Meditation, heart of Buddhism

Meditation, heart of Buddhism

Ajahn Brahm

It’s easy saying “I’m enlightened”, but then something happens like that and you run a mile. Another monk in Hampstead at the time was just going for a walk in the afternoon when he passed a pub. He didn’t realise at the time that there was a big soccer match between England and Scotland on that day. It had already finished and the Scots supporters where in the pub getting drunk. Around this period, there was a popular TV series about a Kung Fu monk who, when he was small, was called “grasshopper.” These sozzled Scots soccer fans looked through the window of the pub and said “Och it’s wee grasshopper,” and this monk took fright.

These where big Scotsmen and they were very drunk. So he started running away, and they chased him all the way back to the Temple. “Wee grasshopper” was running for his life. He lost it. But the sort of practical letting go that Ajahn Chah did in Hampstead is something which gives you a sense that you are on the road to enlightenment.

Gradual path

Meditation-The best way to attain inner peace

The Heart of Buddhism is a gradual path, one step after another step, and you do get results. Some people say you shouldn’t meditate to get results. That’s a lot of hogwash! Meditate to get results! Meditate to be happy. Meditate to get peace. Meditate to get enlightened, little by little. But if you’re going for results, be patient. One of the problems with Westerners is that when they make goals, they are not patient enough.

That’s why they get disillusioned, depressed and frustrated. They don’t give their practice enough time to mature naturally into enlightenment. It takes time, maybe a few life times even, so don’t be in a rush. As you walk each step, there is always something you get out of it. Let go a little and you get freedom and peace. Let go a lot and you feel bliss. This is how I teach meditation both at my monastery and here. I encourage meditators to aim for these stages of letting go, these bliss states called Jhana.

Jhanas

Everyone wants to be happy, and the Jhanas are how you can achieve happiness, I mean real happiness, deep happiness. The only trouble is these states don’t last very long, only a few hours, but still they are very attractive. They arise through letting go, real letting go. In particular they arise through letting go of will, choice, control. It’s a fascinating thing to experience a deep meditation and understand how it comes about.

Through such an experience you realise that the more you control, the more you crave because of attachments, the less peaceful you get. But the more you let go, the more you abandon, the more you get out of the way, the happier you feel. Now this is a teaching of something very profound, much deeper than you can read in a book or hear in a talk and certainly much more useful than discussing these things over a coffee table. You’re actually experiencing something. This is getting towards the heart of religion, that which people call mysticism. You’re actually experiencing it for your self. In particular you are letting go of this “controller,” this “doer.”

Prime problem

Now that is the prime problem for human beings. We can’t stop messing things up. Very often we should just leave things alone but we can’t, we don’t. Instead we make a mess. Why can’t you just relax and enjoy yourself instead of always doing something?

It’s hard to stop in meditation, but the more you stop the more rewards you get, the more peace you get. When you let go in meditation, let go the will, let go of the control, when you stop talking to yourself, you get inner silence.

How many of you are fed up yet with this racket that goes on inside your head all the time? How many of you sometimes can’t get to sleep at night when there’s no noise from the neighbours but there is something even louder between your ears. Yak, Yak, Yak, Worry, Worry, Worry, Think, Think, Think! This is the problem with human beings, when it’s time to think they can’t think clearly and when it’s time to stop thinking they can’t be at peace. When we learn how to meditate we get this sense of being more balanced, and we know how to let go. We now how to let go to the point where all thoughts disappear. These thoughts are just commentaries, they’re just descriptions. The difference between thought and reality is the difference between, say, reading a book about New York and going to New York.

Which is more real? When you’re there, you smell the air, you feel the atmosphere, you sense the character, all of which are things you can’t write in a book. The truth is always silent. The lie is always with words.

When the Body Disappears

Remember “con men,” “con women” as well. These con men can sell you anything! There’s one living in your mind right now, and you believe every word he says! His name is Thinking. When you let go of that inner talk and get silent, you get happy. Then when you let go of the movement of the mind and stay with the breath, you experience even more delight.

Then when you let go of the body ,all these five senses disappear and you’re really blissing out. This is original Buddhism. Sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch completely vanish. This is like being in a sensory deprivation chamber but much better. But it’s not just silence, you just don’t hear anything. It’s not just blackness, you just don’t see anything. It’s not just a feeling of comfort in the body, there is no body at all.

Peaceful

When the body disappears that really starts to feel great. You know of all those people who have out of the body experiences? When the body dies, every person has that experience, they float out of the body. And one of the things they always say is it’s so peaceful, so beautiful, so blissful. It’s the same in meditation when the body disappears, it’s so peaceful, so beautiful, so blissful when you are free from this body. What’s left? Here there’s no sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. This is what the Buddha called the mind in deep meditation. When the body disappears what is left is the mind.

