More on Meditation
When I give meditation instruction, I sometimes describe the benefits of it like this:
(a) For the first time, we have the opportunity of developing the awareness, and the habit, of not automatically following our thoughts wherever they lead. The habit of coming back to the breath each time we have realized we’ve gone away from it, even when our thoughts are compelling and juicy, leads us to realize that dropping our thoughts, changing direction, is an option – and we can develop the mental muscle that allows us to more easily do that
(b) When we are living our lives, things are going very quickly. The reasons why we have difficulty staying present are not that obvious. When you sit on a cushion and meditate, you have a chance to notice what kinds of thoughts and feelings seem to come up repeatedly and pull you out of being present in the room. Whatever ‘styles’ of not being present (planning, re-arguing arguments, anxious checking, daydreaming about what you desire, etc.) that come up when you are meditating tend to be the same streams of thought that are keeping you from being present in the rest of your life – you can pretty much count on it.
(c) Over time, as we become accustomed to our minds in meditation, we begin to see that around and between the thoughts and feelings, there is a kind of spacious awareness that is neither thought nor feeling, but the container in which they seem to occur (this will be a major topic of the third section of the website, Awareness). Developing a relationship with awareness is a great step in disengaging ourselves from our reactivity and neurosis, seen and unseen.
“You can’t make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you do that, changes will flow naturally. You don’t have to force anything, struggle, or obey rules dictated to you by some authority. It is automatic; you just change…
Meditation sharpens your concentration and your thinking power. Then, piece by piece, your own subconscious motives and mechanics become clear to you. Your intuition sharpens. The precision of your thought increases and gradually you come to a direct knowledge of things as they really are, without prejudice and without illusion.”
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana