Tag: peace

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.

Our Daily Problems

When you think about our daily problems, they fall into two categories: outer problems and inner problems. If we understand the difference between outer problems and inner problems, we can begin to look at a solution for a peaceful life. Let’s take some examples. Say our car breaks down. Some people get really anxious when their car breaks down – creating an inner problem. This is a result of a strong attachment towards an object. We have so much attachment towards our things that we begin to identify with our possessions. When a car breaks down, it can be fixed by a skilled mechanic. It just needs the right person to fix it. However, when we begin to get unhappy because of the breakdown of the car, no one can fix that. We are the only ones responsible for our inner happiness. If we control our mind and realize that car is an inanimate object. It has no feelings, so it has no problems as such. Yes, it is broken but by itself, it has no problems. It cannot express its disappointment. It is completely an outer problem. On the other hand, if we look at the breaking down of a car objectively, take it to the right shop to get fixed and not let it disturb our inner peace, we will come out ahead.

Let’s take another example of our body which is much closer to ourselves than an external object or a situation. Now, this is going to be uncomfortable for a lot of people because all of our lives, we have identified our body as I. Let’s say we get diagnosed with a disease. Getting a disease or hurting our body is an inner problem most of you will argue. But it is actually our body’s problem. We have this strong attachment to our bodies that makes us think that we are our bodies. We believe our pain comes from our body, but the body cannot feel pain without the mind. The body is also an inanimate object just like our car. You may have heard stories of Indian yogis who let their Doctors perform surgery on them without anesthesia. These yogis do not feel any pain because they have overcome their self-grasping and understand that they are not their body. We, on the other hand, grasp our bodies a little too tight!

If we let that outer problem affect us internally, it affects our happiness creating an inner problem. Our unpleasant feelings are the result of our mind. They are arising out of uncontrolled desires or attachment, anger, and self-grasping. What do I mean by that? When we become upset about an external object such as a car breaking down, surely, we are responding to our attachment to our car or our attachment towards a meeting we are headed to and so forth. It is certainly our attachment that is driving these feelings. If we learn to objectively separate our attachment, we will not get angry and we will be able to maintain our inner peace. For example, I was in a car accident a few years ago. I hit a car in front of me on a highway. I walked out asked the other driver to make sure he was fine. And then knowing he was fine, I apologized to him and he said it’s just the car! What a beautiful way to look at it. I am sure he had somewhere to be and was delayed because of me. He knew the car was going to be fixed by insurance. He did not let an outer problem affect his inner peace. How many of us can remain peaceful like that? That is what keeps our inner happiness.

It is never too late to start controlling our minds. If we make a determination that we will not let outer problems disturb us, we should be able to make a habit – remember, it takes 21 days to make a habit.