Meditation

This is an attempt to illustrate higher or Abhidhamma terminology.

I had been ambivalent about any attempt at meditation due to my own medical attention to some who had adverse effects very early in my medical career.

This is not an attempt to go into them but to put Reverend Narada Thera's succinct description of them in Pali terminology.

Buddhist psychology is at variance with modern psychology and there are no equivalent English terminology for Javana and Bhavanga Sota or stream of consciousness as described by William James.

Javana or impulsion of the mind is described as a bee getting attracted to a flower.

It is called Vittaka.

The intentional attention of the mind at Jhana state is called Vichara.

Jhana is a state where, when one gives  willful attention to an object of meditation for a very short duration he/she glimpses (one may or may not attain this state ) the state of mind of the beholder.
Its nature is evanescent.

At this point one's blood pressure may fluctuate drastically and one who is on Western medication should ask one's doctor before attempting meditation.

Meditation has no therapeutic value.

1. At first Jhana one perceive, Vittaka, Vichara, Piti, Sucka and Ekggakata

2. At second Jhana one deletes the Vittaka.

3. At third Jhana one deletes Vittaka ad Vichara

4. At fourth Jhana one admonish Vittaka, Vichara and Piti.

5. At fifth Jhana one drops even happiness or Sucka and is left with only Ekaggata.

In other words one attains equilibrium or equanimity.

That is the essence of Jhana in meditation.

Any of these states without the understanding of the basic tenants of Dhamma of Anitta, Dukka or Anatma is of no value to the practitioner.

 

Benefits of Meditation and Lapses in My Memory

I have reproduced a piece I have written 4 years ago,the reason being that I forgot all my bank cards PIN numbers for a brief period recently.

I used A's Pin Number to B's Pin number and after three attempts bank inactivated all my cards.

Mind you, I luckily had an account in a different Bank and survived until my new card arrived.

All this due to enjoying my retirement and paucity of use of the daily routines.

So I immediately, joined my account with a family member.

The other thing that one forgets is the passwords for email accounts.

I have addressed that scenario in length elsewhere.

Just like forgetting PIN numbers and passwords if one abruptly stops Practicing Meditation, what ever the benefits accrued will dissipate in no time.

That is why, I recommend (and practice MM) Moment and Frequent Meditation (mental) exercises. Having said that I have not found a solution for lapses in my memory.

I still do not carry a Memory Note with me. Now my NEW method is counting the the lapses of my memory on daily routines.

How many lapses a day?

That seems to keep my memory fine tuned.

I sometime forget to fill the bowl with water for my dog.

He is totally blind and when this happens he seems to go in circles round the house to bring attention to its needs.

He reminds me of the routine and the lapse in my memory.

My dog has a fantastic memory (in our age he is nearing 100 years) and still behaves like a 7 year old kid and won't do anything to annoy me.

That is the difference of a pet and a human soul. Humans when old becomes very grumpy for no reason.

There is lot to learn from a dog.

This is part of the introduction to my Book on Meditation.

Benefits of Meditation

There are many claims of benefit of meditation often poorly substantiated. Some of these benefit can be obtained without resort to meditation but simple change in life style.

Suppose a meditator changes his food habits drastically say to a vegetarian diet and practice meditation as a routine and finds that his blood cholesterol is lowered significantly, and then if he or she attributes it to the practice of meditation, there is a big flow in that argument.

One is not sure whether the change in diet did effect the blood cholesterol level or the practice of meditation or both did have independent or summation effect on the level of blood cholesterol. Unless one take a random sample and assess the partial correlation, then only one can attribute combination or independent effects on a particular quantity tested.

Qualitative changes cannot be tested since one cannot quantify the results. In actual fact the effect of meditation is often qualitative and very individualistic and one cannot feel the same effect a different mediator would have felt at the time of his or her meditative stance or instance/s.

This is very true as far as the Jhana States are concerned.

With that reservation in mind one can describe the many unmeasurable benefits attributed to meditation in Buddhist literature.

Metta Meditation

In Buddhist literature it is claimed that one who practises Metta Meditation falls to sleep easily and get up in the morning peacefully.

It is wished in the last three lines of the Sutta. By reciting Karaniya Metta Sutta one should feel physically and psychologically better, one is made free of illness and one attains the highest goal or victory.

That is of course the Nibbana.

They may be just wishful thinking or one may actually feels better physically and psychologically.

It is also claimed that the natural immunity to cancer and infections are increased by practicing Metta Meditation.

This is something Venerable Ajhan Brahma Wanso preaches in most of his teaching.

Present Moment Meditation

This is something that is worth discussing here. It has direct relationship to day to day activities. I believe it has significant contribution to the efficiency of one’s trained skill, simply due to the intense concentration one may apply in his or her work skill at hand (without any distraction).

It is simply the focused attention to the task at hand. If one is focused on any work, the efficiency goes up by leaps and bounds. This is very well shown in management training.

When focused attention is combined with attitude to work and other measurable increase in environmental components the work output and the efficiency levels improve.

This is something shop or floor manager can use in day to day basis.

It is called a Quality Drill.

