Hi and welcome to
this series of videos on how to meditate.
In this the first video I will be talking about
what is the meaning of the word "meditation".
First of all, the word meditation
can mean many different things to different people.
For some people meditation means simply
a calming of the mind, creating of a pleasurable or
peaceful state of being for some time
a sort of like a vacation or escape from the reality around us.
For other people meditation can mean
an extraordinary or special experience of some alternate state
of reality, perhaps creating magical states or
super mundane states of awareness.
In this video I'd like to take the word meditation
first of all, back to its root, and explain it based on
the meaning of the word meditation.
When we look at the word meditation we can see that it comes from a root
very similar to the word medication.
And so whereas medication means something which is used to cure the sickness which
exists in the body,
we then can understand meditation as something which is used to cure
sickness which exists in the mind.
So as opposed to, when we look at medication
we can see that as opposed to a drug it's not something that simply creates a state
of pleasure or a state of happiness for some time.
It's something which is actually used to create, to effect a change in the body,
a state of greater bodily health, bring the body back to
it's natural state of health.
So in this way, meditation - we can see
we can understand it as something which not simply brings about
a state of peace or calm temporarily.
It's something which returns the mind - which may for many of us
be in an unnatural state of being based on its worries or stresses
or conditioning, any kinds of conditioning from the experience of the world around.
Instead we can see that meditation is something which
actually effects a change and brings the mind back to its natural state
of peace and happiness.
So in these videos it's important to understand that
sometimes during the meditation it may not feel peaceful and calm.
Sometimes the meditation is dealing with the very deep
and unpleasant states which exist in our minds
state of stress, state of worry, state of anger
state of addiction and so on.
And so sometimes it might seems that this sort of meditation is not as peaceful
as we might have wished for but we have to understand that
this isn't simply a drug.
This isn't simply a way to feel pleasure for a short time.
It's something which is meant to effect a real change
on our minds and on our hearts, to bring our minds and our hearts
back to its natural state of clarity, and our natural state of peace and happiness.
So the next question is how is that we come to
affect this change or this healing, this remedy for these states of anger,
of greed, of addition, of delusion, of conceit, of arrogance, of worry, of stress, of fear
and so on. How is that we come to cure these things?
In the practice here in this set videos, the basis of the practice of meditation
as I will be explaining it is what we call a clear thought.
We're creating a clear awareness of the experience as it happens in every moment.
And the way we do this is we use an ancient technic
which is called "mantra". The ancient practice of mantra meditation.
But instead of focusing it on some sort of mantra,
a word, which is super mundane or
out of the ordinary, we're going be focusing our attention on the
ordinary, on the reality around us as we experience
it.
But we'll be using a mantra, this word, this name, this label
for the experience, which brings the mind into focus,
and to clearly experience the phenomenon as it arises.
To know it clearly, to see it for what it is,
and to not be addicted, attached, or upset, or averse to that experience.
To simply know it, and experience it for what it is.
So for instance when we feel something in the body,
or when we move our body, or when we think of something in the mind
and so on, we're going to create a clear thought for
instance, "thinking".
If we get angry, we're going to say to ourselves
"angry". If we feel pain,
we're going to say to ourselves "pain".
We're going to pick a word which describes the experience accurately,
which therefore fixes the mind on the experience for what it is,
not becoming upset or attached to the experience.
To do this traditionally, we break experience/reality up into four parts.
So we can label reality in one of these four parts.
Whatever we experience will be somewhere within these four parts.
On a basic level, these four parts are called:
Body, the movement,
or the position of the body;
Feelings, the sensations which exists in the body,
and in the mind, and when we feel pain or happiness or calm;
Mind, this is the thoughts which exists in the mind,
thinking of the past, or the future, good thoughts, bad thoughts,
whatever kind of thoughts we have;
And number four, the mental states, the state of mind,
whether it be emotional states, whether it be states of clarity,
or states of drowsiness, or states of worry,
states of doubts, and so on.
These four, the body, the feelings,
the thoughts, and the mental states, are the four foundations of the meditation
practice.
This is what we're going to use to create a clear thought in the present moment.
So for instance, every moment when we move our body.
Suppose we lift our hand, when we raise our hand
during the time when we're meditating, we can say to ourselves,
"raising".
When we're sitting still, we can say to ourselves,
"sitting".
Or whatever the position the body is in, we can be simply aware of the position of
the body. It's one part of the reality that
we can use to create a clear thought.
The second is the feeling that exists in the body and the mind.
When we feel pain in the body, we can say to ourselves,
"pain".
We can repeat again and again to ourselves, "pain ... pain ... pain".
Instead of allowing the anger or upset to arise
because of the pain, we simply remind ourselves that
it's merely a sensation which has arisen in the body.
When we feel happy, we can say the same thing,
"happy ... happy ...". Not pushing it away,
but also not attaching to it giving it more significance than it actually
has. And therefore not creating a state of addiction,
a state of attachment, a state of need.
When we feel calm, we can also say
"calm, calm, calm" and so on.
When we're thinking, number three is the "thoughts".
So when we're thinking of the past, good thoughts from the past,
bad thoughts from the past, we can say to ourselves,
"thinking ... thinking ...".
Instead of letting them becoming something good,
or something bad, something to create attachment or
something to create aversion, we simply know that they are thinking.
They are thoughts which have arisen.
When we're thinking of the future, when we're thinking of anything,
we can simply come to be aware of the fact that
we're thinking instead of liking or disliking
or becoming attached to the thoughts, allowing fear and worries,
stress and so on to arise.
And the emotional states or the mental states When we feel angry,
once anger has arisen instead of letting it build and snowball
and become hatred or become an action where we attack
or a speech where we shout where we yell where we argue
we simply know that we are angry and we stop it there
and don't allow it to go further.
when we feel greed when we want something very bad
instead of taking or trying to trick someone into
so we can get the better of them stealing or
tricking or creating trouble for someone else
so we can get what we want
we see that we want something, we simply acknowledge it for what it is
and therefore we don't need to do bad deeds to get the things we want
we say to ourselves, "wanting, wanting"
when we feel lazy or so on and we don't want to do the things
which we know that we should be doing we can say to ourselves
"lazy, lazy"
when we're distracted or worried or stressed, we can say "distracted", or "worried", or
"stressed."
when we feel doubt, we don't know if we can do
what we need to do or we're not sure what to do
or we're confused, we can say to ourselves
"doubting, doubting" or "confused, confused"
So this is the basis of the meditation practice
as I'm going to explain them in these videos and this is the introduction on
how to meditate.