I did the meditation today, and gained a deeper experience of it than I ever have before. That seems to be the way it is with Lamrim meditations -- they are never quite the same. Even though you may meditate on the same topic every twenty-one days, you are never really doing the same meditation twice, in my opinion.
In The New Meditation Handbook, Geshe Kelsang lists several advantages to cherishing others. The first has to do with the law of karma.
Karma is very simple, really. All of our actions of past, present, and future are causes, and all of our experiences of past, present, and future are effects. Therefore, if we are experiencing positive circumstances now (being taken care of, being loved, living in a comfortable environment, good health...), they are the result of our having performed related virtuous actions in this or previous lives. And the motivation for performing such virtuous actions almost always involves cherishing others in one way or another.
So. Whatever pleasant circumstances we have, we can thank ourselves for cherishing others to generate them, and if we want to have similar circumstances in the future, we must keep cherishing others to create the necessary good karma.
If we are not enjoying pleasant circumstances -- if others are taking advantage of us or treating us poorly -- we can turn this situation around. Our cherishing others now always results in positive effects later. One of the laws of karma is that an action is never wasted. The virtuous seeds we plant will ripen.
One catch, though, is that we need to take the long view. Virtuous seeds planted in this life may not ripen until our next life, or in lives after that. But one thing we can be sure of is that any time we perform an action of cherishing others, we are creating positive circumstances for ourselves sometime in the future.
But what about now?
That leads us to the second advantage of cherishing others. Geshe Kelsang says, "The immediate effect [of cherishing others] will be that many of our problems, such as those that arise from anger, jealousy, and selfish behaviour, will disappear, and our mind will become calm and peaceful."
When I think about this, I can see that it is true. When I am seeing life through the distorted magnifying glass of my own wants and needs, I can often find it lacking. But when I set down the magnifying glass, and instead think of others wants and needs, I often find there is something I can actually do to help, even if it is only to offer a prayer. I benefit because this makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and makes me feel good about myself. Giving just has a way of doing that. I feel peace when I lay my head down at night. I feel I have accomplished something meaningful, something worthwhile. And that generates a deep sense of satisfaction.
Geshe Kelsang says, "The precious mind that cherishes all living beings protects both myself and others from suffering, brings happiness, and fulfills our wishes."
Wow.
It's a win, win, win situation. We win later, we win now, and others win too. With all this winning going around, it seems shocking that more of us aren't scurrying to engage in cherishing others all the time!
It's very, very unfortunate that our imprints and our environment set us up to cherish ourselves instead of others. It causes so much unhappiness, and takes us out of reach of a potential source of limitless joy.
How fortunate some of us are to have discovered Dharma and "seen the light!"
I cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, claim at this time to have achieved the realization of cherishing others. If I had, I would always cherish all living beings all the time, and I would not be plagued by self-cherishing as much as I am.
But I feel excited today, because this was the strongest experience I have had so far of "getting it" that cherishing others is a source of potential happiness beyond my wildest dreams. If I come to believe this truth deeply enough, if it gets firmly ingrained in my mind, the juggernaut of my self-centered existence will begin, gradually, to change course.
And I and everyone I associate with will benefit from it.
The world we live in is not something that exists independently of our thoughts and ideas. Our world and these thoughts and ideas appear to us as a unified whole. Depending on what our thoughts and ideas are, our world may appear to us in completely different ways. These thoughts and feelings constitute our psychological condition. Moreover, our psychological condition is at the same time our physiological condition. When something breaks down inside of us physically, our minds no longer remain clear. And if our minds are not clear, then the eyes with which we see the whole world take on a gloomy appearance. On the other hand, when we feel healthy our minds brighten, and so consequently our outlook on everything becomes brighter.
Furthermore, our physiological conditions are tremendously influenced by the environment in which we live. The changes and conditions of climate and weather both affect us. This cause and effect relationship is particularly easy to see when you lead a life as unvaried and devoid of distractions as the sesshins at Antaiji.
