Tag: meditation

Purpose of Meditation

One of our participants sent me an email asking is the purpose of meditation practice to find that 15 minutes of peace. This is such a great question so I thought we would talk about the purpose of meditation practice tonight. Surely, we want to find that peace within us on a daily basis for however long that we can find it. But the purpose of practice is never the practice.

What do I mean by that? Let’s say you decide to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Now unless you are used to climbing fourteeners, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is no small feat. Especially, the last day. The first few days it is relatively easy but on the last day, you are supposed to start climbing around 9 or 10 pm at night. You will reach the peak just around dawn. You take a few pictures and then continue with the descent for about four hours or so before getting to a camp. This is not an easy day for anybody. You will be essentially on your feet for 10 hours or so. In this case, you will start conditioning your body before you head out to Tanzania. You begin a daily exercise routine and probably weekly climbing practice. The purpose of this conditioning is not to get good at conditioning but to prepare yourself for the climb on Mount Kilimanjaro.

Our daily meditation practice is supposed to condition us for our daily worldly activities. For example, let’s say you buy a 10,000 piece Lego puzzle. That’s a lot of pieces and would take you a few days to complete for sure. Now you begin to organize your pieces in different piles first. Then you begin to build the puzzle. You spend say 30 minutes doing this. If you spend the next 23 ½ hours breaking what you have already built and mix all the pieces you had separated what is the result? The next day, you will have a bigger challenge on your hand.

So when we meditate, we are trying to find that peace within us for sure. The bigger purpose however is to make sure that we carry that with us throughout the rest of our day. We want to be centered no matter what life throws at us. That is the real purpose of our meditation. Getting grounded within ourselves. If during our meditation practice say you had a rough time concentrating on a particular day. But after meditation is complete, you are able to be kind and loving towards everyone you come across. That is a successful mediation session. On the other hand, if you had a peaceful meditation where you came close to enlightenment but after the meditation session you have difficulty showing compassion towards anyone, that was an unsuccessful meditation session.

Types of Mind

I am sure you have heard a lot about the mind. Before we dig into it, let’s just briefly make sure what it is not. A mind is certainly not your brain. Our brain is an organ, mind on the other hand does not have a physical dimension. Our mind is located in the region of our heart chakra. Its nature is clarity. This means that it is empty, like clear space, and that it is a formless continuum completely lacking shape and color, which possesses the actual power to perceive, understand and remember objects…The function of the mind is to perceive or cognize objects, to understand or impute objects. The mind also has the power to create. The mind is the “creator of all” according to Buddha. If we think about it, this makes sense. Everything that we have in this world, someone had to create it in their mind. Our computer for example, before someone built it, someone had to design it. They had to think about how it may work and then put it on a piece of paper. Similarly, in the building we are in, an architect came up with a design in their mind before creating plans for someone to build.

Our mind also known as “Chitta” is generally divided into three broad categories. Our gross waking mind, our subtle mind, and our very subtle mind. Our gross waking mind is the one in charge of our day to day activities. It allows us to function in this physical world. Our mind controls all of our actions. Our gross waking mind is in our physical realm meaning it knows the concept of time and space. At night, however, when we fall asleep, our gross waking mind ceases to exist. It is almost like the death process. We have no clue what happens in our deep sleep. As if we did not exist at all. During our sleep, our subtle mind takes over. This is the mind that controls our dreams. It makes sure that our bodily functions are still active. Our subtle mind is not conformed to our physical realm. It moves from one place to another without any concept of time and space. Sometimes we remember what happens in our dream state, that is because we are either in the process of moving from gross mind to subtle mind or the other way around. In these cases, we are in a lucid state and we distinctly remember our dreams. A very subtle mind on the other hand is our so-called consciousness. This is the mind that travels from lifetime to lifetime without any attachment to our body. It is mounted on our karma so that is why our karma decides our fate. Our very subtle mind leaves our body at death along with our karmic winds. Our very subtle mind is a pure mind. It has no delusions. It is our buddha nature meaning it has potential for enlightenment. Every one of us has that pure potential. During our meditation, the peace we discover is our very subtle mind. That is what we want to hold onto and use as our go-to resource when delusions arise in our gross minds.