I gave a simile to a monk the other night. Imagine an Emperor who is wearing a long pair of trousers and a big tunic. He’s got shoes on his feet, a scarf around the bottom half of his head and a hat on the top half of his head. You can’t see him at all because he’s completely covered in five garments. It’s the same with the mind. It’s completely covered with sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. So people don’t know it.

They just know the garments. When they see the Emperor, they just see the robes and the garments. They don’t know who lives inside them. And so it is no wonder they’re confused about what is life, what is mind, who is this inside of here, were did I come from? Why? What am I supposed to be doing with this life? When the five senses disappear, it’s like unclothing the Emperor and seeing what is actually in here, what’s actually running the show, who’s listening to these words, who’s seeing, who’s feeling life, who this is. When the five senses disappear, you’re coming close to the answer to those questions.

What you’re seeing in such deep meditation is that which we call “mind,” (in Pali it’s called Citta). The Buddha used this beautiful simile. When there is a full moon on a cloudy night, even though it’s a full moon, you can hardly see it. Sometimes when the clouds are thin, you can see this hazy shape shining though.

You know there is something there. This is like the meditation just before you’ve entered into these profound states. You know there is something there, but you can’t quite make it out. There’s still some “clothes” left. You’re still thinking and doing, feeling the body or hearing sounds. But there does come a time, and this is the Buddha’s simile, when the moon is released from the clouds and there in the clear night sky you can see the beautiful full disc of the moon shining brilliantly, and you know that’s the moon.

The moon is there; the moon is real, and it’s not just some sort of side effect of the clouds. This is what happens in meditation when you see the mind. You see clearly that the mind is not some side effect of the brain. You see the mind, and you know the mind. The Buddha said that the mind released is beautiful, is brilliant, is radiant. So not only are these blissful experiences, they’re meaningful experiences as well.

How many people may have heard about rebirth but still don’t really believe it? How can rebirth happen? Certainly the body doesn’t get reborn. That’s why when people ask me where do you go when you die, “one of two places” I say “Fremantle or Karrakatta” that’s where the body goes! But is that where the mind goes? Sometimes people are so stupid in this world, they think the body is all there is, that there is no mind.

So when you get cremated or buried that’s it, that’s done with, all has ended. The only way you can argue with this view is by developing the meditation that the Buddha achieved under the Bodhi tree. Then you can see the mind for yourself in clear awareness - not in some hypnotic trance, not in dullness - but in the clear awareness. This is knowing the mind

Knowing the Mind

When you know that mind, when you see it for yourself, one of the results will be an insight that the mind is independent of this body. Independence means that when this body breaks up and dies, when it’s cremated or when it’s buried, or however it’s destroyed after death, it will not affect the mind. You know this because you see the nature of the mind.

That mind which you see will transcend bodily death. The first thing which you will see for yourself, the insight which is as clear as the nose on your face, is that there is something more to life than this physical body that we take to be me. Secondly you can recognise that that mind, essentially, is no different than that process of consciousness which is in all beings. Whether it’s human beings or animals or even insects, of any gender, age or race, you see that that which is in common to all life is this mind, this consciousness, the source of doing.

Once you see that, you have much more respect for your fellow beings. Not just respect for your own race, your own tribe or your own religion, not just for human beings, but for all beings. It’s a wonderfully high-minded idea. “May all beings be happy and well and may we respect all nations, all peoples, even all beings.” However this is how you achieve that! You truly get compassion only when we see that others are fundamentally just as ourselves.

If you think that a cow is completely different from you, that cows don’t think like human beings, then it’s easy to eat one. But can you eat your grandmother? She’s too much like you. Can you eat an ant? Maybe you’d kill an ant because you think that ants aren’t like you.

But if you look carefully at ants, they are no different. In a forest monastery living out in the bush, close to nature, one of the things you become so convinced of is that animals have emotions and , especially, feel pain. You begin to recognise the personality of the animals, of the kookaburras, of the mice, the ants, and the spiders.

Each one of those spiders has a mind just like you have. Once you see that you can understand the Buddha’s compassion for all beings. You can also understand how rebirth can occur between all species - not just human beings to human beings, but animals to humans, humans to animals. You can understand also how the mind is the source of all this.

The mind can exist even without a body in the realms of ghosts and angels (what we call in Buddhism Devas). It becomes very clear to you how they exist, why they exist, what they are.

These are insights and understandings which come from deep meditation. But more than that, when you know the nature of the mind then you know the nature of consciousness.

You know the nature of stillness. You know the nature of life. You understand what makes this mind go round and round and round, what makes this mind seek rebirth. You understand the law of Kamma.