The essential matter here is the attitude of just striving to wake up regardless of the conditions you are in. It is not about arriving at some state where all thoughts have disappeared. To calmly sit amidst these cause and effect relationships without being carried away by them is shikantaza.
Like the weather, there are all sorts of conditions in our personal lives: clear days, cloudy days, rainy ones, and stormy ones. These are all waves produced by the power of nature and are not things over which we have control. No matter how much we fight against these waves, there is no way we can make a cloudy day clear up. Cloudy days are cloudy; clear days are clear. It is only natural that thoughts come and go and that psychological and physiological conditions fluctuate accordingly. All of this is the very reality and manifestation of life. Seeing all of this as the scenery of life, without being pulled apart by it—this is the stability of human life, this is settling down in our life.
In The Record of Linji, Linji Yixuan (Rinzai) says:
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The true practitioner of the Way completely transcends all things. Even if heaven and earth were to tumble down, I would have no misgivings. Even if all the Buddhas in the ten directions were to appear before me, I would not rejoice.Even if the three hells were to appear before me, I would have no fear. Why is this so? Because there is nothing I dislike.
For Rinzai, the appearance of all the buddhas in the past, present, and future was not something to rejoice over, nor was the appearance of the three hells something of which to be afraid. Of course, not being afraid of the appearance of some hell doesn’t mean that for Rinzai hell had no existence. For him, hell was a kind of scenery that was different from the scenery of the Buddhas. The point is that whether some hell, all the buddhas, or anything appeared before him, Rinzai saw all of these as the scenery of his life. For us this is nothing but the scenery of our zazen.
I hope that people who practice zazen will continue regular sesshins and daily zazen for at least ten years. It’s a tremendous thing to be able to give oneself to this kind of practice and not be caught up in distractions. Our deepest mental suffering will come up during these years of zazen, and we will be able to continue our practice only if we have the stability to see this suffering as the scenery of our life and not be carried away by it. Working through these ten years, we develop a posture of living out the reality of our true self.
If we lead this sort of life and sit zazen, at whatever age, there is no doubt that we will come to have a commanding view of who we are. When we live this way, not only zazen, but daily life itself, is such that we cannot find the value of our existence in what other people say or in things that we want. It is a life that is unbearable unless we discover the value of our existence within ourselves.
What is essential is for us to live out the reality of our true self whether we are doing one period of zazen, a five-day sesshin, or practicing for ten years or more.
The Activity of the Reality of Life
All of us, regardless of whether we realize it or not, are living out the self as the whole universe. Since this is such a critical point, I’ll repeat it here. Usually we make the idea of the small individual self the center of our world and become firmly convinced that this small individual self is our whole self, but this is not our true self.
The reality of life goes beyond my idea of myself as a small individual. Fundamentally, our self is living out nondual life that pervades all living things. This self is universal existence, everything that exists. On the other hand, we usually lose sight of the reality of the life of universal self, clouding it over with thoughts originating from our small individual selves.
When we let go of our thoughts, this reality of life becomes pure and clear. Living out this reality of life as it is – that is, waking up and practicing beyond thinking – is zazen. At this very point our basic attitude in practicing zazen becomes determined. The attitude of the practitioner in practicing zazen as a Mahayana Buddhist teaching never means to attempt to artificially create some new self by means of practice.
Nor should it be aiming at decreasing delusion and finally eliminating it altogether. We practice zazen, neither aiming at having a special mystical experience nor trying to gain greater enlightenment. Zazen as true Mahayana teaching is always the whole self just truly being the whole self, life truly being life.
We all have eyes to see, but if we close them and say that the world is in darkness, how can we say that we are living out the true reality of life? If we open our eyes we see the sun is shining brilliantly. In the same way, when we live open-eyed and awake to life, we discover that we are living in the vigorous light of life. All the ideas of our small self are clouds that make the light of the universal self foggy and dull. Doing zazen, we let go of these ideas and open our eyes to the clarity of the vital life of universal self.
