Hi, in this video I’ll be talking about some of the ways
in which we can incorporate the
meditation practice into our daily life.
First of all the first important thing to explain
in terms of incorporating the meditation practice
into our daily life
are those things which it’s going to be
important for us to abstain from
if our meditation practice is to be effective and is to have
good results in our daily life.
As we mentioned in the beginning
meditation is an equivalent to medication,
and as we know with medication
there are always certain things which
you can’t take in conjunction with the medication,
some certain things which
when taken together with the medication
will cause the medication to be ineffective
or will be contraindicative to the results which
we’re hoping to get from the medication.
So certain things, when we take medication,
there’s always certain things
we have to take out of our diet.
Well with meditation it’s very similar.
Meditation is something which is
to bring about a certain state of clarity
or a natural state of purity in the mind,
to bring our minds back to this
state of clarity and sobriety
which is free from suffering.
So then there are certain actions,
certain things which we can do by way of
body or by way of speech
which are going to be contraindicative,
which are going to have the opposite effect,
which are going to create a more clouded state of mind,
which are going to bring about
high states of anger, high states of addiction,
high states of delusion, high states of…
clouded mind states.
So these things we’re going to have to
take out of our diet, so to speak,
if our meditation is to be effective.
The first thing that we have to take out is
not to kill;
we have to make a promise to ourselves
that we’re not going to kill living beings.
Not to kill living ants or mosquitoes or any sort of
living being which breathes,
and which is… in and of itself
doesn’t wish to die.
Number two; not to steal.
So if our meditation is to be effective
we have to be able to
respect the possessions of other people
and not to take things without permission.
Number three; not to commit adultery
or sexual misconduct,
to get involved in romantic relationships
or sexual conduct which is
emotionally or spiritually damaging to other people.
Number four; not to tell lies;
not to deceive other people,
or take them away from their reality.
And number five not to take drugs or alcohol,
not to take anything really which is going to be
intoxicating for our mind,
things which create states of insobriety,
take us away from our natural, pure,
clear state of mind.
These things are, it’s very important that we actually
abstain from them completely
if our meditation practice is to be successful.
There are certain other things
which can be undertaken,
can be partaken of but
must be partaken of in moderation
if our meditation is to be successful.
These things are not unwholesome but
when taken in conjunction with the meditation they
reduce the effect,
they take away from the clarity of the mind
when taken out of moderation.
These are things like,
first of all, eating;
we have to be careful not to eat too much,
if we’re always obsessed with food,
this is one major addiction.
This is something which creates sloth, which creates
an unhealthy bodily state as well.
It’s something which is overall
not conducive for meditation practice,
this is overeating.
We have to eat to stay alive
but we shouldn’t live simply to eat.
Another one is entertainment;
watching television, watching movies,
listening to music and so on.
These are not unwholesome things
but when taken in excess
they create states of addiction,
and states of insobriety actually, in the mind,
they take the mind out of its natural clarity.
Using the internet for instance
should be done in moderation.
And the third one is that, as far as sleeping.
Now sleeping can be one addiction that we often overlook
and we don’t realise that actually
we enjoy sleeping so much
and whenever problems arise we always
find ourselves going to take a nap or going,
trying to sleep more.
Some people actually become insomniacs
because they’re so obsessed about their sleep
and we find that through the meditation practice
actually we need very little sleep.
You know lack of sleep is not a real problem because
our minds are so calm and so pure all the time.
These are things which have to be taken in moderation
and altogether these are things which we have to
start to take out of our life if the meditation
is to be a successful part of our daily life.
Now onto the question how do we then incorporate
the meditation directly into our daily life,
and this we do in two ways.
First of all we focus on the body.
Now the body in general is in
one of the four major postures
at all times.
So either we’re sitting,
or we’re standing,
or we’re walking,
or we’re lying down.
And we can use these four postures as sort of a
very clear and very gross base for us to
always find something to be mindful of,
to create a clear thought.
So when we’re walking, instead of simply walking
and letting our minds wander
we can say to ourselves ‘walking, walking,
walking, walking’.
When we’re standing we can say ‘standing, standing’,
when we sit we can say ‘sitting, sitting’
when we lie down ‘lying, lying, lying’.
This is when we’re not actually doing the meditation,
we can undertake this practice at all times.
Similarly with minor movements of the body,
when we bend we can say ‘bending’,
when we stretch ‘stretching’,
when we move the hand ‘moving’,
when we brush our teeth ‘brushing’
when we eat food ‘chewing, chewing’ and
‘swallowing, swallowing’ and so on.
Any movement that we make in the body during the day
we can be mindful of.
When we go to the washroom,
when we take a shower,
when we change our clothes,
when we wash our clothes,
whatever we do during the day
we can be mindful of that as well,
creating a clear thought based on the movements of the body.
This is the first way of incorporating the practice
directly into our daily life.
The second way is we can use the senses,
so seeing,
hearing,
smelling,
tasting
and feeling.
Normally when we see something we either
enjoy it or we get upset by it.
Well now we’re going to start to use it
to create a clear thought,
not to create a judging thought.
When we see something just to know that we’re seeing,
say to ourselves ‘seeing,
seeing, seeing.’
When we hear something instead of listening and enjoying
or getting angry and upset by it,
we say to ourselves ‘hearing.’
When we smell we can say ‘smelling.’
When we taste instead of enjoying it or
getting repulsed by the taste
we can simply say to ourselves ‘tasting, tasting’
and keep our mind clear.
When we feel something on the body,
hot or cold,
hard or soft or whatever feeling,
we say to ourselves ‘feeling, feeling, feeling’.
These two ways are sort of a general practice
which we can undertake in our daily life
and a way of incorporating the meditation practice
directly into our daily life.
Of course we can also be mindful of all of the things
which I mentioned in the earlier videos;
pain for instance,
or the emotions, anger or greed or so on.
But besides all of those, this we can say is an addition
which once we’ve mastered the four foundations
which I mentioned in the earlier video,
we can then add all of these things on as well
as a way of incorporating the practice into our daily life.
This is an explanation of meditation practice in daily life
and this concludes the
set of videos on how to meditate
and I would like to thank you all for watching,
taking the time to watch these videos and
I really, truly, sincerely hope
that these videos bring
peace and happiness
and freedom from suffering
to you and all of the people around you.
Again, thank you for tuning in. If you’d like more information
you’re welcome to contact us through the website.
All the best to you.