The Three Knowledges

The First Knowledge. When the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, according to tradition he gained three knowledge’s. The first knowledge was the memory of past lives. When you get close to the mind, there are certain powers that come with that experience.

The powers are no more than an ability, a dexterity with the use of the mind. It’s like the difference between a dog that has been running wild and a dog that has been well trained. You can tell the trained dog to go and pick up the newspaper. It wags its tail and goes and picks up the newspaper for you. Some people have got their dogs so well trained that they can actually pick up the telephone. Maybe they could answer the telephone as well, then that would really save you a lot of time!

When you get to these deep states of meditation often, the mind becomes well trained.

To be continued

Dailynews.lk

Meditation

Meditation

by Nan- The Islank

"And what kind of meditation did the Blessed One commend? Here someone, quite secluded from sensual desires, secluded from unwholesome states, enters upon and abides in the first meditation, which is accompanied by thinking and exploring, with happiness and pleasure born of seclusion. And he enters upon and abides in the second, the third and the fourth meditations. The Blessed One commended such meditation."
Thus is it said in the Life of the Buddha by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, written with great originality and uniqueness entirely from the Pali Canon.I’ve meditated but never reached any jhana which jhanas are what is stated in the passage above. But one thing I’ve learned: never to give up, never to be disappointed and never to say "I cannot do it, I’ll never get anywhere." I will, some day, probably in another birth since in this I am too entrenched in life and living of the mundane sort.

This is the advice given by all teachers of meditation and those who guide meditators – never get discouraged nor get too obsessed with getting results. Just sitting perfectly still and relaxed and watching the breath or processes within is triumph enough, for the moment.

Vesak should mean meditation

The ambience or aura of Vesak is still around us. The white clad filling up temples and meditation centres from early dawn; the flickering light of the clay pahana and the muted radiance of the Vesak lantern; the piles of flowers whose fragrance is overpowered by that of joss sticks. And most significant of all – the emphasis now placed on meditation and not on mere worship, rites and rituals.

The mind and attention veer away from the garish pandals, the noisy dansalas, the loud music. Vesak is essentially a quiet, introspective time when one needs to sit quiet and, yes, meditate or at least try to.

Easier said than done; very much easier. One realizes how excitable, how intransigent, how utterly active the quicksilver mind is; how difficult to hold it down. It shoots this way and that with this thought and that. But of course it can be controlled. Truly happy are those who have succeeded in this.

My kalyana mithra with whom I first meditated under Ayya Khema’s instructions is able to sit for two hours at a stretch completely absorbed. This in spite of her arthritis. She gently asks me how I am progressing and is never disapproving. Maybe she hides her disappointment that I still do not always feel the breath entering me and never its exit. She is kind to me and appreciates what I have done for her – being ready to steady her with a helping hand if she decides to spend the poya day at the meditation centre. We’ve done a lot together.

Parappuduwa Nuns’ Island

When Ayya Kkema gave up the Nuns’ Island at Parappuduwa in Dodanduwa, we formed a committee and ran the island for the benefit of meditators. Ayya Khema left at the height of the JVP insurgency since she said she was not going to live once again fenced in by barbed wire. She had suffered during the Holocaust. So my kalyana mithuri and I would travel by bus to Dodanduwa, walk to the edge of the lake and get rowed across by the very dynamic head monk of the Island Hermitage, or his boatman. We had to go see to the resident domestic and later the Dutch nun who lived on the island. JVP Insurgents were suspected of using the meditation hall for a night’s sleep so when my friend and I walked to the hall early in the morning, we would shout to each other, hoping our voices would have any young intruders disappear in their boats. We arranged many retreats for women and even an all night pirit at Parappuduwa, the pirit because the Dutch nun said there definitely was a presence (read ghost) at the far end of the island where her kuti was.

It was difficult to have meditators or nuns living on the island once the head monk of the Island Hermitage died, so Nuns’ Island was transferred to the monks in the adjoining hermitage.

A nun so pure

It was on visits to Parappuduwa, invited over by Ayya Khema, that we first got to know Ayya Vayama from Australia. She was young, she was slender and tall, and very willing to lend a hand to any task. Whether strong or not, whether justified or not, she was delegated all the chopping of branches of overgrown trees and carrying of water from the well to the dormitory and nuns’ kutis when the water pump broke down.

She moved away from Parappuduwa but always kept in touch with two friends and me. She decided to spend some time in the London Vihara and as a gesture of thanks to us three women, she arranged a tour of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. I will never forget the feeling that enveloped me as we sat on the rock opposite the Gal Vihara and gazed for two hours at the statues, our admiration and piety enhanced by the wonder of the companionship we shared.