We discover the attitude of zazen as true Buddhism when we believe that the truth of this small self as an individual entity is universal self and actually practice the reality of life in zazen. This zazen is referred to as the activity of the reality of life.
Uchiyama Roshi begins with a powerful line that stops us right at the very beginning of this reading. To live the reality of true fluidity existing between ourselves and the world is a profound existence in anyone’s life and practice. Our practice starts right where we are each day; acknowledging the impact of internal and external weather, we begin each day with the material of daily life that changes with each day. Breaking through the bubble of limitation, our small sense of self, is available to us in each moment.
This awareness begins to subtly influence our actions in daily life. Even if this awareness comes without the big enlightenment experience some people have felt, living the reality of our self being the expression of Universal Self starts to change how we see ourselves and “others” here. We feel the joy and suffering of all beings around us as our own joy and suffering. Our actions naturally trend towards alleviating suffering and having compassion for all living beings.
To study the way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.
To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers
In this talk, Richard J. Davidson will explore recent scientific research on the neuroscience of positive human qualities and how they can be cultivated through contemplative practice. Distinctions among different forms of contemplative practices will be introduced and they will be shown to have different neural and behavioral consequences, as well as important consequences for physical health in both long-term and novice practitioners. New research also shows that meditation-based interventions delivered online can produce behavioral and neural changes. Collectively, this body of research indicates that we can cultivate adaptive neural changes and strengthen positive human qualities through systematic mental practice.
From my perspective, having a full, authentic life is about having healthy, vibrant relationships — your relationship with yourself, with others you know, with the world at large, and/or with something greater, if that suits you. Without relationships, there can’t be much else.
So how do you make changes in how you do your relationships? What behavioral psychologists know is that making changes — and keeping resolutions — needs to be broken down into small, achievable, and measurable steps.
If you want to make positive changes to support healthier relationships, pick one do-able thing — a small, achievable, measurable change. As you might reasonably guess (based on what I write about here all the time) my suggestion is to practice mindfulnessmeditation, as a way to rewire yourbrain to be able to “do” relationships in healthier ways (see my previous post, Nine Ways That A Meditating Brain Creates Better Relationships).
Then, if your resolution is to meditate, break that down into small, achievable, measurable steps as well. More on that in a moment — first, take a look at what goes into making a clear resolution to create a new habit.
Help yourself make meditation a resolution you can keep
First, get clear about why you’re doing meditation: What’s your intention? What’s yourmotivation? Challenge yourself to boil those two things down to one sentence each. (Or 140 characters each, if you’re a Twitterer.) Then, know that “stuff” will get in the way, be it external stuff (like your pipes have burst first thing in the morning, so you need to take care of that rather than do your morning meditation), or, more likely, your internal resistance.
“What internal resistance?”, you say. “I really want to meditate regularly, it’s just that other stuff keeps getting in the way.” Consider these commonly lurking thoughts, which can rather sneakily turn into “external stuff,” or the belief that you can’t meditate:
Nothing seems to happen when I meditate, so making time for it isn’t worth it.
Something does happen when I meditate — meditation is changing me, and that’s scary, because then I’m in unfamiliar territory.
I’m afraid of what I might discover or feel if I slow down, if I listen to myself, if I open my heart.
I won’t be able to do it right/perfectly, so what’s the point?
All of these can be thought of as ways we shift our gaze away from the real culprit: ourfear. The good news is that by meditating regularly, your fear won’t take your brain (or your relationships) hostage the same way any more. You’ll still experience your fear, but it’s more like sitting firmly in the saddle and holding the reins of the horse — it won’t gallop off with you helplessly dragging behind. So, meditating more will help you avoid it less.
Okay, enough about the philosophical part of the program — let’s get down to practical matters.
