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Meditation: Road ahead or side track?
Interesting to see what you have to say about this one...
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but could it be a distraction to the world and awareness (as my friend told me).
I have to say, this is brilliant.
so when in the world, it sees the world
when not in the world, it leads to sitting still
when the Zen master said one cannot make a mirror by polishing a stone, he was just referring to sitting with the wrong intention, with the wrong state of mind
regards
Spiny
If we wish to believe the ancient stories, it seems clear people became enlightened without meditating, or without having the time to learn to meditate.
I find the idea that one can only reach enlightenment by meditation to be unwholesome and destructive; and with no basis in The Dharma. Equally, I continue to try to practice it:/ oh the ironies!:)
Spiny
use Buddhism as a way to gain more philosophical knowledge, rather than experiential knowledge.
Meditation can be boring and boring. So many people can call themselves Buddhists and not really "be" buddhists.
Whatever it means to be "Buddhist".
Just some thoughts.
Also the more we meditate, the more meditation (process, method) will destroy itself.
By that I mean we will integrate meditation into our daily lives. Thus no distinction between meditating and living life.
People do cling to meditation as a sport or something to get "awesome" at. It can be a hinderance. People need to learn correct, practical meditation. We also don't want to cultivate being a "good" "meditator". It helps to get rid of this attitude and outlook. Get rid of the meditator and just meditate. Shut up and sit down.
By knowing and seeing the four noble truths, and understanding and practising the noble eightfold path:)
If you mean the singular practice of vipissana is what is meant by 6,7 and 8 then I would not, at least not so far.
There's no jhana for one with no discernment, no discernment for one with no jhana. But one with both jhana & discernment: he's on the verge of Unbinding.
— Dhammapada 372
I have no doubt dharma practice requires, essentially, the conquering of one's mind. I do have doubts that the Buddha would have pushed the importance of meditation to the extent that some seem to today. I admire and respect the monk who can sit in single pointedness but I would not say his path was any more dharmic than the SGI Chanter or the Shinyoen Prayer or the....
I don't know what you mean by that. I think the PC is the greatest collection of wisdom I can imagine but to me it is not The Dharma:)
I have six copies of the Dharmapada in paperback with me here and three in etext and it amazes me how different the translations are. This was one of the big influences that made me see how nothing can be "clearly stated" about dharma... only clearly seen.
So when you quote as clearly stating: And I pick up a copy and read...
"There is no contemplation to him who is not wise, there is no wisdom to him who does not contemplate..." (I see I had already highlighted the word contemplation in the book)
I hope you can see why I am dubious about the "pedestal place" of meditation in so much of Buddhism today.
well wishes:)
Of which one tenet is Right concentration ie meditation
Right view - seeing things clearly as they are. Meditation.
Right mindfulness.
Ergo - meditation.
Well wishes,
Abu
"And what is right concentration? There is the case where a monk — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful (mental) qualities — enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. With the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, he enters & remains in the second jhana: rapture & pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought & evaluation — internal assurance. With the fading of rapture, he remains equanimous, mindful, & alert, and senses pleasure with the body. He enters & remains in the third jhana, of which the Noble Ones declare, 'Equanimous & mindful, he has a pleasant abiding.' With the abandoning of pleasure & pain — as with the earlier disappearance of elation & distress — he enters & remains in the fourth jhana: purity of equanimity & mindfulness, neither pleasure nor pain. This is called right concentration."
— SN 45.8
How can anything like this take place if there is no meditation practice? I personally think that if one is practicing the 8 Fold path and not doing any meditation practice. Then one is actually practicing the 7 fold path, or maybe even the 6 fold path. Of course it is not correct to put one aspect way and far above the others as they are all equally important. But is also important to not dismiss any of them IMO. If course you are free to disagree and you probably will because you don't believe anything it seems.
Which is the most steady path, the path built where each step is doubted before taken or... if you get my drift;) Contemplating, meditating, philosophising, moralising, psycologising, spiritualist, training, emptying, seeking and eventually brining it all togther into a singular light that was always there, The Dharma.