It was on this visit that early one morning we went to the Ruwanveliseya and sat in quiet reflection – me, while the others soon were absorbed in their meditation. I heard a discussion by a group of pilgrims. "Aney aluth rupayak. Langadi hadala" This was repeated by a man in a group that came later with all his nade` agreeing. Had I missed a new statue? I opened my eyes and looked around. Nothing new. I then realized they had mistaken Ayya Vayama for a statue, seated very straight in her brown robe, meditating with not a muscle moving, even when surrounded and gazed at by the curious. She gave such a guffaw when I related the incident to her. She had been totally unaware of the comments made. That was Ayya Vayama, so human and so ready to laugh and enjoy a joke but able to lose herself completely in absorbed meditation.

She was invited by Ven. Brahmavamso to start a nunnery in Perth and she did that and is now head of a well run, well populated nun’s resort in Gidgegannup She lived for months in a trailer all alone in the forest while the first building was put up. Ajahn Vayama as she is now known, is very occupied with teaching, conducting retreats and supervising Dhammasara Nuns’ Monastery.

An aside in the nature of a grouse, with annoyance strictly controlled, is that one cannot meditate either in the maha maluwa of the Sacred Bo Tree nor in the precincts of the Ruwanveliseya because of the chanting by a kapurala in the former place and the mike shouted thanks to donors of money near the Stupa. However much we grouse this will not stop - this disturbing of the peace in these most holy of places. Money collection is the root of the disturbance.

When my mother increased her sil taking from the full moon poya to the others, there still was no meditation as it is practiced now. Her meditation was moving her fingers from one bead to another on her naagunawela while repeating that stanza that starts with atti atti. Maybe she succeeded in concentrating on the asubhas of the body. Conscripted to observe sil with her when I was young, I never could master this verse. My thoughts would roam to a better-than-usual lunch and how to escape Mother’s sharp eye and go play a game or get bullied by my brother who escaped the sil sessions. My third sister went one better. All garbed in white and seated on a mat, she studied the Holy Bible because she had a scripture test the next day!

Gratitude

On this Sunday of the Vesak weekend, my most felt emotion is gratitude. You sit or kneel near the bo tree in the temple premises and it is total gratitude to Him who gave us this wonderful Dhamma – His so practical Teaching. He was patient and understood full well the frailty of humans.

Gratitude to parents and elders who gave us life and living so we now can fully appreciate what they did for us.

Gratitude to Ayya Khema for her almost evangelical exposition of the benefits of meditation and how to get about it; to Ayya Vayama for her humaneness and understanding. She is a living demonstration that a truly good person with much equanimity within radiates, actually radiates a sense of such calm wellbeing and joy that one feels it when in her presence. Gratitude to my friends too, particularly the one who reaches jhanas (I presume; she never tells).

Gratitude to the late Ven Ratwatte Siddhartha who in lay life almost single-handedly got built the wonderful meditation retreat in Hindagala right on top of a hill, and to those like his wife and other teachers who continue to run Dhamma Kuta excellently so we who wish to get away from ordinary life and live a couple of days in a better state, can do so.

Feeling gratitude is a lovely feeling – warm if you are cold, cool if you are hot and bothered. So it’s not to worry if you cannot forget all about you and lose yourself in meditation. One lives and improves!!