Here are a dozen tips for making your meditation practice a worthwhile habit that sticks:
1. Pick a time. For example, get to it immediately when you get up in the morning. Before coffee (gasp!), before a shower, plop yourself down and just do it. Meditation sets the tone for your nervous system for the day, so you’ll reap the benefits that much more – plus, you’ll feel noble and accomplished all day. 2. Let go of the idea that you can’t meditate. One thing I hear a lot is “I can’t make my mind stay focused.” There’s no “doing it right” – it’s a practice. The practice of brining your wandering mind back again and again is actually what researchers believe does the re-wiring in your brain. Having a mind that wanders is actually a useful tool in meditation. There is a video about how a difficult-to-focus mind can be an asset in meditation practice. 3. Set your calendar. Planning to do a new behavior every day for a year is beyond what most of us can accomplish — setting ourselves up for failure. Make your resolution just long enough to become a habit — and then do that same time period over and over.
How long does it take to create a new habit? (Here’s a link to a great post on this.) Estimates vary, because (a) people vary, and (b) the depth of the habit varies. For example, it takes less time to establish the habit of drinking a glass of water every morning than to get in the habit of doing fifty pushups every day. As for developing a meditation practice, in my experience, it takes most people one or two months of regular practice to make regular meditation a habit. The good news is that there are already measurable changes in your brain after just two weeks, according to one leading researcher, Richard Davidson, PhD. 4. Be the exception. Be aware that the dropout rate for new meditators is high — some say that only two in ten will be practicing, even periodically, after a year. Resolve to be the exception to the rule, and also know that you have good company with others who are struggling. Be kind to yourself about how hard it is to develop a new, healthy habit. 5. Keep your expectations in line with what meditation is, and what it isn’t. For example, don’t expect to always get an immediate “hit” or relief like you get when taking medicine (although you might feel that way during, or after, meditation). And remember that you’re changing your brain, not just decongesting your sinuses — it takes time. 6. Start small. I agree with Daniel Siegel, MD, who says that rewiring the brain can be helped by even as little as three minutes of mindfulness meditation, done regularly, and that the brain seems to benefit more from frequent, shorter meditations than less frequent, longer ones. I often recommend starting with five minutes a day, and perhaps working up to twenty if you feel it is working for you. (There are other benefits to longer meditations, but for the purposes of brain integration, it’s fine to go for less time, as long as it is regular and frequent.) 7. Have fun! Meditation can be serious, but it can also lead you in some delightful directions. I’ve actually fallen off a meditation stool from laughing so hard. 8. Do it naturally. I strongly recommend against using technological short-cuts like brain-wave inducers. The benefits of mindfulness meditation, from a brain-integration perspective, comes from the practiceof getting different parts of your brain working together. The techno “shortcuts” brag that they force the brain to switch gears — so you can just be the passive receiver. Passively getting your brain activity to change is like having someone else lift your arms for you when weightlifting.
(A relevant joke: A monk ordered a hot dog (vegan, I guess) from a hot dog vendor: “Make me one with everything.” (Insert first laugh here.) The monk pays for the $2 hot dog with a $5 bill. The vendor takes the cash and does nothing. When the monk asks for the $3, the vendor replies, “Change comes from within.”)
9. Learn the basics. When you’re first starting out, you might find it helpful to start with a guided meditation.(There are many good resources for this, including a free download, as well as guided meditations from people I respect a great deal, including Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and Jon Kabat-Zinn – click here for specific recommendations.) Eventually, though, for the same reasons in#8 above, once you learn to meditate, and know more about how to guide yourself, then I recommend moving away from guided meditation. It can still be useful if you need a “refresher,” but training thebrainto do the task of meditation on its own seems key in the sort of re-wiring seen in the research literature. Also, if you choose to use guided meditations to learn the ropes, then I recommend that it be without background music, if for no other reason than the music is an added “event” for the brain to process.