Do you think differently?
>>>>He wasn't twiddling his thumbs I don't think
I would imagine, based on the existence of mudras, that he simply must have done at least some thumb twiddling?
OK, let me be frank, frank like I haven't been on this forum for ages!(There is a joke there somewhere) You don't strike me as someone who wants to fight or takes offence or is precious:)
IMO the suttras cannot be used to justify anything about Dharma. Not a jot. Not even the Dharmapada that is as close to sacred as I can fathom. It just doesn't mean anything to me if you quote a text and then expect quote to support something about the Dharma. At best it can be a guide. I still read the suttras but the path remains, no matter which way or how many signs there are and where they point.
I think were the buddha alive today he would say we should focus on our individual paths RIGHT NOW and not the tens of thousands of ancient maps that all started when one man discovered a place and a path to that place. Does that make sense? (I often waffle)
>>>I personally think that if one is practicing the 8 Fold path and not doing any meditation practice. Then one is actually practicing the 7 fold path, or maybe even the 6 fold path.
I agree. Gosh, even if you don't want to be a buddhist there is little doubt, even medically and scientifically, that meditation is so very beneficial.
>>>Of course it is not correct to put one aspect way and far above the others as they are all equally important.
Bingo!
>>>But is also important to not dismiss any of them IMO.
I agree. (As an asside, I think right understanding gets overlooked hugely because of the dominance of meditation)
>>>If course you are free to disagree and you probably will because you don't believe anything it seems.
Owch! Hand me the handkerchief matron!:p
I think we agree on most, not that it really matters (apart from to our naughty egos).
As for not believing anything, your making a huge mistake here, that I think is common - a misunderstanding of doubt and thus a merging of doubt with nihilism. Its actually the very opposite.
Only by doubt can you see clearly. You may never have much in the way of certainty, but nobody does, but at least with doubt you can have clarity.
When you have doubt, when you doubt everything and start in darkness, for me, that is where the path starts. From the darkness, three simple truths always shine, they cannot be doubted, if you look, they are there, always everywhere.
I doubt that the Buddha's last words were "Doubt everything, be your own light" but I have found no clearer instruction of how one should walk the path.
Thanks for the chat, please forgive any typos!
namaste
If you take offense to that idea, perhaps it's a useful reaction.
Ok, now I get it! We are both using different definitions the words "The Dharma". What you refer to as "the Dharma" I refer to as "The Truth". What the words "The Dharma" means to me is what the Buddha said to people after he got enlightenment. His actual words and teaching after he got up from the tree and started traveling around teaching people. So for me "the dharma" = the scriptures, the 4NT, the 8FP, etc.
>>>>>
What was he doing sitting still under a tree for 6 years?
Contemplating, meditating, philosophising, moralising, psycologising, spiritualist, training, emptying, seeking and eventually brining it all togther into a singular light that was always there, The Dharma.
Do you think differently?
I'm sure he did all those things no doubt. But what I was referring to actually were the times when he was literally siting under the tree, with his back erect, his legs crossed, his hands in his lap and his head tilted slightly forward.
What I think he was doing during those times was jhana/samatha/vipassana etc.
>Only by doubt can you see clearly. You may never have much in the way of certainty, but nobody does, but at least with doubt you can have clarity.
I do think there is a point when absolute certainty arises and doubt falls away. But of course, that is not at the beginning of the path. That is many miles down the road.
__________________________________
Can someone point me to a reference, in history or mythology, that says Gautama sat under the Bo tree for years? I have heard that he sat there for eight days and read that he sat there for as many as 49 days, but I do not recall any tale that puts him there for years.
Still seeking a way to understand the meaning of life, Siddhartha set out for Buddhagaya. Near a grove, he sat down under a huge Bodhi tree. Silently he vowed, "Even if my flesh and blood were to dry up, leaving only skin and bones, I will not leave this place until I find a way to end all sorrow." He sat there for forty nine days. He was determined to discover the source of all pain and suffering in the world. Mara, the evil one, tried to scare him into giving up his quest. For instance, he hoped to lure Siddhartha into having selfish thoughts by sending visions of his very beautiful daughters. But the Buddha's goodness protected him from such attacks.