Joyful Death

Today, let’s talk about something unusual – joyful death! At a first glance, it sounds like an oxymoron, but as you will see, it is a profound subject. I read two books recently on death. Living Meaningfully and Dying Joyfully – a book by Kelsang Gyasto – a Buddhist meditation master.  The second book was Death an inside story by Sadhguru – a Yogi. Surprisingly, both books had a very similar theme and conclusion. They also have similar teachings on what happens at death. At death, our very subtle mind or I or sole leaves this body and stays in what is known as an intermediate state for anywhere from a few hours to few weeks before taking another birth. That another birth could be in any realm – human, animal, and so forth depending upon what karma ripened at the time of our death.

In general, in the west, we have this fear of death. All of us intellectually know everyone dies someday but we don’t take that to mean that we too shall die. If you think about it, every minute that passes, we are one minute closer to our death – scarry right?

During our Karma Q&A sessions, we briefly touched on the fact that Karma that ripens at our death determines where we end up next in this cycle of birth and death. So let’s discuss what it really means. We have all created negative Karma in this lifetime and previous lives. So strictly statistically speaking, the chance of negative Karma ripening at death is higher than the chance of positive karma ripening. How do we get around these overwhelming odds against us? If we die peacefully or joyfully, we increase our odds of positive karma ripening significantly.

That leads to the next question – how do we die peacefully? There is actually a whole science behind this. In a nutshell, during death, one must be without any attachment, fear, pain, or anyone of the delusions. If that happens, our negative karma will not ripen at death. This means no thinking about our possessions; money, cars, houses, etc. No worrying about our loved ones removing all attachment. No concern about our mental and physical pain. There are things people around those who are dying can do to help the process as well. The biggest thing loved ones can do for a dying person is not be attached to them. Meaning no holding hands, no crying, no we will miss you, no it is too soon, no please stay, and so forth. As that creates a strong sense of attachment that we are trying to avoid. We can also make things conducive for a dying person by playing soft devotional music.

I have only experienced one death of a loved one in my life. But it was textbook joyful death. A few years ago, my uncle passed away. At the time of death, there were about 20 people in the room, no one was touching or even close to his bed. Everyone was singing bhajans and in about half an hour or so, he passed away. No one was crying, it was just a matter of fact as opposed to a sad event. That is what is needed to make sure our negative karma does not ripen at death.

I know this is a different topic and not everyone is comfortable thinking about but it is an important event in one’s journey through life. It decides what our next destination may be so we must begin to think about how best we can make this a peaceful if not joyful event.

So in our meditation today, we will first settle down in our hearts. Then we will perform what is known as absorption of cessation meditation. All that means is no thoughts, no feelings, no sensations. We do this by imagining ourselves as a piece of wood. A piece of wood has no thoughts, or feelings, or emotions. Just like that, we will stay still in our mind experiencing a deep peace. We will hold that peace as long as we can.

Equalizing Self w Others

Let’s talk about equalizing ourselves with others. This means cherishing others as much as we cherish ourselves. Earlier in Episode 5, we talked about the kindness of others – although it seems like ages ago! Just to recap on that so we can build on it. So many people are kind to us on a daily basis. For example, let’s take the simple act of drinking a glass of water. Someone had to design a water system (countless people are involved in just the design phase); then someone built that water system; water is being purified and filtered before it is delivered to your home. Someone designed, built, shipped, and sold the water glass to you. Can you imagine how many total numbers of people were involved for you to get that glass of water?

Next, we think about they all want to be happy as much as we do. And that is the fact correct. No one that we know says I don’t want to be happy. They may not say in as many words that I want to be happy but we all know that they do. All of us want to eliminate physical and mental pain that comes along every now and then. Unfortunately, more often than not. So I think we all agree that all in that regard we are no different from other beings. We are all equal.

Finally, we think about they are many and I am just one. This is a little bit difficult for a lot of people to grasp. But let’s say you were put in charge of saving an African village. One action you take will help 499 out of 500 people in that village but will negatively impact one person. But if you don’t take that action, all 500 people will suffer. Now you don’t know anyone in that village. So for you, this is an easy decision. You will take the action for the greater good – help 499 people. You are able to make that decision because you have detached yourself so you are able to take an objective look at the situation. Similarly, if we objectively take a look, we are just one person and they are many. Their happiness is as much of importance as our happiness. This is the process of equalizing self with others.