Buddhist Spectrum

The Buddha’s approach to breath meditation

This was the meditation utilised by the Gotama Buddha (while still a Boddhisatta) to calm his mind for the penetration of dependant origination (paticca-samuppada) and insight into the Four Noble Truths. In light of this, it becomes clear how important this meditation is for anyone who is serious about the practice of the Dhamma (Teachings) and the attainment of insight into reality.

The correct posture is important to allow the breath to easily ‘flow’ in and out of the body. The back should be upright yet relaxed. Hold your body upright in a way such that it is at its perfect centre of balance (this can be perceived with the mind), where one is neither leaning too far forwards, backwards or to either side.

When one gains this perfect ‘equilibrium’ of the bodily trunk, all swaying of the body will cease. It is important to train oneself to keep the body still during meditation - if you can’t keep your body still, how can you hope to keep your mind still? The legs can be bent in the form of the full or half lotus position and the palms should be placed on top of each other (right on left) facing upwards on top of the lap (refer to a seated statue of the Lord Buddha for reference).

The eyes should be fully closed to minimise distractions for the mind. If the posture becomes uncomfortable after a while, you can persevere to keep it despite the physical pain for as long as possible and/or change your posture, e.g. from a cushion to a stool or chair, or from lotus position to a kneeling position - keep switching (the lesser the better) while continuing with the meditation (the longer the better). Once one gains a state of perfect stillness and a state of jhanic peace, the physical body and its sensations will ‘disappear’ and pain will no longer affect the mind. So strive for these states at all times during meditation.

Before beginning the meditation, bring and focus your mind’s attention to the front (of your head/body). The mind has a habit of ‘talking’ (thinking) and it takes the form of an ‘inner commentary.’

This commentary needs to be completely stopped (repeat as required) by will as and when it starts up, before the mediation can begin (otherwise it will be impossible to focus on the breath as the ‘inner noise’ will destroy concentration). Once the mind gets the signal that thinking is undesired, it will become calm and quiet. Now the meditation can begin.

While keeping your awareness in front (of the head/body), direct your quiet mind to observing the incoming and outgoing breath. There should be no controlling or forcing of the breath, but simply quiet watching of its details.

Try to see the whole ‘length’ of the breath as it enters and leaves the body. So you should be noticing the various characteristics of the breath, such as whether it is short, long, calm or quick. Just as you know you are full, when you have eaten enough, or that have a headache when there is one - in the same manner you should know when you are breathing in and out when you are doing so.

So there is no need to watch a particular point in the body such as the tip of the nose or the abdomen - doing so will take one’s concentration away from the object of the meditation (one’s breath).

In fact in the Anapanasati Sutta (discourse) where the Buddha details the particulars of this meditation, there is no mention whatsoever of watching a particular part of the body such as the tip of the nose or the abdomen.

When the mind becomes calm, tranquil and still (i.e. state of Samadhi) due to this meditation, this is the best time to contemplate (think/analyse/understand) some aspects of the Dhamma to gain insight (vipassana), which is what the term ‘see things as they really are’ refers to.

You can contemplate on any aspect of the Dhamma that touches on the three signs of all conditioned things, i.e. impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha) and ‘no real self in anything/anyone’ (anatta).

You can also contemplate on the Four Noble Truths or the dependent origination (paticca-samuppada) in aid of this. You may also prefer to refer to a discourse (sutta) to find a section of Dhamma that touches on the above and contemplate on that once the mind is in a state of samadhi. Try to understand the meaning behind these concepts and how they relate to tour life through analysis.

The aim of this contemplation is to realise the Truth about our lives and all conditioned things and to enter the stream (sotapatti) leading to Nibbana. Once you become a stream enterer/winner, there can be no further rebirth in any of the lower hellish realms and you will be assured of Nibbana within a maximum of seven lifetimes or less.

May you seize this extremely rare opportunity of the appearance of the true Dhamma along with your extremely rare fortune of gaining a good rebirth with access to that true Dhamma (neither of which will last very long) to find it within yourself to develop samadhi allowing you to break through to the stream taking you directly to the supreme bliss of Nibbana!

