfulness very much.
This is called “The 6R’s”. The small difference of relaxing mind
and feeling it open and calm, changes the whole meditation from
a ‘fixed absorption concentration’ to a more flowing, tranquil
kind of awareness, that doesn’t go as deep as the absorption
types of meditation. As a result, the meditator becomes more in
tune with the teachings in the suttas.
In Buddhist meditation, have the questions ever come up, “What
is mindfulness (Sati), really?”… “Exactly how do you practice
being mindful?”… “Can mindfulness really lighten up my
perspective and help bring joy, happiness and balance into every
aspect of my life?”
If mindfulness is observing how mind’s attention moves when
a distraction arises and pulls you away from whatever you are
doing, then by doing this practice, life becomes easier and more
stress free, doesn’t it seem like a useful tool to develop?
To clearly understand this connection, you first have to start with
a precise definition of Meditation (Bhàvanà) and Mindfulness
(Sati). Seeing this will help you gain a new harmonious perspective
(Samma Ditthi) of exactly how mind works and teaches the
meditator ‘HOW’ to change old painful habits that cause great
suffering into a new way of having a contented, balanced mind.
This is the point of all of the Buddha’s teachings, isn’t it?
Meditation (Bhàvanà) is “observing how mind’s attention
moves moment-to-moment in order to see precisely ‘HOW’ the
impersonal (anattà) process of Dependent Origination (Pañicca-
Samuppàda) occurs and to completely understand the Four Noble
Truths.”
Seeing and understanding ‘HOW’ mind’s attention moves from
one thing to another and understanding that everything is
an impersonal process is what the main thrust is in Buddhist
Meditation! This is why Dependent Origination is so important
to see and understand. It helps us to develop an impersonal
perspective with all arising phenomena and leads you to see for
yourself the true nature of all existence.
Why is this important? Because concerning awakening, it has
been said by the Blessed One: in Majjhima Nikàya Sutta 28, section
28, “One who sees Dependent Origination sees the Dhamma;
one who sees the Dhamma sees Dependent Origination.”
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness (Sati) is “remembering to observe HOW mind’s
attention moves moment-to-moment and remembering what to
do with any arising phenomena!” Successful meditation needs a
highly developed skill of Mindfulness. The 6R’s training taught
at Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center is a reclaimed ancient
guidance system which develops this skill.
The first R is to RECOGNIZE but before we do it, the meditator
must remember to use their observation power [mindfulness]
for the meditation cycle to start running. Mindfulness is the fuel.
It’s just like gas for an engine. Without Mindfulness, everything
stops!
Being persistent with this practice will relieve suffering of all kinds.
To begin this cycle “smoothly” you must start the engine and
have lots of gas (mindfulness) in the tank!
Meditation (Bhàvanà) helps you to let go of such difficult
delusional states in life as fear, anger, tension, stress, anxiety,
depression, sadness, sorrow, fatigue, condemnation, feelings of
helplessness or whatever the “catch (attachment) of the day”
happens to be. (Delusional means here, taking things that arise
personally and identifying with them to be “I”, “Me”, “Mine”
or “atta” in Pàli). These states result in suffering that we cause
ourselves. This suffering comes from a lack of understanding in
how things actually occur.
0 comments:
Post a Comment