Practising meditation in the world

Practising meditation in the world

Dailymirror.lk**********

Ven. Ajahn Brahmavamso The purpose of meditation is to get you in touch with your real home, the place of stillness inside of you. You realize that your true home is carried around with you all the time. But how do we get in there? The door of your heart is open to you no matter what you do. Freedom, love, compassion, just being still, not controlling, letting go, is the door into that home inside of you. You don’t go there by measuring and by judging. You go there by quietness and not thinking. So you come through the door of your inner home where you can reside at will, at any time. If you know that home, that place, it means when you do come out into the world, where you work hard, strive and struggle for the sake of other beings; at least you’ve got a place to come back to, a refuge, a home. When we don’t have that refuge, that home, we don’t know how to escape from the turmoil of life. In the suttas, the Buddha said you should know the gratification, the danger and the escape from these worldly things. You can understand the gratification; you can understand the danger of the worldly ways, but please know how to escape as well. I have taught you the escape; it is going to the inner home. So once you know that inner home and are familiar with it, you can always go back there anytime. It’s a place of rest, and the real refuge of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. One who sees the Dhamma sees the Buddha, it’s not Gautama the Buddha who passed away in Nibbâna thousands of years ago. One sees the Dhamma inside one’s heart, that state of freedom, that knowing, that awakening, that liberation, which is the real refuge. That’s what connects you and all the others to the Ariyas in the world; it is the ‘Ariya Sangha inside the heart’. That’s why it’s a refuge, because it’s deep within. You know it’s a refuge because whatever you are doing outside in the world, you can always come home and put your feet up as it were. We can come home to have a cup of tea and to really relax in the refuge of our real home. When you go out of your home every morning – I don’t mean your house I mean your inner home – you go out to do your duties and your work. But you know you’ve always got a place to come back to, a place of rest and peace. This is what we do in the world. I go to Sydney this afternoon. I go to work over there but I take my inner home with me. At any time if you feel tired or stressed, you can go back into your inner home. It’s a marvellous resource. Sometimes, as a senior monk, you do a great deal, and you get very tired physically. What you need to do then is just go into your inner home and rest there for awhile. When you come out you can be so bright, so peaceful and so clear. That’s where the Dhamma comes from, from the inner home. A sacred place I keep encouraging all Buddhists to have a place in their houses, if not a room, at least a corner of their house, which is their shrine room, their religious room. I sometimes see how big people’s bathrooms are. Sometimes they’re made of marble, and they have very fancy taps and faucets. What are they used for? People use that place to clean up their bodies! People also have these amazing kitchens, and lounge rooms, and games rooms, and playrooms, and TV rooms, and dining rooms, and huge, huge bedrooms, with en-suites. But very few houses have got a spiritual room. A room set aside just for the cultivation of Dhamma or religious practice. They don’t have a spiritual haven in their house, a place where they’re not cleaning their bodies, but they are cleaning their minds. They don’t have a place where they’re not feeding their stomach, but they are feeding their heart. I think that it is so necessary in today’s world, to have a meditation room, a shrine room – just a place of peace and silence. If you really haven’t got a room in your house to do that, ask yourself, “Do I need all these other rooms”? Are they really all that important, an office and all that other stuff? Put the office in a corner of your bedroom, and put your meditation room in your office. What is more important to you? But if you haven’t got the room, at least use a corner of some quiet room, a quiet space, where you can put your Buddha statue or your pictures, and your Dhamma books. Have that as a sacred space in your house, a place where you can go at any time. After a while by sitting there regularly; chanting there, even reading Dhamma books there, it builds up power. and becomes a power spot in your house. A place where you can just sit, because the only thing you ever do there is: to meditate, to chant, to read Dhamma books, to quieten down. It becomes psychologically empowered as a place of peace. One of the things that I’ve always stressed about meditation is the happiness of meditation. Happiness is an important thing in meditation. If you get happiness in meditation early on in your practise, you will always want to meditate. It’s not a case of getting up in the morning and saying, “Oh, I’ve got to do my meditation now. I must get this out of the way so that I can go to breakfast.” You know how it is? You do your half an hour every day just like taking medicine. It’s not like that at all. If you really understand what meditation is, you love doing meditation. You just want to do it. Sometimes you have to get your breakfast out of the way to get to your meditation, or you have to get your work out of the way to get to your meditation. It’s just you doing it. You sit on your chair, or your stool, or your cushion, and your mind just leaps towards silence. The Buddha said that when the mind leaps, or jumps, to quietness, to stillness, to non-doing, that’s a great stage on the path of wisdom, on the path to Enlightenment.

Why I swapped partying for meditation

Why I swapped partying for meditation

---- Daily News

Harriet ADDISON

I don’t know what I expected to happen while I was in Thailand on my gap year, apart from some kind of weight loss from dysentery.

The year didn’t start well: I’d suffered from anorexia during sixth form and my recovery had included a humiliating cycle of bingeing and starving.

By the time I arrived in Thailand in February of this year, the bingeing had won out and I was heavier than I had ever been. Aged 18, I covered up in frumpy kaftans, feeling fat and middle-aged. My hope was that I would get a nice tan and return home triumphant, skinny, gorgeous and happy.

In reality, I found myself with no money, no friends and a large dose of homesickness, and ended up staying in a Buddhist monastery in Bangkok for six weeks. I lived with the monks, meditating for eight hours a day. And, to my surprise, this turned out to be the best thing that had ever happened to me.

I had planned to work at a children’s charity in Pattaya, in eastern Thailand, for six weeks. But I hated this notorious sex town, and the balding, fat, sweaty men going with tiny Thai girls (and boys) in hotpants.

The charity didn’t turn out as I expected: I thought there’d be lots for me to do and lots of other young people to make friends with. In fact, I was excruciatingly lonely. Terrified of this vast, noisy country, still hating myself, I just wanted to go home.

Strange turn of events

Less than two weeks into my stay I was robbed of all my money, including 400 pounds cash and almost 1,000 pounds from my bank card, which I had stupidly left in my guesthouse room. Distraught, I used my last bit of cash to buy a bus ticket to Bangkok, and spent the entire journey wailing into the bosom of a wonderful Thai woman.

On arrival in Bangkok, she bought me a McDonald’s and gave me some money.

Then she headed me in the direction of the monastery, where I could stay free, after I had mumbled something about “meditation” and “Buddhism” and “spiritual enlightenment”.

Several hours later, I was speaking to an old, cross-looking monk, asking sheepishly whether I could spend a few nights there, and feeling a fraud as I explained my lifelong fascination with Buddhism and my desire to improve my meditation.

After a long and bemusing conversation about the “Eprisets” (the Eight Precepts of Buddhism, as they turned out to be), he said I could stay, but that I’d have to “work very hard”.

He showed me to my floor space in one of the sleeping rooms, which I shared with up to six Thai women. I spent the night wishing I was home watching Midsummer Murders.

The next few days passed frustratingly slowly. We awoke at 5 am and prepared breakfast - usually a selection of fish, rice porridge, vegetables and fruit - which we presented to the monks before eating ourselves at about 6 am.

At 7 am I went to my meditation room, and there I would sit cross-legged, watching my breath coming in and going out, and concentrating on the present moment.

This is pretty hard, especially when all I wanted to do was think of my sorry situation. Mid-morning lunch was followed by more meditation, and then a two-hour break, during which I either cried or rang my mother, or both, sitting on the front steps with a cup of tamarind-leaf tea and watching the big brown dogs that lazed about in the sun all day.

Extraordinary

Living in the monastery meant I had to follow the precepts: no eating after noon; no touching the opposite sex (even talking to boys was tut-tutted by the older nuns); no music, reading or TV. I wasn’t even supposed to write, but needing some form of escape, I kept a diary. Later, I interviewed the “cross” monk in the evenings about his extraordinary life.

He turned out to be the kindest man, and insisted that I called him Luang Pho, or Grandpa. We grew very fond of each other and every day he would give me little presents - ice-cream and soy milk, usually, but also mountains of Buddhist books, which he inscribed to his “Dear Daughter”.

To my surprise, I began to enjoy my meditation. My mother (who is always right) has been meditating every morning for more than ten years and is often telling me and anyone else who will listen about the benefits she has encountered: understanding relationships better; an increased sense of wellbeing; stronger self-esteem. When I would complain about feeling depressed, fat, or confused, she would tell me to spend 20 minutes sitting in the garden, “listening to my body”.

Usually I would forget and continue to feel grumpy for the next few days, or I would reluctantly sit on the lawn and feel self-conscious as I waited for the alarm clock to release me from my ten minutes of navel-gazing. I was sure meditation wasn’t going to help me.

My problems were different; they couldn’t be fixed by simply sitting still every day. I needed intervention! A personal trainer! Oprah Winfrey! A hypnotherapist! But in the monastery, with no other option but to sit and at least try to meditate, I slowly found that I could sit for longer and longer, sometimes more than an hour. And I began to feel clean and refreshed afterwards, as if I had bathed in a cool sea.

Feeling proud

My memory became sharp, and I could remember my chants, which impressed my old monk no end. I gradually stopped being angry with myself and starting feeling proud of myself.

I saw strengths that I had never noticed before, and I stopped punishing myself with food and lost the extra weight naturally. I’ve never really been religious, and I was not attracted to Buddhism as a faith, but I felt that meditation allowed me to understand myself better and to find the right thing to do. Essentially, it taught me to listen to myself.

Since I returned from Thailand I’ve been living and working in London. Life is fun and exciting (mostly) and always busy. But somehow, between the traffic and the parties and running for the bus, I’ve managed to keep meditating. I don’t practise every day, but I try to find time because it boosts my self-esteem and when I have a problem, it helps me to deal with it

What is it? Vipassana (meaning “to see things as they really are”) is a form of meditation that focuses on breathing. Buddhists believe that practising this regularly can lead to greater spiritual insight.

What’s the evidence? A 2006 review examined 67 studies of brain activity during meditation.

The scientists found that the nervous system is affected by meditation, and that it might help people to have more balanced emotional responses to stress. To find out more about ten-day Vipassana retreats of “Noble Silence”, consult www.dhamma.org

