Meditation is more than sitting.

Part Two: An expansion on its theory and practice.

"What's encouraging about meditation is that even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we're closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance." - Pema Chodron.

Meditation, in and of itself does not exclusively belong whatsoever to any particular religious faith and belong in the confines of that faith only. In a sense, it is actually a staunch rebellion of having to belong to anything. There is no snobbish Buddhists-only philosophical club that you are not allowed to trek anywhere near. The simple act of meditating is not exclusive to Buddhists at all, and there are no reins within which it should be restricted.

While you are meant to let go of your problems, rampant unpleasant emotions, and certain kinds of thoughts; the way in which you do so, your intent, the time that passes, the style in which you do it, the chosen focus, or lack of a focus, and the extent that you desire to take it, is all up to you. There are a lot of recommendations, but no rules. To quote Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, "Meditation practice predates Buddhism and all of the world religions. It has lasted through the centuries because it is direct, potent, and effective."

Perhaps we associate meditation with spirituality because when we experience a moment of peacefully abiding, it seems so far-out. Our mind is no longer drifting, thinking about a million things. The sun comes up or a beautiful breeze comes along—and all of a sudden we feel the breeze and we are completely in tune. We think, "That's a very spiritual experience! It's a religious experience! At least worth a poem, or a letter home." Yet all that's happening is that for a moment we are in tune with our mind. Our mind is present and harmonious. Before, we were so busy and bewildered that we didn't even notice the breeze. Our mind couldn't even stay put long enough to watch the sun to come up, which takes two-and-a-half minutes. Now we can keep it in one place long enough to acknowledge and appreciate our surroundings. Now we are really here. In fact, this is ordinary. This is the not just the point of being Buddhist, it's the point of being human. (Rinpoche)

It is with that observation in mind, how I will begin my second meditation session today. Due to being very tired, I've had coffee first (a lot of it), put some cold water on my face and added a few gentle slaps to wake myself up, and due to an intensely painful athletic soreness in my back - today I will be meditating on the couch. Thus, I started my meditation session just after I typed that sentence. I turned all of the lights off and set my alarm for 30 minutes, I chose this time because I knew that my mind would drift a lot as it always does, and I really wanted to feel what I had felt last time.

With my computer asleep I began to try to meditate again, but this time I was at home, which is drastically different than being at a Buddhist temple. As I started to meditate, I really missed that strong scent of incense that I had once smelled sitting in Ekoji. So I thought about lighting a candle, remembering that I had just bought a few brand new ones from Target that might smell great, but then it suddenly hit me that I know myself all to well in that regard, meaning that I would end up over thinking that as well. I know for certain that within minutes of lighting that little scented candle I would then start to wonder why I wasn't smelling it enough, whether or not I should blow that one out and switch to another one, this distracting and irrelevant thought, that distracting and irrelevant thought, etcetera.

Subsequently, I was sitting half lotus-style on the couch with my eyes completely closed, initially thinking incessantly about remembering small details to later put in this post. I was wondering how much time had already past (most likely after only a few minutes), even peeking with one of my eyes at the clock at for a moment. However, I wanted to have this experience. I had already felt many of the benefits of meditation in full-force after just one time and I wanted to feel it again with a passion. I realized somewhat quickly that I would be there for a half an hour no matter what, so I might as well just relax. I was beginning to let go of all of my perpetual thinking about what exactly I was going to write about my experience, how I would phrase it, and what words I would choose. It was then that I began gradually falling deeper into my mind, with much less concern about the things going on in the outside busy world, without a care about minutes, or time.

In total, I most likely fell asleep at least twice, if not a few times more, with each time being a duration of about a couple seconds (as I live in an apartment building, staying asleep midday is highly unlikely) but most of the time I was completely aware. Thoroughly breaking with any true Buddhist posture, I decide to grab onto my cold toes to stay awake and attempted to repeatedly clutch them semi-tightly whilst meditating as a means of not drifting off again. I proceeded to pull my foot further onto my thigh to add more resistance, and leaned my head backward to create some tension in my neck. All of this I did because I thought it would keep me more awake.

I regained focus on the dark black underneath my eyelids that I had been watching while inside of my closed eyes, and returned to noticing the feeling of my breath moving slowly in and out of my stomach. I felt that the most helpful concept as I was sitting there, was to listen and to notice all of the miscellaneous sounds going on around me: the heater's fan-like noise, the crackling of the internet modem and other electronics, people in other apartments coming and going, the planes flying overhead.

After meditating, I cared so much less about the distractions: that of this entry being overdue, getting it in as soon as possible, that girlish-perfectionist personality type goal of my hair and skin being perfect, anything about transferring schools or my figure, anything at all about social media, the future, and even my worrying about cleaning up the room I'm in. I've noticed there is a clear correlation between the distractions one hears while meditating, and the personal struggles that occur within us, and the emotionally stirring distractions that we experience daily in life. I've noticed this, based on only two short periods of meditation so far, and by using myself as the experimentation. There is truly something about letting yourself get a little lost internally and consciously bringing yourself back, that gives you a more proficient awareness of your thoughts, and forces you to be centered.

In conclusion, the time that I have spent meditating has always gone by surprisingly fast. When you consider the length of the average commercial break, the amount of commercial breaks, and the time that you must spend having to wait in line for things in life: the spending of a short amount of time to re-ground yourself to the basic structure of living a good life is not so bad.

Sarah

Works Cited

"Meditation FAQ." Shambhala. Shambhala International, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2013.

"Pema Chodron quotes." ThinkExist. ThinkExist, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2013.

Meditation is more than sitting.

Part One.

When I was much younger, my initial impression of meditation was that it was essentially a weird thing to do for "hippies." I pictured what it looked like: a bunch of people sitting around a room in silence for a long period of time, and I thought it was a very bizarre, odd thing. I thought it was just something for monks or something that "oddball" sorts of people did, and those trying to be "hip." Since then, I have certainly matured a great deal to say the very least, and I have since come to the realization that meditation is nothing like that at all, not in the slightest, not remotely.

In a world religions course at my college, a former professor of mine showed us few small videos. Within each, was a variety of accounts as to how meditation is practiced in detail. Each one of those short videos of just a few-minutes in length, consisted of different people talking about meditation and its nearly incomprehensibly profound and deep effect on them, and the way it has magnificently affected their lives. Some of those persons were Buddhist, but many of them were not. It gave me a entirely different perspective on meditation: what it is, and why people do it. The benefits those people have described, of which, they have each singlehandedly derived from very the simple act of meditating are not found in sitting or in being quiet, but are found elsewhere. The true heartfelt intense benefits of meditating are found in the ability of a human being to quiet their mind for sustained moments in time, and the ability to suppress that relentless endless stream of troubling thoughts and powerful emotions momentarily. It is in that way that a person achieves what they are supposed to in their first meditation, or within the first several.

While I am not sure of the titles or the locations of those particular videos that I have previously mentioned, here are some others which might help you:

Watch Meditation on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

Before my first meditation at the Buddhist temple Ekoji, I was emotionally overpowered, feeling figuratively steamrolled into paper, over-worked, and on the brink of what might have been a miniature nervous breakdown. I was taking somewhere between 15 and 18 credits, very stressed out, and overwhelmed. I didn't think at all about any effect the meditation might have on me. I didn't think that I would feel it, I didn't think that I would feel anything. Instead of that happening, after a little more than 15 minutes of meditation (with my eyes closed while I was sitting normally with my feet on the floor in your average chair), I ended up feeling when exiting the temple that a heavy weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt so much relief, in a way that I have never felt happen in that short of a time period.

Sarah

Mindfulness.

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn is the founding Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is also a world renowned author of numerous books on “the clinical applications of mindfulness in medicine and health care.” He describes mindfulness as, “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; On purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”

It is, in essence: awareness.

However, there is an important distinction to make between simply being aware of something that your doing, and being purposefully “honed in” and aware of your mental processes, thoughts, and each of your emotional responses as you’re doing something. To be present in a moment is something that you do automatically, as you are there - and you are alive, but it is much different to be acutely and keenly aware of your each of actions in your current experience, and each thought which passes through the stream of thoughts in your consciousness at that particular moment in time.

In this mindfulness state, the intention is not to analyze, but to tune your attention inward to how you feel and think at this moment, and what exactly, down to every five of the human senses, are you feeling right now?