10. Change it up. Meditation doesn’t have to happen while you’re seated in lotus position in a perfect tranquil space (again, “perfection” is not required!) Due to an old ankle injury, I can’t sit cross-legged, so I meditate on a chair or stool. People with back or hip injuries sometimes lay down and use a chair under their lower legs to lay in “astronaut” position. You can do a walking meditation, meditation during yoga, meditation while eating — there’s even a raisin meditation. The focus of your meditation can also vary: It can be helpful to balance your practice between the sort of breathing/noticing practice (called insight meditation, or vipassana), and a series of focused intentions like metta practice (you can search “metta” and “Sharon Salzberg” for excellent resources on this form of practice).
11. Aim for imperfection. Know at the outset that you’ll not be perfect in keeping your resolution. Research on creating new habits shows that missing single days doesn’t reduce the chance of forming a habit. Additionally, positive reinforcement (giving yourself gold stars for the days you meditate, or your own personal equivalent) is demonstrably more effective in changing behavior thanpunishment(beating yourself up for the days that you don’t meditate). 12. Irritation and challenges can be meditation aids. Remember that having challenges when you meditate can make the session “easier,” and even more potent. If I have an itch during meditation, I don’t scratch it at first — I’m usuallygratefulto have something to focus on other than my breath. (If the itch continues — which, after focusing on it, it often doesn’t — then I can use it as a way to practice being mindful of my hand moving to scratch it, and of the sensation of the scratching — you get the point.) To quote Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, “sometimes negative emotions and problems are good for practice. If everything is good and convenient – there is a nice temperature in the room, I’m not hungry or thirsty – then there is not much meditation because it is easy to forget. But once you have some challenge or suffering, then it is easy to meditate.”
I hope you find these ideas helpful, and I invite your feedback.
The patient sat with his eyes closed, submerged in the rhythm of his own breathing, and after a while noticed that he was thinking about his troubled relationship with his father.
“I was able to be there, present for the pain,” he said, when the meditation session ended. “To just let it be what it was, without thinking it through.”
The therapist nodded.
“Acceptance is what it was,” he continued. “Just letting it be. Not trying to change anything.”
“That’s it,” the therapist said. “That’s it, and that’s big.”
This exercise in focused awareness and mental catch-and-release of emotions has become perhaps the most popular new psychotherapy technique of the past decade. Mindfulness meditation, as it is called, is rooted in the teachings of a fifth-century B.C. Indian prince, Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha. It is catching the attention of talk therapists of all stripes, including academic researchers, Freudian analysts in private practice and skeptics who see all the hallmarks of another fad.
For years, psychotherapists have worked to relieve suffering by reframing the content of patients’ thoughts, directly altering behavior or helping people gain insight into the subconscious sources of their despair and anxiety. The promise of mindfulness meditation is that it can help patients endure flash floods of emotion during the therapeutic process — and ultimately alter reactions to daily experience at a level that words cannot reach. “The interest in this has just taken off,” said Zindel Segal, a psychologist at the Center of Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, where the above group therapy session was taped. “And I think a big part of it is that more and more therapists are practicing some form of contemplation themselves and want to bring that into therapy.”
At workshops and conferences across the country, students, counselors and psychologists in private practice throng lectures on mindfulness. The National Institutes of Health is financing more than 50 studies testing mindfulness techniques, up from 3 in 2000, to help relieve stress, soothe addictive cravings, improve attention, lift despair and reduce hot flashes.
Some proponents say Buddha’s arrival in psychotherapy signals a broader opening in the culture at large — a way to access deeper healing, a hidden path revealed.
Yet so far, the evidence that mindfulness meditation helps relieve psychiatric symptoms is thin, and in some cases, it may make people worse, some studies suggest. Many researchers now worry that the enthusiasm for Buddhist practice will run so far ahead of the science that this promising psychological tool could turn into another fad.
“I’m very open to the possibility that this approach could be effective, and it certainly should be studied,” said Scott Lilienfeld, a psychology professor at Emory. “What concerns me is the hype, the talk about changing the world, this allure of the guru that the field of psychotherapy has a tendency to cultivate.”
Buddhist meditation came to psychotherapy from mainstream academic medicine. In the 1970s, a graduate student in molecular biology, Jon Kabat-Zinn, intrigued by Buddhist ideas, adapted a version of its meditative practice that could be easily learned and studied. It was by design a secular version, extracted like a gemstone from the many-layered foundation of Buddhist teaching, which has sprouted a wide variety of sects and spiritual practices and attracted 350 million adherents worldwide.
In transcendental meditation and other types of meditation, practitioners seek to transcend or “lose” themselves. The goal of mindfulness meditation was different, to foster an awareness of every sensation as it unfolds in the moment.
Dr. Kabat-Zinn taught the practice to people suffering from chronic pain at the University of Massachusetts medical school. In the 1980s he published a series of studies demonstrating that two-hour courses, given once a week for eight weeks, reduced chronic pain more effectively than treatment as usual.
Word spread, discreetly at first. “I think that back then, other researchers had to be very careful when they talked about this, because they didn’t want to be seen as New Age weirdos,” Dr. Kabat-Zinn, now a professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Massachusetts, said in an interview. “So they didn’t call it mindfulness or meditation. “After a while, we put enough studies out there that people became more comfortable with it.”
One person who noticed early on was Marsha Linehan, a psychologist at the University of Washington who was trying to treat deeply troubled patients with histories of suicidal behavior. “Trying to treat these patients with some change-based behavior therapy just made them worse, not better,” Dr. Linehan said in an interview. “With the really hard stuff, you need something else, something that allows people to tolerate these very strong emotions.”
In the 1990s, Dr. Linehan published a series of studies finding that a therapy that incorporated Zen Buddhist mindfulness, “radical acceptance,” practiced by therapist and patient significantly cut the risk of hospitalization and suicide attempts in the high-risk patients.
Finally, in 2000, a group of researchers including Dr. Segal in Toronto, J. Mark G. Williams at the University of Wales and John D. Teasdale at the Medical Research Council in England published a study that found that eight weekly sessions of mindfulness halved the rate of relapse in people with three or more episodes of depression.
With Dr. Kabat-Zinn, they wrote a popular book, “The Mindful Way Through Depression.” Psychotherapists’ curiosity about mindfulness, once tentative, turned into “this feeding frenzy, of sorts, that we have going on now,” Dr. Kabat-Zinn said.
Mindfulness meditation is easy to describe. Sit in a comfortable position, eyes closed, preferably with the back upright and unsupported. Relax and take note of body sensations, sounds and moods. Notice them without judgment. Let the mind settle into the rhythm of breathing. If it wanders (and it will), gently redirect attention to the breath. Stay with it for at least 10 minutes.
After mastering control of attention, some therapists say, a person can turn, mentally, to face a threatening or troubling thought — about, say, a strained relationship with a parent — and learn simply to endure the anger or sadness and let it pass, without lapsing into rumination or trying to change the feeling, a move that often backfires.
One woman, a doctor who had been in therapy for years to manage bouts of disabling anxiety, recently began seeing Gaea Logan, a therapist in Austin, Tex., who incorporates mindfulness meditation into her practice. This patient had plenty to worry about, including a mentally ill child, a divorce and what she described as a “harsh internal voice,” Ms. Logan said.
After practicing mindfulness meditation, she continued to feel anxious at times but told Ms. Logan, “I can stop and observe my feelings and thoughts and have compassion for myself.”
Steven Hayes, a psychologist at the University of Nevada at Reno, has developed a talk therapy called Acceptance Commitment Therapy, or ACT, based on a similar, Buddha-like effort to move beyond language to change fundamental psychological processes.
“It’s a shift from having our mental health defined by the content of our thoughts,” Dr. Hayes said, “to having it defined by our relationship to that content — and changing that relationship by sitting with, noticing and becoming disentangled from our definition of ourselves.”
For all these hopeful signs, the science behind mindfulness is in its infancy. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which researches health practices, last year published a comprehensive review of meditation studies, including T.M., Zen and mindfulness practice, for a wide variety of physical and mental problems. The study found that over all, the research was too sketchy to draw conclusions.