Meditation: The key to being mindful

Meditation: The key to being mindful

By Rajah Kuruppu - The Sunday Times. LK

The human being comprises mind and body. Modern medical science is now according an important place to the mind, but over 2, 500 years ago the Buddha emphasized the invaluable role of the mind. In fact, the opening lines of the Dhammapada, a collection of important sayings of the Buddha, state that the mind is the forerunner of all states of being, mind is supreme, mind made are they. Accordingly, Bhavana, commonly translated to English as meditation, is assigned an important role in the practice of the Dhamma. Bhavana means the culture or the development of the mind and perhaps the English word meditation does not adequately describe Bhavana but it could be used for want of a better word, provided the true meaning of the term Bhavana is understood. There are two kinds of Bhavana-- Samatha or the pointed concentration of the mind on a wholesome subject to the total exclusion of any others and Vipassana Bhavana (insight Bhavana) or to see things as they truly are as anicca, dukkha and anatta or impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and the absence of a permanent, enduring, unchanging self or soul or ego. Importantly, Bhavana also includes sati or mindfulness, to be aware of all activities of the body, feelings, thoughts and phenomena. So, on one hand there is the formal Bhavana where one sits in a given posture and on the other, the informal, where one is aware of one's activities all the time. Objective and results The final objective of Bhavana is to overcome the root mental defilements of greed, aversion and delusion, to see things in their true perspective and realize the Buddhist goal of Nibbana. However, there are benefits to be gained here and now if Bhavana is practised in the correct manner, namely, the decline of negative emotions such as the deep desire for pleasures, aversion, conceit, jealousy and the gradual development of Upekkha or balance of mind to face better the vicissitudes of life, the pleasant and unpleasant experiences. It is often remarked that many who engage in Bhavana do not reflect on their behaviour-- the decline of negative qualities mentioned earlier or the development of positive values such as metta - loving kindness, karuna -compassion, mudita - joy in the success of others and Upekkha - equanimity or balance of mind. This may be due to many confining their Bhavana to formal practice in the recommended posture for a specific period of time in the morning and night and believing that they have performed their task for the day. Actually Bhavana should be undertaken as a full-time exercise where one has sati or mindfulness of all activities throughout one’s wakeful life. In relating Bhavana to everyday life, one should be aware of what is happening in the mind and the body as often as possible. This observation should be undertaken wherever you are, whether it is at home, at the place of work, driving or being driven in a vehicle, exercising, during leisure and ablutions. One should also be alive to one's posture—whether it is sitting, standing, walking or reclining. When one is aware of what is happening in the mind and body, one is in the present. The Buddha advised His disciples to be in the present and not in the past which is already gone and which we have no control of or the future that has not yet come. We have to plan for the future, but that should be done with our feet on the ground in the present. Breath Bhavana One of the best ways to be in the present is to anchor the mind to the anapana sati Bhavana or mindfulness of inhaling and exhaling the breath. The breath is always with us from birth to death and some Bhavana masters say that it is our best friend that will never desert us through life. The Buddha has prescribed a precise posture for this Bhavana -- to be seated upright on the ground or on a chair, looking forward, hands on the lap one over the other and eyes closed or slightly open. However, this does not mean that one should not observe the breath in any posture and at any time. It is said that when one is agitated, depressed or even overjoyed, the concentration on the breath for a short time would bring the mind to a state of balance and develop the great quality of Upekkha or equanimity. This is an important aspect in the mindfulness of the activities of the body. The well known Bhavana master, Ven. Henepola Gunaratana Nayaka Thera, Head of the Theravada Buddhist Meditation Centre and Forest Monastery in West Virginia, USA, in a recent Buddhist discussion with this writer over the English Services of the SLBC recommended the practice of Bhavana on the breath for one minute every hour. This would help he said to calm the mind which is often bombarded with sense stimuli and consequently confused and disturbed. This is relating Bhavana to daily life and it would help to be in the present and engage in the mindfulness of all activities, mental and physical. When undertaking anapana sati Bhavana, some Bhavana masters advise to mentally recite the words 'arising' when inhaling and 'ceasing' when exhaling the breath. Such recitation would bring to the forefront the impermanence and changing nature of things. This in turn would help the mind to ease itself from the attachment to things which is at the root of mental suffering. Here we are changing from samatha or tranquil Bhavana to vipassana or insight Bhavana. The development of the practice of letting go is an important aspect of bhavana. Formal bhavana is helpful in that it is a training ground to let go when other thoughts come to the mind while engaged in bhavana where one casts them aside and returns to the subject of Bhavana. When this habit is developed in formal Bhavana it could be gradually extended to everyday life. When engaged in some work and other thoughts come to the mind we could let such thoughts go unless they are relevant to the work that is being undertaken. To be in the Bhavana mode in daily life one should also observe the thoughts. During wakeful hours thoughts occur in the mind, about oneself, others or both. They could be thoughts of the present, past or future. When observing the thoughts it is realized how often they are of the past and the future and seldom on the present except in a well trained mind. Through mindfulness, our task is to wean away from unwholesome thoughts to wholesome ones. In everyday life we have our emotions and experiences, some pleasurable, some not so and others neutral. We have a problem with unpleasant emotions and experiences as we do not like them. One way to dissolve the unpleasant experience is to make it a subject of Bhavana. If there is pain you concentrate on the pain. Unbearable and excruciating pain due to serious ailments has been eventually overcome by practising Bhavana on the experience of pain. Initially, it is said that the pain would be aggravated by being alive to it but by persistent effort it could be overcome. Another unpleasant experience is the problem we have with some people with whom we associate in life. If there is a person who makes life difficult or even miserable, we should treat that person not with ill-will but as a teacher. He teaches us or provides us an opportunity to develop the great quality of patience or santi. We could also observe our mental reaction to the trouble maker and see that the problem is not so much with the other person but our own way of relating or reacting to him. If we react with sympathy, understanding and goodwill considering that that person may have a problem or deficiency and extend compassion to him, a better relationship could perhaps be established. In any event that person provides us an opportunity to observe our own mind in a difficult situation. Pleasant emotions and experiences also give rise to problems. They encourage negative factors such as over confidence and conceit which could lead towards one's own down- fall. So we should be mindful of accepting our successes with a sense of humility and equanimity noting that they are also impermanent and a passing show. If we are mindful of our thoughts we would be vigilant and careful before speaking and acting. Gradually, we will become aware before speaking and acting reflecting whether what we intend to say or do is harmful to us or others. Thus our intended speech or action could be modified or totally withdrawn if necessary. Thus, one should not confine one's Bhavana only to formal Bhavana undertaken in the usual Bhavana posture. It should be extended to the mindfulness of daily activities in wakeful hours, both physical and mental, as far as possible. For the latter exercise the training that is developed in formal Bhavana is undoubtedly an asset.