Mindfulness in Buddhism is an essential step on the Eightfold Path. It is an essential concept in Buddhism, because realizing one’s true nature and the nature of reality is a fundamental part of finding that indescribable awakening or enlightenment, as it’s better known. Even when done on a smaller scale, and not done with the pursuit of enlightenment in mind, one can find more happiness when they give mindfulness a try. The wide-ranging effect of this process, and the way in which mindfulness can help a person is put by Thich Nhat Hanh as:

We usually describe mind consciousness and store consciousness as two different things, but store consciousness is just mind consciousness at a deeper level. If we look carefully at our mental formations, we can see their roots in our store consciousness. Mindfulness helps us look deeply into the depths of our consciousness. Every time one of the fifty-one mental formations arises, we acknowledge its presence, look deeply into it and see its nature of impermanence and inter-being. When we practice this, we are liberated from fear, sorrow, and the fires burning inside us. When mindfulness embraces our joy, our sadness, and all our other mental formations, sooner or later we will see their deep roots. With every mindful step and every mindful breath, we see the roots of our mental formations. Mindfulness shines its light upon them and helps them to transform.

Personally, it seems to me that whether or not the goal of mindfulness is spiritual in a Buddhist sense, or if it is sought by a person in order to be an act deeply therapeutic (as is the case with Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy), its practice seems to be basically the same in its root form either way. According to the Mindfulness Practice Center of Fairfax, to practice the basic act of mindfulness, one must understand and practice that:

With the help of conscious breathing - breathing and knowing we are breathing - we are able to touch and be nourished by peace and joy that are available within and around us, in the here and now. With continued practice, we shall touch and understand the roots of the pain that lie deep within us, such as fear, anger, despair, thus making transformation and healing possible.

Its simple. Yet, its effects run deep. When you are awakened to your own reality, what you are currently feeling and where you are today and now, it is not unlike a massive wave of relief - when you are experiencing something good and decent, and you really come to appreciate it.

But what about a bad emotion? What about when you feel horrible and you are suffering deeply internally? When you habitually entrench yourself in mindfulness and you attempt to maintain a greater awareness about yourself, about life, and it’s details on a consistent basis - for a lengthy extended period of time, it is my personal understanding based on what I’ve read, that you are then able to use your own intelligence to reflect as to why you are feeling this way. At that moment, you are prompted to ask yourself: How might that be transformed, healed, or changed? Mental suffering is clearly inevitable to us adults. However, some suffering is not so much “something that we have to go through,” but is frequently something that we accidentally choose to go through - as a cause of our own self-creation by being unaware of it.

If you were to continue to go through life unaware, then how are you to fix something when you do not know that it is broken? That is why there must inevitably be some element of self-reflection and self-awareness, but to take it even further, would be to use mindfulness of this moment and embrace it genuinely without judgements as to your current situation. With mindfulness in Buddhism, you are not supposed to decide whether a moment is good or bad, you are simply supposed to take it as it is - notice it, and then try to accept it. Which is obviously easier said than done, but perhaps with habitual practice there will be growth, and maybe there will be a worthwhile impact on how you interpret the great and the unfortunate circumstances more so than had you not attempted mindfulness.

As I am just a college student, and barely not a teenager, I am certainly not an expert, it is just my own observation that when your experiencing mindfulness, you begin to enjoy again the moment and why you are there in the first place, or if nothing else, you at least achieve a greater perspective on the nature of your emotions and where they are coming from.

Thus, as it states in several articles written by Buddhists that I have read in the past week on the subject, when mindfulness becomes a part of your life: you are that much closer to a bigger awakening, that of your own ability to remove a great deal of the mental suffering you experience in your life yourself.

Sarah

Works Cited

Bodhipaksa. “What is mindfulness?” Wildmind. Wildmind Buddhist Meditation, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.

Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation. New York: Broadway Books, 1998. Print.

“Mindfulness Meditation & Practices.” Mindfulness Practice Center of Fairfax. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013

Shonin. “Mindfulness based therapy and Buddhism.” Ordinary Extraordinary. Blogger, 02 July 2009. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.

The Meaning and the Essence of Religious Rituals and Symbols: Part Two: Rituals

It is obvious to anyone, how much ritual plays a part in the practicing of religion. It is important for us to understand however, that these actions, whether minor and small sights to our eyes, or elaborate and gargantuan rituals, are each extremely meaningful to their practitioners. As with religious symbols, the rituals of a faith are a form of communication and connection to something. It is a connection to the world which transcends the physical, literal world.