During this period, Siddhartha was able to see things as they truly were. Now he had finally found the answer to suffering: "The cause of suffering is greed, selfishness and stupidity. If people get rid of these negative emotions, they will be happy."
During a full-moon night in May, Siddhartha went into deep meditation. As the morning star appeared in the eastern sky, he became an enlightened one, a Buddha. He was thirty five years old.
When the Buddha stood up at last, he gazed at the tree in gratitude, to thank it for having given him shelter. From then on, the tree was known as the Bodhi tree, the tree of Enlightenment.
One day, when his physical strength had returned, he approached a lovely spot in Uruvela by the bank of the Nerañjara River. Here he prepared a seat of straw beneath an asvattha tree (later called the Bodhi Tree) and sat down cross-legged, making a firm resolution that he would never rise up from that seat until he had won his goal. As night descended he entered into deeper and deeper stages of meditation until his mind was perfectly calm and composed. Then, the records tell us, in the first watch of the night he directed his concentrated mind to the recollection of his previous lives. Gradually there unfolded before his inner vision his experiences in many past births, even during many cosmic aeons; in the middle watch of the night he developed the "divine eye" by which he could see beings passing away and taking rebirth in accordance with their karma, their deeds; and in the last watch of the night he penetrated the deepest truths of existence, the most basic laws of reality, and thereby removed from his mind the subtlest veils of ignorance. When dawn broke, the figure sitting beneath the tree was no longer a Bodhisatta, a seeker of enlightenment, but a Buddha, a Perfectly Enlightened One, one who had attained the Deathless in this very life itself.
For several weeks the newly awakened Buddha remained in the vicinity of the Bodhi Tree contemplating from different angles the Dhamma, the truth he had discovered. Then he came to a new crossroad in his spiritual career: Was he to teach, to try to share his realization with others, or should he instead remain quietly in the forest, enjoying the bliss of liberation alone.
So a shorter period of time. But Fully Awakened nevertheless.
Thankyou very much, Gautama Buddha.
_/|\_
Spiny
Being able to be in the now with little preoccupation with thought or fear, or desire, is the goal of meditation.
dont focus on trying to do something. Instead let everything in your reality flow over and through you. become unattached to outcome and attached only to pure relaxed uninfluenced consciousness and you will be in an ever present state of meditation....
Spiny
>>>Developing insight into them requires practice, ie meditation and mindfulness. And meditation is the foundation of mindfulness.
I disagree, imo, one can understand the four noble truths, utterly, without anything other than contemplation.
To my mind, the meditation come in at the point of mind conquering, not Right Understanding.
It's an interesting and subtle "dispute" between the two perspectives methinks:)
Question: When you teach about the value of contemplation, are you speaking of sitting and thinking over particular themes - the thirty-two parts of the body, for instance?
Answer: That is not necessary when the mind is truly still. When tranquility is properly established the right object of investigation becomes obvious. When contemplation is 'True', there is no discrimination into 'right' and 'wrong'. 'good' and 'bad'; there is nothing even like that. You don't sit there thinking, 'Oh, this is like that and that is like this' etc. That is a coarse form of contemplation. Meditative contemplation is not merely a matter of thinking -- rather it's what we call 'contemplation in silence'. Whilst going about our daily routine we mindfully consider the real nature of existence through comparisons. This is a coarse kind of investigation but it leads to the real thing.
When you talk about contemplating the body and mind, though, do we actually use thinking? Can thinking produce true insight? Is this vipassana?
In the beginning we need to work using thinking, even though later on we go beyond it. When we are doing true contemplation all dualistic thinking has ceased; although we need to consider dualistically to get started. Eventually all thinking and pondering comes to an end.
~ Ajahn Chah