Buddhist Meditation                                               






by Douglas M. Burns © 1994                

Introdution                                                             

 Mind is the forerunner of all (evil) conditions.

Mind is their chief, and they are mind-made.
If, with an impure mind, one speaks or acts,
Then suffering follows one
Even as the cart wheel follows the hoof of the ox.

Mind is the forerunner of all (good) conditions.
Mind is their chief, and they are mind-made.
If, with a pure mind, one speaks or acts,
Then happiness follows one
Like a never-departing shadow.

These words, which are the opening lines of the Dhammapada, were spoken by Gotama Buddha 2500 years ago. They illustrate the central theme of Buddhist teaching, the human mind.

Buddhism is probably the least understood of all major religions. Indeed, from an Occidental viewpoint we might well question whether it warrants the title of religion. In the West we are accustomed to thinking of theology in terms of God, revelation, obedience, punishment, and redemption. The themes of creation, worship, judgment, and immortality have been major concerns in the Christian heritage and are virtually inseparable from our concept of religion. Against such a cultural background Western man views Buddhism and in so doing unconsciously projects his own concepts, values and expectations. Erroneously he perceives ceremonies and bowing as examples of worship or even idolatry.

He may extol its scientific world view or abhor and condemn its "atheism." The Buddha is vaguely equated with God or Jesus, and meditation is suspected of being a hypnotic approach to mysticism or an escape from reality.

However, such erroneous notions of the Dhamma, the teaching of the Buddha, are not entirely the result of Western ignorance and ethnocentrism. Before his demise the Buddha predicted that within a thousand years his doctrine would fall into the hands of men of lesser understanding and would thereby become corrupted and distorted.[1] Such has been the case throughout much, if not most, of the Orient. Ritual has replaced self-discipline, faith has replaced insight, and prayer has replaced understanding.

If the basis of Christianity is God, the basis of Buddhism is mind. From the Buddhist viewpoint, mind or consciousness is the core of our existence. Pleasure and pain, good and evil, time and space, life and death have no meaning to us apart from our awareness of them or thoughts about them. Whether God exists or does not exist, whether existence is primarily spiritual or primarily material, whether we live for a few decades or live forever — all these matters are, in the Buddhist view, secondary to the one empirical fact of which we do have certainty: the existence of conscious experience as it proceeds through the course of daily living. Therefore Buddhism focuses on the mind; for happiness and sorrow, pleasure and pain are psychological experiences. Even such notions as purpose, value, virtue, goodness, and worth have meaning only as the results of our attitudes and feelings.

Buddhism does not deny the reality of material existence, nor does it ignore the very great effect that the physical world has upon us. On the contrary, it refutes the mind-body dichotomy of the Brahmans and says that mind and body are interdependent. But since the fundamental reality of human existence is the ever-changing sequence of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and perceptions which comprise conscious experience, then, from the viewpoint of early Buddhism, the primary concern of religion must be these very experiences which make up our daily lives. Most significant of these are love and hate, fear and sorrow, pride and passion, struggle and defeat. Conversely, such concepts as vicarious atonement, Cosmic Consciousness, Ultimate Reality, Buddha Nature, and redemption of sins are metaphysical and hypothetical matters of secondary importance to the realities of daily existence.

Therefore, in Buddhism the most significant fact of life is the first noble truth, the inevitable existence of dukkha. Dukkha is a Pali word embracing all types of displeasurable experience — sorrow, fear, worry, pain, despair, discord, frustration, agitation, irritation, etc. The second noble truth states that the cause of dukkha is desire or craving. In various texts this cause is further explained as being threefold — greed, hatred, and delusion. Again, on other occasions the Buddha divided the cause of suffering into five components — sensual lust, anger, sloth or torpor, agitation or worry, and doubt. On still other occasions he listed ten causes of dukkha — belief that oneself is an unchanging entity; scepticism; belief in salvation through rites, rules and ceremonies; sensual lust; hatred; craving for fine-material existence; craving for immaterial existence; conceit; restlessness; and ignorance. The Third Noble Truth states that dukkha can be overcome, and the Fourth Truth prescribes the means by which this is achieved.

Thus, with the Fourth Noble Truth, Buddhism becomes a technique, a discipline, a way of life designed to free people from sorrow and improve the nature of human existence. This aspect of the Dhamma is called the Noble Eightfold Path, and includes moral teachings, self-discipline, development of wisdom and understanding, and improvement of one's environment on both a personal and social level. These have been dealt with in previous writings and for the sake of brevity will not be repeated here. Suffice it to remind the reader that this essay is concerned with only one aspect of Buddhism, the practice of meditation. The ethical, practical, and logical facets of the Teaching are covered in other publications.

If the cause of suffering is primarily psychological, then it must follow that the cure, also, is psychological. Therefore, we find in Buddhism a series of "mental exercises" or meditations designed to uncover and cure our psychic aberrations.

Mistakenly, Buddhist meditation is frequently confused with yogic meditation, which often includes physical contortions, autohypnosis, quests for occult powers, and an attempted union with God. None of these are concerns or practices of the Eightfold Path. There are in Buddhism no drugs or stimulants, no secret teachings, and no mystical formulae. Buddhist meditation deals exclusively with the everyday phenomena of human consciousness. In the words of the Venerable Nyanaponika Thera, a renowned Buddhist scholar and monk:

 In its spirit of self-reliance, Satipatthana does not require any elaborate techniqueor external devices. The daily life is its working material. It has nothing to do with any exotic cults or rites nor does it confer "initiations" or "esoteric knowledge" in any way other than by self-enlightenment.

Using just the conditions of life it finds, Satipatthana does not require complete seclusion or monastic life, though in some who undertake the practice, the desire and need for these may grow.[2]

Lest the reader suspect that some peculiarity of the "Western mind" precludes Occidentals from the successful practice of meditation, we should note also the words of Rear Admiral E.H. Shattock, a British naval officer, who spent three weeks of diligent meditation practice in a Theravada monastery near Rangoon:

 Meditation, therefore, is a really practical occupation: it is in no sense necessarily a religious one, though it is usually thought of as such. It is itself basically academic, practical, and profitable. It is, I think, necessary to emphasize this point, because so many only associate meditation with holy or saintly people, and regard it as an advanced form of the pious life... This is not the tale of a conversion, but of an attempt to test the reaction of a well-tried Eastern system on a typical Western mind.[3]

Reading about meditation is like reading about swimming; only by getting into the water does the aspiring swimmer begin to progress. So it is with meditation and Buddhism in general. The Dhamma must be lived, not merely thought. Study and contemplation are valuable tools, but life itself is the training ground.

The following passages are attempts to put into words what must be experienced within oneself. Or in the words of the Dhammapada: "Buddhas only point the way. Each one must work out his own salvation with diligence." Meditation is a personal experience, a subjective experience, and consequently each of us must tread his or her own path towards the summit of Enlightenment. By words we can instruct and encourage but words are only symbols for reality.