A recent review by Canadian researchers, focusing specifically on mindfulness meditation, concluded that it did “not have a reliable effect on depression and anxiety.”
Therapists who incorporate mindfulness practices do not agree when the meditation is most useful, either. Some say Buddhist meditation is most useful for patients with moderate emotional problems. Others, like Dr. Linehan, insist that patients in severe mental distress are the best candidates for mindfulness.
A case in point is mindfulness-based therapy to prevent a relapse into depression. The treatment significantly reduced the risk of relapse in people who have had three or more episodes of depression. But it may have had the opposite effect on people who had one or two previous episodes, two studies suggest.
The mindfulness treatment “may be contraindicated for this group of patients,” S. Helen Ma and Dr. Teasdale of the Medical Research Council concluded in a 2004 study of the therapy.
Since mindfulness meditation may have different effects on different mental struggles, the challenge for its proponents will be to specify where it is most effective — and soon, given how popular the practice is becoming.
“The answer to that question is yes to both,” Dr. Barnes said.
The real issue, most researchers agree, is whether the science will keep pace and help people distinguish the mindful variety from the mindless.
A variety of meditative practices have been studied by Western researchers for their effects on mental and physical health.
Tai Chi
An active exercise, sometimes called moving meditation, involving extremely slow, continuous movement and extreme concentration. The movements are to balance the vital energy of the body but have no religious significance.
Studies are mixed, some finding it can reduce blood pressure in patients, and others finding no effect. There is some evidence that it can help elderly people improve balance.
Transcendental Meditation
Meditators sit comfortably, eyes closed, and breathe naturally. They repeat and concentrate on the mantra, a word or sound chosen by the instructor to achieve state of deep, transcendent absorption. Practitioners “lose” themselves, untouched by day-to-day concerns. Studies suggest it can reduce blood pressure in some patients.
Mindfulness Meditation
Practitioners find a comfortable position, close the eyes and focus first on breathing, passively observing it. If a stray thought or emotion enters the mind, they allow it to pass and return attention to the breath. The aim is to achieve focused awareness on what is happening moment to moment.
Studies find that it can help manage chronic pain. The findings are mixed on substance abuse. Two trials suggest that it can cut the rate of relapse in people who have had three or more bouts of depression.
Yoga
Enhanced awareness through breathing techniques and specific postures. Schools vary widely, aiming to achieve total absorption in the present and a release from ordinary thoughts. Studies are mixed, but evidence shows it can reduce stress.
If you overly esteem talented individuals, people will become overly competitive. If you overvalue possessions, people will begin to steal.
Do not display your treasures or people will become envious.
The Master leads by emptying people's minds, filling their bellies, weakening their ambitions, and making them become strong. Preferring simplicity and freedom from desires, avoiding the pitfalls of knowledge and wrong action.
For those who practice not-doing, everything will fall into place.
Is reincarnation true? How about an afterlife? Karmic Laws? Now, that absolutely must exist. Heated debates and discussions swirl around these and other such fascinating questions, but what are the answers? Well let’s head over to Nowind Monastery and see if Master Blumise can help shed some light on these intriguing questions. Zen Story - The Secrets of the Universe
Part 1: Totonaka the Fanatic
Monk Totonaka had just joined Nowind Monastery a few months back, and he was absolutely delighted with all the spiritual growth he had experienced there in that short time. You see for many years, prior to joining Nowind, Totonaka had worked furiously to try to awaken himself. He had meditated night and day, and had been absolutely obsessed with enlightenment. In fact, he had pushed himself so hard, that finally he suffered a full mental and physical breakdown due to the stress and endless hours he had put his mind and body through. It was then that he had sought out Master Blumise, who had been instrumental in not only nursing him back to health, but also helping him rapidly make progress on the path to enlightenment. Here is how Mastery Blumise had accomplished so much so fast.
