The meaning of Meditation or bhawana is focusing
your attention mindfully to a wholesome object over a period of
time. Meditation is concentrated awareness or collectiveness gained by
controlling the mind and training it to bring inner peace to the individual who
practices it. Meditation or bhawana is mental cultivation.
The Buddha explained that our mind is always
influenced by the three defilements or the three roots of evil, called,
greed, anger (ill will or hatred) and delusion (ignorance of reality). When
any of these roots are present in us, our mind can be influenced by imaginations
rooted by these defilements that can give us a false view of reality. Meditation
helps us to realise the true nature of this wild mind and aims at purifying the
mind with the negative thoughts and disturbances that arise in our mind,
such as: greed, hatred, laziness, worry and doubt.
There are two kinds of meditation techniques taught by
the Buddha. Tranquility or Samatha refers to the calmness we experience
by controlling and reducing the rising of mental impurities. Samatha, calm or tranquility
meditation leads to Janas (absorptions) and Abhinna (physic
super-normal powers).
Samatha mediation is concerned with producing a
one-pointed mind. One pointedness is gained through a concentrated state in
which all the faculties and mental power are directed towards one object.
A calm mind is necessary to have a deep look into ourselves
and to have a deep understanding of ourselves and the world. If we train our mind
in this manner, we will gain calmness and tranquility and will also be able to
concentrate our mind to one point. This helps to stop the mind from frittering
away and wasting its useful energy.
Once our mind is calmed, through the development of Vipasana or Insight
meditation, we can analyse almost every component thing and
then, understand it's true nature. Vipasana bhawana leads to insight
wisdom and Nibbana. Vipasana is an insight to the true nature of things, and
seeing things as they are. Insight meditation is mental training for
penetrative understanding of the “Three Characteristics of Existence” (Ti
lakkhana) namely impermanence, misery and non-substantiality (anicca, dukka and
anatta).
One should keep in mind that with what ever the form of meditation one does, the essential thing is mindfulness or awareness (sati), attention or observation (anupassana).
Thank you. With metta!
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for sharing the information about meditation. I believe meditation should be made compulsory for children at school. It will turn them out to be a better youth of the country. Great article, Venerable Sudhamma. Keep sharing!
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This blog gives more information about meditation. In general by doing meditation daily it can reduce the stress, relax the mind. Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you for all your nice comments!
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