Why I meditate?
It is way to still the mind.
To calm the mind.
So that with a calm state of mind we find,
we attune ourself
to how things really exist.
We take a step back from
the way were are conditioned in life
to view things through our culture, commercialism, you know, traditions,
language, family.. All these things.
We are deeply ingrained to function in a certain way.
And most of those ways that we function are dissatisfied.
There is fundamental insecurity in how we exist.
The way that we grasp at ours identity ourself is based.. I know.
I'm, you know.. Good. I'm ok because
I'm working here and I have this bank account,
and this house, and car, and this friends, and.. You know..
So I'm cool. I'm part of this group or something.
And we make.. We create this image of ourself continually dependent
on all these things that are not
a real source of the sense of self.
All of these things will disappear.
We will lose that car. We will lose these friends.
We will lose that house.
We will lose the body in which we inhabit, that forms the foundation.
We are constantly
defending our sense of self.
And trying to make ourselves feel secure
are based on all the things that are insecure.
That are impermament, that will change.
And as the world around us change, were scrambling
to find things to make us feel okay.
I'm ok because I'm white and I belong to a country club, you know..
But that continually building up our sense of self is a type of neuroses.
And doesn't matter how strong we get a sense build this neurotic sence itself
it is neurotic and it's fundamentally insecure.
And insecurity cannot be separated from that since itself.
That insecurity will always be there.
The only way to get beyond that is to turn the mind inward
and see how we create that self, and how that is an illusion.
And there's a deeper, calmer, peaceful, clear state of mind
that doesn't depend on all of these
materialistic attachments.
Whether it's physical materialism or mental philosophy type of
a possession that we might have.
I'm ok because I'm buddhist and, you know..
Buddhists have a better view of things.
Or I'm ok because I can meditate and I have experience in meditation,
and I'm proud of that I'm attached to that.
You have to get underneath all these different levels of
materialistic approach to reality.
That there's something out there that's going to answer
this fundamental sense of insecurity, of dissatisfaction
that goes along with the normal nature of being.
The mind and the breath are very intricately connected.
When we are agitated we don't breathe well.
If we learn how to breathe well and deeply
it undercuts most of the agitation in the mind.
And so by calming the mind and
finding this deep, clear
state of mind
you can start to perceive how things really are.
For example, the impermanent nature of things.
How everything's changing.
There's not a permanent cell itself.
There's no permanent solid other.
Families, possessions..
All of the commercial consumers around us.
All these things are not answers.
Aren't themselves to the problems of life.
It's how we deal with them.
How scillfully we make use of them.
And from a clear, calm state of mind we can abandon
the delusions, that drive so many of our habits of relating
to the world around us
though attachment, reversion, anger, desire and the underlying one of ignorance.
By understanding, or at least giving our ignorance a break,
giving ourselves a break from our ignorance
we can start to see and embrace the nature of the world around us.
This impermanence. This change.
This always becoming something else.
And once we can see how we are creating
the world around us,
and how our mind is creating the world around us, and how different states of
mind skillfully do good things
or unskillfully create bad things,
abandon the states that create suffering,
cultivate the states that cause happiness in ourselves and ourselves and others.
We can bring not only ourselves to greater and greater states of happiness.
We can help all other beings finding their way out of suffering.
And come to their own true natures,
find their own inner source of happiness,
of peace of mind, of stillness, of clarity, of embracing the change
that makes anything possible in the universe
and gives us the creative ability to accomplish
anything we set our minds to.
One of the keys to meditation:
you don't have to do a lot of it.
But the real key is to do it every day
A little bit. Especially at the beginning .
It doesn't take much.