Meeting Ajahn Brahm in a relaxed mood

By D. C. Ranatunga

http://www.sundaytimes.lk

About an hour’s drive from Perth in Australia brings us to Serpentine, a quiet hilly suburb where renowned meditation master Ajahn Brahmavamso has his monastery. It’s around ten in the morning and the Thai devotees who had brought the alms spread them out on a table in the alms hall and move out with plates of rice in their hands. They form a queue to serve the monks as they come in. We also join them.

Sharp at 10.30, Ajahn Brahm appears with around 15 monks following him carrying alms bowls. Ever-smiling, he greets us with ‘ayubowan’ as he approaches and accepts a spoonful of rice. The monks walk into the alms hall to serve themselves and we walk upstairs and await their arrival to bless us before they eat. We move out as they start taking the ‘dana’.

The meditation hall

“Have your meals and come up for a chat,” Ajahn Brahm tells me. We join the other lay visitors and share the food. The Bodhinyana Buddhist Monastery is in a quiet natural forest - 100 acres in extent. The ‘kuti’ – 21 in all – are spread out amidst the trees. A ‘kuti’ is occupied by a single monk. The monks spend their time meditating.

As much as he preaches the need to lead a simple life, Ajahn Brahm practises what he preaches. A junior monk took us to Ajahn Brahm’s ‘kuti’, built in the style of a rocky cavern just sufficient for him to move about. He uses a thin cushion to sit and meditate. He sleeps by spreading four cushions on the floor. The sound-proof room gets ventilation through small pipes laid in the walls. “Aren’t there facilities for laymen to spend time at the monastery,” I ask Ajahn Brahm. “Not right now,” he says. “Very soon we will provide residential facilities for up to 60 guests in a nearby retreat centre we are building.” A 140-acre block of land has been purchased for this purpose.

Ten individual cottages are being built at the Jhana Grove Retreat Centre containing six bedrooms in each. They are being designed in a way that will allow a great degree of privacy thus maximising the benefit of meditation practice. Connected to the cottages by a central walkway will be a large air-conditioned meditation hall with three adjoining halls to practise walking meditation. A well equipped kitchen along with other facilities for laundry and storage are being provided.

Ajahn Brahm’s kuti

Ajahn Brahm is keen to see that the elderly and the infirm are drawn to the Retreat Centre. “I have observed that those suffering from illnesses, cancer patients in particular, benefit through meditation. At the Retreat Centre we will provide facilities for such persons to learn meditation techniques and strategies in a peaceful environment that is also physically comfortable,” he explains. Serving as patron of the Retreat Centre is the former Premier of Western Australia, Dr. Geoff Gallop who used meditation to help recover from a recent illness.

“Stress has become a major factor throughout the world. It affects the lives of so many individuals. It leads to the break up of families. Meditation relieves stress and tension. It enhances one’s health,” Ajahn Brahm says. “I am hopeful that within 15 months we will have the Centre ready. Thereafter we will offer residential meditation retreats free of charge,” Ajahn Brahm assures.

The project is estimated to cost over Aus$ three million. Funds have been steadily flowing in. The project is undertaken by the Buddhist Society of West Australia. As we get up to leave the monastery, Ajahn Brahm invites us to “Ajahn Brahm’s new year’s eve party” on 31st night at the society’s headquarters. “There won’t be any alcohol but we can contemplate on the effects of alcohol. We will chant ‘pirith’ and bless everyone for the new year,” he assures us.