It does not matter how one qualifies the content or the output but the efficiency of the skill concerned improve by both repeated practice and focused attention to the moment of the activity.

Samatha Meditation

There is no specific measurable benefits of Samatha Bhavana or meditation except the attainment of the four goals or paths of entry to Nibbana,

Buddhist spiritual goal is stream entry through development of Jhanas five in this life and more on celestial life.

Samatha probably is better for those who are less intelligent (One who is not able to master the finer scientific points in Dhamma).

Vipassana Meditation

This the highest goal of Buddhist meditative practice.

It is claimed that all states of Jhana can be attained by Vipassana Bhavana or Meditation. I may be wrong in this assertion but that is what is spread among the lay persons without full knowledge or the understanding of mediation.

But when I looked at the terminology, it is said that Vipassana Bhavana would not contribute to absorption states.

This (Vipassana) is called the gaining in insight by direct contemplation and vision.

Only in Samatha Bhavana one attains the Jhana absorption levels up to five.

Only when an aspirant has gained the higher Jhana level of the 5^th that one could develop the five kinds of supernatural powers (Abhiñña) the divine eye, divine ear, recall of past births, thought-reading and various psychic powers i.e. walk on water.

The attainment of the supernatural powers is not the real goal of Buddhism.

The attainment of these powers may actually be a distraction or hindrance to a true aspirant or a pathfinder of Buddhist path of glory.

The ability to absorb into Jhana states should not be the goal of Buddhist meditation.

The Jhana states have no hindrance and the Jhana/s could be the way forward of stream entry. The practice of meditation may bring many benefits and they are difficult to quantify or qualify except perhaps the benefit of present moment of meditation or focus which should be practiced without a label of a particular religion.

It is when one has labels and targets or goals of attainment, the practice of meditation becomes a commercial enterprise of undesirable consequences, ignoring the correct but simple way of development of the mental culture.

I am one who believes that mediation has value in all wakeful hours of the day.
The only exception is when one is asleep and when one dreams.

I am one who talks about dreams and write about dreams and their physiological value is unparalleled only by the practice of meditation in the wakeful state.

The meditation practice is the awareness of the wondering mind and its taming.

That is the Buddhist way.

The goal is not achieving of miracle powers, even though they may or may not come as a byproduct.

Sleeping (and dreaming) is the practice of letting the mind go into an unobtrusive and unhindered state in which the mind is unaware of the physiological inputs that operate in random manner with aberrations of awareness (of the totality) but with interludes of dreaming cycles.

On the other hand meditation is to “let go the attachments” one has with all the mental faculties both sensual and mind centered.

Goals of Buddhist Meditation

The goal is the spiritual attainment (Jhana states can be a byproduct) and stream entry by progressive cultivation of meditation basically by four common methods (there are many more).

1. Metta Meditation.

2. Samatha Meditation with Kasina or various Kamatahans.

3. Vipassana Meditation.

4. Moment Meditation (my simple creative method of short durations of multiple attempts).

This is adequately dealt by Venerable Ajhan Brahma Wanso, inthe book "Happiness Through Meditation". It is also published as “Meditation, Bliss and Beyond”.

It is the best book currently available on Meditation in general and my intention here is to make it more of global nature and take the religious tag at the moment of its use.

Memory and Meditation

I want to share a drill I practice on day to day basis.

This is especially because, I am beginning to lose my memory and there are short lapses infrequent though, but enough to raise alarm bells on my part lately.

Once I forgot all my password for bank cards briefly.

This was during our long industrial action when I had a laid back approach to life in general and sleep in particular.
I was not having an adequate sleep (totally engrossed in Linux downloads and testing the isos) at night.

This coincided with forgetting of passwords for half a dozen emails and Linux forum passwords. This shook my inner senses and I now have a ready made retrieval method based on memory drill.

The combination of Metta Meditation and Moment Meditation have worked wonders for me since then.

I now even have a simple protocol to remember 16 number Visa Card.

The memory loss was partly due to gray matter losing its material and the neural networks not recharging to peak levels, probably due to old age (this handicap is seriously encroaching my body parts, if not the brain).

Metta meditation makes one sleeps well not in one go but in two short spells (Night is the shortest spell when I do most of my work to avoid mosquito menace. The mosquitoes make me aware of my lack of Metta Meditation).

Our dog is the target animal for Metta.
Mosquitoes was the antidote to Metta.

Then in the morning I have a brief 5 minutes of Moment Meditation practice at the end of it, I have a mental list of 10 things or map out the tasks to do for the day.

If the list go up to 20, I do it in two spells like my sleep.

A morning list and an evening list.

That has worked well for the last one year and I still do not carry a piece of paper with all the tasks.

If I have to carry a piece of paper to to remind me the day to day work, I think I should say Good Bye and take first steps for the next round of birth.

That is on top of my wish list.

Since, I have not yet achieved stream entry, in spite of my mediation efforts, that will eventually happen and is only viable option left for me. There is a simple addition to that wish list. No electronic aids or tinkle to alert me of the wish list or missing tasks.

I do not use a cell phone by default. I do not want a gadget to master my brain. I rather "Master my Brain" instead without a phone alert or a piece of paper.
I wonder, how long I can practice it.