You see when Totonaka joined Nowind, Master Blumise explained to him the profound Law of Reincarnation. He told Totonaka that this was one of many lives that he would live and that the work he did in this life would carry over to the next, just as the work he had done in previous incarnations were responsible for his current spiritual state. He indicated to him that there was no need to overstress his body and mind with excessive meditation practice, and that he should relax and let things take their natural course.
This advice was exactly the serum that Totonaka needed to cure his maladies. It made him relax and let go. He stopped meditating like a man possessed, which gave his body a chance to heal and recover, and he let go of his attachment to enlightenment, which allowed him to stop focusing on the future and come into the here and now. This led to Totonaka making rapid progress on the road to nirvana, and he eagerly shared this development with his best friend Junjo.
Junjo, like Totonaka was immensely interested in enlightenment as well, and when he heard how well things had worked out for Totonaka at Nowind, he too decided to join the monastery. Junjo’s problems though, were opposite of Totonaka’s. He was one lazy monk. He would meditate off and on, and indulge in all the sensory pleasures he could get his hands and body on. As a result, his body was bloated, his mind dull and his spiritual progress stalled.
Part 2: Junjo the Lazy
Here is how the conversation between Master Blumise and Junjo went.
“Junjo!” yelled Master Blumise.
“Yes Master,” came the delayed response, irritating an already agitated Blumise further.
“I don’t know where you learned this nonsense, but there is no such thing as reincarnation, soul, higher self, and the rest of that mambo jumbo rubbish! You get but one crack at this life and if you screw it up, that is it. There are no second chances. Either you get your act together and awaken, or you lie on your death bed and lament wasting this most precious of opportunities,” blasted Master Blumise.
“But, master, you told Totonaka…” Junjo tried to argue.
“Shut up! It is all lies. There is no reincarnation and being lazy and wasting this life is the greatest sin you can commit,” Blumise interrupted harshly. And that was the end of that. The transformation of Junjo was as remarkable as that of Totonaka. He too in a few short months, got his body and mind in shape by ending his indulgent ways, and made enormous spiritual progress by meditation regularly, intensely and seriously.
Analysis of Secrets of the Universe
There are important aspects about the hidden secrets of how the universe works that are important to realize and let’s discuss a few of these below.
1. Universal Secrets are Rarely Known:
Not many people really know the hidden secrets of the universe. It is not knowledge that is handed out casually and even those that are privy to some of these higher laws, only tend to have partial knowledge at best. Most of those who do claim to know and really just quoting things they have read and believed in.
2. Universal Secrets are Not Needed for Enlightenment:
Such knowledge is not required for enlightenment. For enlightenment you need to realize that which is false – the separate sense of self and psychological time, but you don’t need to know the intricacies of how the cycles of life and death work. You may choose to study these hidden laws and thus become an all knowing Buddha (in addition to being enlightened), but as I said, it is not required for enlightenment.
The third and final point about the Secrets of the Universe is perhaps the most important, and that is really the moral of the zen story above.
3. The Real Value of Such Universal Laws:
These universal laws should be seen more as tools to help you with your spiritual growth, so don’t get drawn into theoretical debates about their validity. That holds little value. Instead wield them as tools and apply them in any way that helps you make progress on the path to enlightenment.
This is what sets apart the wise teacher from the ordinary. The wise teacher, who is only ultimately interested in awakening you, will know how and when to bring up these laws to help you grow. Master Blumise needed Totonaka to relax, so he told him about the law of reincarnation, which led him to adopt a healthy practice, while on the other hand, Junjo needed a kick in the butt, so Master Blumise stressed upon him the value of his current life.
Such an approach is what I refer to as the first Law of Tantra, which says, whatever helps you with your spiritual growth, use it.
Three Qualities (the eight aspects of the path can be grouped into three qualities as follows)
* Wisdom (panna) o a. Right View o b. Right Thought * Morality (sila) o a. Right Speech o b. Right Action o c. Right Livelihood * Meditation (samadhi) o a. Right Effort o b. Right Mindfulness o c. Right Contemplation or concentration or meditation
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