Meditation - What? & Why?
“Meditation is a science, the systematic process of training the mind. It is the science of meditation that allows people from all walks of life to experience the same amazing benefits. A regular sitting practice has been shown to enhance concentration, lower blood pressure, and improve sleep. It is used to treat chronic pain, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Meditators develop valuable insights into their personality, behaviors, and relationships, making it easier to recognize and change past conditioning and counterproductive views that make life difficult. They have a greater awareness and sensitivity to others, which is enormously helpful at work and in personal relationships. The calming and relaxing effects of meditation also translate into increased emotional stability when confronting the inevitable stresses of life. Yet, these are only incidental benefits.
Fully-developed meditation skills also give rise to unique and wonderful mental states characterized by physical comfort and pleasure, joy and happiness, deep satisfaction, and profound inner peace – states that can open the mind to an intuitive appreciation of our interconnectedness and dispel the illusion of separateness created by our egos. Furthermore, these fruits of meditation can be enjoyed all day long, for many days at a time, and we can renew them whenever we like just by sitting down and practicing. … systematic training will lead to [these mental states] with unfailing certainty. But even so, these peak experiences aren’t the ultimate benefit of meditation. While bliss, joy, tranquility, and equanimity are delightful, they are also transitory and easily disrupted by sickness, aging, and difficult life circumstances. They also offer no protection from the corrupting influences of lust, greed, and aversion, nor their consequences. Therefore, these states are not an end in themselves, but only a means to a higher goal.
That higher goal is Awakening. Other commonly used terms include Enlightenment, Liberation, or Self-Realization. Each of these refers to a complete and lasting freedom from suffering unaffected by aging, disease, or circumstances. True happiness, the bliss of perfect contentment, follows upon liberation from suffering. Awakening isn’t some transient experience of unity and temporary dissolution of ego. It’s the attainment of genuine wisdom; an enlightened understanding that comes from a profound realization and awakening to ultimate truth. This is a cognitive event that dispels ignorance through direct experience. Direct knowledge of the true nature of reality and the permanent liberation from suffering describes the only genuinely satisfactory goal of the spiritual path. A mind with this type of Insight experiences life, and death, as a great adventure, with the clear purpose of manifesting love and compassion toward all beings.
Meditation is the art of fully conscious living. What we make of our life – the sum total of thoughts, emotions, words, and actions that fill the brief interval between birth and death – is our one great creative masterpiece. The beauty and significance of a life well lived consists not in the works we leave behind, or in what history has to say about us. It comes from the quality of conscious experience that infuses our every waking moment, and from the impact we have on others.
‘Know thyself’ is the advice of sages. To live life consciously and creatively as a work of art, we need to understand the raw material we have to work with. This is nothing other than the continuously unfolding stream of conscious experience that is our life. Whether we’re awake or dreaming, this stream consists of sensations, thoughts, emotions, and the choices we make in response to them. That is our personal reality. The art and science of meditation helps us live a more fulfilling life, because it gives us the tools we need to examine and work with our conscious experience.”
Culadasa (John Yates PhD), Matthew Immergut PhD, Jeremy Graves. “The Mind Illuminated. A Complete Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science.” Dharma Treasure Press, Pearce, AZ, 2015.
