What Meditation Really Is

Students will learn how to use every aspect of your experience—even the sources of distraction themselves—as a support for calming the mind and finding inner peace. It introduces using our senses, thoughts and emotions as a support to further develop the practice of meditation and help us expand the practice ‘beyond the cushion’ into everyday life.

Often when we meditate, we find that we are easily distracted by our senses, thoughts and emotions. A pain in our leg or back, or some thoughts about our day circling through our mind in a seemingly endless loop can make us completely forget about meditation. Rather than seeing common situations like these as something we need to avoid or eliminate in order to practise ‘properly’, this course shows us how to use them to strengthen and support our meditation.

Module 2- Using our Senses, Thoughts and Emotions as a Support introduces the idea that all sensations, thoughts and emotions can be used as a basis for meditation practice: in short, everything that occurs during the meditative experience can be a basis for meditation, rather than distraction.

The course material builds on module 1 and presents the following new topics:

– using the senses as an object of shamatha
– using thoughts as an object of shamatha
– using emotions as an object of shamatha

It also revisits important principles that were established in the first module. This material will be a valuable reminder and deepening for students who attended the first module, and a vital introduction to those who did not. These points include:

– the ultimate goal of meditation
– key principles of shamatha with support
– the source of genuine contentment
– an understanding of the two aspects of mind—its appearance and essence.

Through teachings on video, class discussions and contemplative exercises, students can begin to see the connection between experiences of happiness, peace and contentment, and the way mind perceives. This helps to understand how meditation can help us transform our mind and perceive differently, so that we discover a deeper contentment that is not reliant on outer circumstances.

It is recommended to have already taken Module One- Getting to Know Your Own Mind prior to taking this course, as it provides a foundation in many of the fundamental principals that are elaborated on here.

Module 3- Dropping the Method, you will get an overview of the different methods used in practicing shamatha with an object, and without an object, and have a chance to practice them. Students will have the opportunity to understand how shamatha with support leads into shamatha without support, and practice alternating between them. The weekly sessions will help to maintain a stable daily practice and also develop the habit of practicing for short moments, many times, throughout the day. Through the teaching and practice, it is possible to begin to identify more with the essence and nature of mind rather than the appearance of thoughts and emotions

Students will have the opportunity to:

– understand how shamatha with support leads into shamatha without support
– practise alternating between shamatha with and without support
– maintain a stable daily practice and also develop the habit of practising for short moments, many times, throughout the day
– begin to identify more with the essence and nature of mind rather than the appearance of thoughts and emotions

This course also revisits important principles that were established in the first and second courses. Some of which include:

– the ultimate goal of meditation
– the complete structure of the teaching on meditation
– the three noble principles

It is recommended to have already taken both Mocule One- Getting to Know Your Own Mind and Module Two- Using our Senses, Thoughts and Emotions as a Support prior to taking this course, as they provides a foundation for the topics covered here.

Mocule 4- Loving Kindness Meditation builds on the three mocules that precede it, and focuses on the topic of loving kindness meditation practice.

If we are ever going to adopt a genuine attitude of love and compassion towards other people, we first need to be able to love and have compassion for ourselves. Then, it is much easier and more meaningful to wish that our practice may be of real benefit to others. By showing us how to love ourselves and how to extend our love to everybody else, loving kindness meditation practice expands the scope of our practice – that our practice will benefit not only ourselves, but everyone else too.

Many people discover that loving kindness practice gives them a method for transforming their difficult emotions and helps them avoid getting stuck in negativity and confusion. For this reason, many students find that by meditating on loving kindness, their shamatha practice becomes more stable.

Students will have the opportunity to:

– start to get in touch with our true nature and perhaps glimpse the sense of well-being, self-worth and profound love that comes from it
– learn that loving kindness practice comes out of the space of meditation
– practise loving kindness for ourselves
– look at why we need to learn how to love ourselves
– learn how we can unblock love
see the value of occupying our mind with love
– practise extending loving kindness to others
– see the benefits that loving kindness can bring us.

This modue is ideal as a continuation from the previous modules, as loving kindness practice is based on the foundation of meditation.

It is recommended that students complete Mocule 3- Dropping the Method before starting this class.

As with all the other methods of meditation that have been presented in this series, the purpose of the methods introduced in Module 5- The Unifying Practice is to help the mind rest, undistracted.

As we practice these methods in a gradual sequence, it enables us slowly to transform our thoughts, emotions and energy, and become steadily more peaceful and more present. When we practice them together in what we call ‘The Unifying Practice’, it brings the three methods together, and ‘unifies’ them, so that we can see their connectedness, and how each one supports the other. This accelerates the process of meditation and deepens the experience, with the result that meditation can happen effortlessly.

The three methods introduced here include:

Looking at an image of Buddha to transforms our outer environment and acts on the level of the body.
Chanting or reciting a mantra is related to the speech and purifies our inner world of sound, emotion and energy.
Watching the breath pacifies the mind. This may gradually lead to the higher meditation of the innermost nature of mind.
Since it builds and relies on the methods introduced in the previous four mocules, it is recommended that students complete them before beginning Module 5- The Unifying Practice.

Mocule 6- Bringing the State of Non-distraction into Life focuses on how to integrate meditation in action, so that practice and everyday life are no longer separate. Many contemporary Buddhist masters emphasize how important it is for students to find a healthy and even balance between meditation practice, relationships, family and work. These teachings on integration provide the key; showing how we can apply meditation to everything we encounter and everything we do—whenever and wherever we are, in every situation.

“I cannot say it strongly enough: to integrate meditation in action is the whole ground and point and purpose of meditation. The violence and stress, the challenges and distractions of modern life make this integration even more urgently necessary.

People complain to me, “I have meditated for twelve years, but somehow I haven’t changed. I am still the same. Why?” Because there is an abyss between their spiritual practice and their everyday life…

How, then, do we achieve this integration, this permeation of everyday life with the calm humor and spacious detachment of meditation? There is no substitute for regular practice, for only through real practice will we begin to taste unbrokenly the calm of our nature of mind and so be able to sustain the experience of it in our everyday life.”
-Sogyal Rinpoche
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Module 6- Bringing the State of Non-distraction into Life, presents a clear framework, tools and methods for doing this.