Calm is not enough

Just calmness meditation, Samatha, is not enough; once the mind is super calm, ideally in a jhanic state, you need to contemplate, analyse and understand, some aspect of the Dhamma, perhaps a section, or a line of the Buddha’s words, that touches on the three characteristics, of impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha), no self (anatta), or the Four Noble Truths, or dependant origination, and relate it to your life, to penetrate (vipassana) the truth, to enter the stream or even higher, for the mind to ‘break through,’ to the ‘other side.’

May you break through, to the other side!

Courtesy: Dhamma Group

Buddhism and the Free Thinkers

Ven. Dr K Sri Dhammananda

Many so-called free thinkers are actually not free thinkers, but they are lazy to think. Just because they do not want to think seriously and ponder about the meaning of their existence they say they are free thinkers. There is no room for these kinds of thinkers in Buddhism. Buddhism encourages people to think freely but deeply and without bias.

Immediately after gaining enlightenment, when there were many disciples, the Buddha said: “Monks, now you and I are free from human and divine bondages.” Here, we can find a clue to what a free thinker is.

Bondages

Usually, people try to introduce their religious concepts and beliefs and practices by imposing divine bondages and appealing divine messages. The Buddha has rejected such concepts. He said he and his Disciples are free from divine and human bondage.

What are these bondages? They are various kinds of beliefs, cravings, attachments, concepts, traditions and customs created in the name of religion by exploiting fear and suspicion.

People who are enslaved by such beliefs and practices are in bondage. In what way was the Buddha a free thinker or how can we claim that Buddhism is a religion of freedom and reason?

The Buddha has given full freedom for man to think freely without depending on the concept of a god, a Buddha or any teacher to understand the truth. That is freedom. According to some western thinkers Buddhism is known as ‘the religion of freedom and reason’.

Freedom however must be guided by reason. Otherwise, people can abuse that freedom. For instance, if a government gives full freedom for people to live or to do anything according to their free will I am sure that within twenty-four hours, they can ruin the whole country.

That is the danger of giving freedom without first developing reason in the minds of people. We must follow the same principle in practicing religion. Although some people say that free will exists for man to exert, we know that without proper training and guidance the use of that free will can lead to disastrous con-sequences. A child may have free will, but it has to be taught not to play with a live electric wire.

Freewill

The Buddha emphasises that freewill is not a gift from any external source. It is intrinsic to us. Human behavior, human character, humanistic minds are characteristics, which are developed over many life times.

Whether we are cultured or uncultured, civilised or uncivilised, religious or irreligious, good or bad, wicked or kind, depends on our mental habits which we developed life after life in the past. These characteristics are not given by anybody.

Religion becomes important to guide and direct man’s way of thinking by giving proper guidelines. The purpose of religion is to help a human being train his mind so that he develops understanding and acts in a morally responsible way. He does good because he ‘knows’ that is the right thing to do, not because be wants to avoid punishment or receive rewards. Religion is an aid to individual development.

Why should we not depend on anybody? If we are going to stop our evil, wicked, selfish thinking fearing that there is somebody to punish us, we will never give a chance for our mind to cultivate understanding, kindness, compassion. People also sometimes do good deeds or provide some service to others in expectation of a big reward.

If this is the motivation, they will not develop sympathy, understanding according to the true meaning of these words. They become selfish avoiding evil deeds to escape punishment or do good to get rewards. This is selfishness.

The Buddha did not advocate this. If heaven and hell were both closed down, how many people would remain religious? Buddhism however encourages moral behavior without reference to heaven or hell. This is the uniqueness in the Buddha’s teaching.

The main purpose of religion is not to ensure escape from punishment or gain a reward but to help one become perfect and to end physical and mental suffering and be free from un-satisfactoriness.

Humanity

The Buddha also wanted to cultivate humanity according to certain moral and ethical codes, discipline, and character. This is to be achieved without resorting to temptations provided by promises of heaven or to fear by threats of hell fire.

That is why this religion is described as a religion of freedom and reason. The Buddha encouraged us to learn with an open mind to investigate and to understand the world. We must accept nothing at once on mere faith. The Buddha says, “Do not accept anything through mere faith because it will make it difficult for you to understand the truth, because that faith can make you a blind follower.”

Blind Faith

This kind of blind faith can lead to religious fanaticism. People react emotionally to their religious authorities rather than deciding rationally whether something is true or false because they have not developed analytical knowledge in their minds to understand why they should uphold certain moral practices and why they should keep away from certain immoral practices.