First when we think of ritual we often think of the Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church. But it is worth remarking that even the simplest form of religious service involves ritual, in the sense of some form of outer behavior (such as closing one's eyes in prayer) coordinated to an inner intention to make contact with, or to participate in, the invisible world. (Smart)

The gestures are more than gestures. It is a potent expression of love and gratitude to the faithful. And their expression, is directed toward something in the realm that we cannot see. Each small act is done with tremendous importance, one that is both historical and spiritual. If not, as the author of The Religious Experience of Mankind, Ninan Smart writes: "If people go through the motions of religious observance without accompanying it with the intentions and sentiments which give it human meaning, ritual is merely an empty shell." However, to the people that understand the purpose of those small and big actions, it is more than a mere an empty shell, but an act that changes their lives forever.

These acts range from a silent prayer, to: a structured Greek Orthodox wedding, the ritual bath (mikvah) in the Jewish faith, the intensely sensory puja offerings in Hinduism, the mudras and meditation in Buddhism, and the activity of Tai Chi to the Taoist. They can be life-cycle rites of passage- marking the various transformations of life, self-training rituals, or activities done out of a significant crisis, but no matter their form or their element, each is healing to its practitioner.

Whichever form it takes, it is done in order to embrace an element of the universe which is outside of our typical view and to reinforce sacred ideals, as is the case with each element of the symbolism that takes place in religion. To this point, with Ninian Smart I agree once again:

Nevertheless, the techniques of self-training have an analogy to ritual: the adept performs various physical and mental exercises through which he hopes to concentrate the mind on the transcendent, invisible world, or to withdraw his senses from the usual immersion in the flow of empirical experiences. (Smart)

Sarah

Works Cited

Fisher, Mary Pat. Living Religions. Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2011. Print.

Livingston, James C. Anatomy of The Sacred: An Introduction to Religion. Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.

Smart, Ninian. The Religious Experience of Mankind. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1984. Print.

The Meaning and the Essence of Religious Rituals and Symbols: Part One: Symbols

It is said by one of the authors of Wikipedia, that: "A symbol is an object, action, or idea that represents something other than itself, often of a more abstract nature. Symbolism creates quality aspects that make literature like poetry and novels more meaningful."

In religion, symbolism is used to denote sacred ideas. Every religion has a series of symbolic representations, of various forms. There's: the lotus in Buddhism and the eight-spoke wheel of life, the "om" symbol in Hinduism, the essential cross of Christianity, and then there is the importance of the Jewish Star of David, and a vast range of others. But why? What is the point of a religious symbol to represent certain things? Why do we do this, instead of expressing ideas not in a symbolic fashion, and using simply the words themselves and just text?

The answer is: because these items carry deep meaning. It goes beyond the image itself, but is a means of communication. The idea that a symbol is communicating, is therein where the depth of meaning lies and what carries the power of the image. The author James C. Livingston describes it as "...a necessary bridge erected between the finite and "the Something More."

The finite, meaning "the having of bounds." This is the main reason why we should not disregard these symbols as "silly" in any way, or assume that they will ever lose their true meanings. They will not, as the ideas that they correspond to are very deeply rooted values. They can also be, at times, a representational symbol of an event which occurred in the history of a religion to establish its way of life and its foundational philosophy. They are here to stay for an eternity, as the ideas they connect to are not fleeting in any way.

Each religious symbol is worthy of a great deal of respect. Tradition goes beyond and far exceeds a simple "popularity," especially in the case of religious value. Religious symbolism can be found as a bumper sticker on someone's truck, or as a tattoo on someone's ankle, but these are symbolic representations that have been founded and developed over time based on a true belief in something, and these images are capable of communicating things that might otherwise be difficult to state in ordinary words.

What religions attempt to approach may be considered beyond human utterance. Believers build statues and buildings through which to worship the divine, but these forms are not the divine itself. Because people are addressing the invisible, it can be suggested only through metaphor. Deepest consciousness cannot speak the language of everyday life; what it knows can be suggested only in symbols- images borrowed from the material world that are similar to ineffable spiritual experiences. (Fisher)

Sarah

Works Cited

Fisher, Mary Pat. Living Religions. Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2011. Print.

Livingston, James C. Anatomy of The Sacred: An Introduction to Religion. Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.

"Symbolism." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Jan. 2013. Web. 06 Feb. 2013.