Category Archives: Mindfulness

The Meaning of Enlightenment

December 1, 2018 – 9:54 PM

Buddha achieved enlightenment in a very short time once he started to practice mindfulness meditation.

The words the Buddha uttered involuntarily at this time are recorded variously in the Buddhist scriptures. According to the Kegon sutra, at the moment of enlightenment he spontaneously cried out ¹:

“Wonder of wonders! Intrinsically all living beings are Buddhas, endowed with wisdom and virtue, but because men’s minds have become inverted through delusive thinking they fail to perceive this.”

The original word for enlightened is Bodhi, which means “awakened”. Zen Buddhism uses the word satori ²to describe Buddha’s enlightenment as

“Self-realization, opening the Mind’s eye, awakening to one’s True-nature and hence of the nature of all existence.”

This provides a scientific definition of enlightenment as follows.

Enlightenment is the realization of the laws underlying our spiritual nature.

The Spiritual Nature

Oxford dictionaries, however, define enlightenment as “The action or state of attaining or having attained spiritual knowledge or insight, in particular (in Buddhism) that awareness which frees a person from the cycle of rebirth.” This definition imparts a sense of mystery.

Enlightenment is not some vague spiritual awareness of one’s identity linked to some mysterious cycle of rebirth. Instead, enlightenment is the understanding of the laws that underlie our spiritual nature. These laws determine wisdom and virtue. They also explain how our minds become inverted and deluded.

A human being, whether clever or stupid, male or female, ugly or beautiful, is capable of being awakened to the laws of spiritual nature. There is no perfection other than this state of being awakened. This is the enlightenment that Buddha sought and attained.

Therefore, you meditate until you directly perceive the laws underlying your spiritual nature.

When you practice meditation its immediate effect is to reduce the turbulence in your mind so you can become more aware. The following chapters guide you step by step on the path to enlightenment through mindfulness meditation.

¹ Three Pillars of Zen, by Philip Kapleau, See Yasutani-Roshi’s Introductory Lecture 1.

²Ibid., Chapter X, Definition of satori

By vinaire | Also posted in Meditation | Comments (0)

Introduction to Meditation (Old)

November 12, 2018 – 8:19 AM

Reference: A Scientific Approach to Meditation

Twenty-six hundred years ago Buddha launched a grass-root movement of spiritual awakening, which was so successful that it civilized three-quarters of the world. The essence underlying his approach to meditation is the following two steps.

The first step is to stop interfering with the mind so that all the turmoil ultimately settles down into a quiet state. It is like stop stirring the water so that all the mud finally settles down at the bottom. This happens by itself. All you have to do is stop interfering.

The next step is to start cleaning up the confusions in a systematic manner so there is no turmoil. It is like carefully removing the settled mud, so that it does not get stirred up again. It is a very precise operation.

Misconceptions

Wikipedia¹ describes meditation as “a practice where an individual uses a technique, such as focusing their mind on a particular object, thought or activity, to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state.” The problem here is that any such technique would definitely interfere with the mind and not let it settle down on its own.

Furthermore, when you look up meditation in a dictionary, it provides synonyms, such as, concentration, contemplation and reflection. The problem is these actions cannot be accomplished until the mind has settled down.

On the website Qura.com² the following popular explanation is provided:

Mindfulness meditation is a period of time allocated purely to being mindful and still. You practice what you want to do daily in every moment – having focused attention, being aware of thoughts and feelings tugging at you, and train yourself to bring yourself back to your meditation over and over again.

This explanation is almost correct except for this part at the end: “and train yourself to bring yourself back to your meditation over and over again.” Do you force your attention away from these thoughts that are tugging at you, back to your “meditation”? How would you resolve those thoughts then?

It appears that the sequence of steps in meditation is muddled up in most people’s understanding.

Mindfulness

The essence of the first step in meditation is mindfulness. Buddha describes mindfulness in Bahiya³ sutra as follows:

In what is seen there must be just the seen; in what is heard there must be just the heard; in what is sensed (as smell, taste or touch) there must be just what is sensed; in what is thought there must be just the thought.

We may express this description scientifically as follows.

Mindfulness is being there and seeing things as they are.

Practice of mindfulness means that you are simply looking without interfering with the mind. As you sit down in meditation various reactions occur, such as, tiredness, drowsiness, boredom, etc. What do you do when the body starts to fall asleep? Do you interfere?

The answer is, “No, you do not interfere.” If the body falls asleep, it would eventually wake up. You simply experience the whole cycle of falling asleep and waking up. Maybe the reaction of sleepiness simply needs to be run out. Once it is out of system, you will be more alert than before. It is just the mud settling down. You may practice mindfulness even between the meditation sessions to help it all settle down.

“Removing the mud” in the second step means resolving the confusions, doubts and perplexities. These anomalies come up by themselves after the turmoil has settled down. You continue with your practice of mindfulness as before. Only now you need a deeper understanding of non-interference. It means that you do not avoid, resist, deny or suppress the confused thoughts and emotions that are coming up. You look at them with full alertness and experience them fully.

The mind then starts to relax and unwind. Past experiences that have long been suppressed start to release. You may be surprised at the memories that come up. It is this past suppression that was not letting the mental turmoil resolve. As the suppression comes off, the thoughts crowding the mind start to resolve. A lot of emotion may also accompany this resolution, but it will all clear up once and for all.

Summary

The path to enlightenment starts with establishing the discipline of mindfulness. We may define meditation as follows:

Meditation is the dedicated application of mindfulness to resolve the unsettling thoughts, feelings and sensations crowding one’s mind.

The whole idea in meditation is to BE there and not do anything else but BE there. This means that you do not focus your attention on some object, thought, or activity. You do not concentrate, contemplate or reflect. You are required only to be there and perceive. Let the mind do what it may. This is a subtle point, but understanding it makes all the difference in the world.

As you meditate, you start to see through the mind’s obfuscation. You begin to recognize the things that have been causing the confusion. You start to get realizations. This is how the fundamental discoveries by scientists and philosophers are made.

It is these realizations that ultimately lead you to enlightenment.

The next chapter explains what enlightenment is.

¹See the Wikipedia article on Meditation.

²See the question “What is mindfulness meditation? On Quora.com.

³Udāna 1.10; Bāhiyasuttaṃ 10

By vinaire | Also posted in Meditation | Comments (0)

Preface—Approach to Meditation

November 11, 2018 – 10:01 PM

Reference: A Scientific Approach to Meditation

I recently accompanied my wife to a Yoga center in Ocala, Florida, where I chanced upon a book, The Surrender Experiment, by Michael A. Singer. This book is about the author’s journey into life’s perfection through the practice of meditation. He desperately wanted to get rid of the voice that chatted incessantly inside his head.

I was fascinated by how this author was able to establish himself into deep meditation quickly and comfortably. He had no teacher. He had only the book, Three Pillars of Zen, by Philip Kapleau to guide him. This book answered his real questions, like “Who am I that watches that voice talk?” It guided him simply to sit down in a quiet spot, watch his breath go in and out, and mentally repeat the sound Mu with his focus centered below his belly button. This simple formula worked like a charm.

This surprised me because not many people get such results so quickly in meditation. Even the book, Three Pillars of Zen, describes the practice of meditation in monasteries to be arduous, and monks taking years to reach enlightenment. An instance of a person making rapid progress through meditation is unheard of. I was curious to know about the example that Buddha set.

Buddha left home in search of self-realization when he was twenty-nine. By the time he attained enlightenment he was thirty-five. It may seem that it took him six years to attain enlightenment, but Buddha spent most of those years practicing asceticism, which almost killed him. Once Buddha realized the middle way of mindfulness (seeing things as they are), he abandoned asceticism. It was then a matter of months before he attained enlightenment.

This book is written on the premise that when meditation is practiced correctly, it takes months, and not years, to reach enlightenment.

This book therefore focuses first on defining the terms meditation and enlightenment so they are understood correctly. Second, it provides a number of simple exercises that guide one smoothly through the gradients of meditation.

Many of us have dreamed of a grass-root movement of spiritual awakening spreading throughout the world like wild fire. May this book provide the spark, which makes this dream become a reality.