For instance, when a boy cannot under-stand things properly, a father or mother threatens him. If he is very mischievous, they can even beat him and warn him not to make mistakes. Because of that fear, the child may stop doing mischievous deeds but he is not helped to realise why it is wrong and where the mistake is.

That only creates fear of punishment. Again, when they ask a child to do something and if he refuses, then, the parents will bribe him with the promise of a reward. The child may do it, but again without understanding why. It will be easy for him to revert to the wrong way of thinking or action without understanding. Similarly, we should not introduce religion through reward and punishment, without allowing people to have proper understanding.

If we try to introduce religion through punishment and rewards, people will not understand the real validity and main purpose of religion. That is why in Buddhism there is no threat of religious punishment. The duty of a religion is to guide, educate and enlighten people.

Punishment is the duty of the law of the land. Religion should not undertake the role of the law to punish people. Otherwise, there will be fear but not understanding. This is the nature of the Buddha’s teaching and why we regard him as a free thinker.

Equanimity

Rasika WIJAYARATNE

The reason why we have good days and bad days is actually due to our expectation that we should always have good days but should never have bad days. So we are always wishing and desiring that every day be a happy and good day and are averse to the idea that we should experience anything bad on any given day. But the reality of our lives is quite the opposite.

The Buddha explained this with the ‘eight characteristics of the world’ that we all must face in our daily lives and they are: 1. Gain, 2. Loss, 3. Happiness, 4. Unhappiness, 5. Praise, 6. Blame, 7. Fame and 8. Obscurity, the four pairs of opposites. But we only hope and expect to have gain, happiness, praise and fame and are averse to the idea of loss, unhappiness, blame and obscurity.

This is the reason why we are elated when these four positive conditions exist in our lives and are depressed, dejected and conflict arises in our minds when the four negative conditions exist.

***

Stress

As a result our feelings also go up and down much like a roller-coaster ride. This can be cause of great stress to people and can also induce further fear, anxiety, worry and related stresses into their lives. The solution is to understand that our lives are going to always revolved around these eight characteristics and that there is no escape from them whatsoever (remember that even the Buddha was blamed in his day and there were days when he went without a dana (food) - loss), but to also understand how to deal with these eight characteristics skilfully in daily life which is what practicing the Dhamma is all about.

***

Upekkha

The skilful way to deal with the eight characteristic of the world is by developing the quality embodied by the Pali word upekkha. Upekkha means ‘equanimity’ or ‘even-mindedness’.

The meaning is better described with an example. Let’s take the pair of gain and loss and in real-world terms equate ‘gain’ as a pay-rise in the work place and ‘loss’ as being fired from the work place. Now we are all liable to these two outcomes at some point in our lives.

So when we gain a pay-rise the skilful means of dealing with this worldly condition is by not getting excited, carried away, intoxicated with feelings, etc; but with calm and the awareness that this situation is also liable to changes in the future as are all conditioned things.

Also the skilful way to deal with being fired from the work place is to not be angry, upset, dejected, depressed etc.; but to understand this is one of the eight characteristics of life and this situation being conditioned is also subject change in the future (impermanence - anicca in Pali).

***

Impermanent

This is the same skilful approach that should be taken with the other three pairs of happiness and unhappiness, praise and blame, and fame and obscurity as and when they arise, that is with upekkha (equanimity).

They are all impermanent conditions (anicca in Pali) arising and passing away on their own accord, are unsatisfactory causing suffering when clung to (dukkha in Pali), they do not belong to us (not mine nor part of me - anatta in Pali) and we should not react to them strongly either positively (elation) or negatively (dejection).

Most importantly we should train our minds to not be averse to loss, unhappiness, blame and obscurity nor be attached to and expect gain, happiness, praise and fame; but to be at peace with all these conditions.

***

Nibbana

Imagine going on a roller-coaster ride that doesn’t go up and down! It would be very peaceful wouldn’t it? You could peacefully enjoy the view rather than screaming with fear and excitement. This is what we are aiming for with the development of upekkha. However the ride wont be perfectly flat until we attain Nibbana! This equates to inner peace, stability, joy and a mental state which un-wavers when faced with the eight worldly conditions, which will be source of strength in our daily lives. This way we don’t have to worry about having good or bad days but rather look forward to having peaceful and joyful days.

May you be at peace and also attain the lasting peace of Nibbana!