By Victor M Fontane
Meditation has become a widely used practice in our western part of the world and many people are being involved in workshop, retreats, etc. for various purposes, trying to imitate the Far East ancient practices.
However, it’s being a hard process for many to understand the ultimate goal of meditation and even to the practice itself.
Thus, is important to consider various aspects of the process of meditation.
The main use of meditation is to train the mind. As human mind is always in motion and scattered everywhere, meditation helps to quiet the mind, not to empty the mind from thoughts but to acquire the ability to focus and concentrate in just one thing at the time.
The process of meditation is being wrongly used for: prosperity, health, increase memory, etc., that as a matter of fact can help, but not for its real purpose which is get in touch and recognize the Divine spark within and our Divinity, God’s realization.
In the process of meditation, we will see thoughts passing by all the time and the clue is not to get stuck and let them go, like clouds in the sky and then, we will find that Divine spark in the empty space between two thoughts and that’s where we concentrate to find our true self or God’s realization or Samadhi.
What guarantee a meditation is repetition, makes the mind used to the process.
Finally, there are different types of meditations or purposes like concentrating on our breath, in a light of a candle, on a concept, etc. but we have to understand that, to achieved that final goal we have to detach from the physical world, dispassion from the world.
The end result of a continuous practice of meditation is to purify the mind. Do it regularly, daily if possible, have a fixed time, morning, afternoon or evening (mind is a creature of habits), fixed place, don’t dwell on disturbing thoughts, be away of negative company and places, have a simple or minimalistic life, have a sense of vastness, infinity, eternity, yearning for God or Divinity, spiritualize all your activities in the physical world, offer them to God and Holy company, be among other meditators. With all these you elevate you mind and meditation becomes strong.
In order to get all benefits from meditation there some steps we need to follow.
Have a special sacred place in your house or the forest, beach, etc. where you can sit comfortable in silence and with the images of your preferences.
Try to meditate always in the morning or night at the same time and the same place. That will train the mind to always expect this meditation.
Have a reason or theme for your meditation. Remember to detach yourself from any desire of physical things.
Sit in a comfortable cushion and position with your spine erect a position that you can hold for some time.
Relax and close your eyes (can be also half-closed), place the tip of your tongue touching the back of your upper front teeth and turn your eyes upward as looking to your forehead.
Observe your thoughts passing by but don’t get stuck on them and you will be able to see the empty space between two thoughts where you will find your true Self. Keep this as long as possible.
However, after all this, why is so difficult for human to change? In spite the fact that there are so many Life Coaches, Ministries, etc. it happens because all self help books, workshops or seminars, yoga practices, etc. don’t address the structure of the mind. There is a beautiful Indian analogy that says that our mind is like an elephant guided by his rider (Mahout) in top of him which is the intellect but the elephant (mind) is much bigger and stronger than the Mahout (intellect) and the elephant will do what he wants. Our mind is full of emotions, ideas and concepts we learned from others that are stronger that our intellect. So, when you are ready to meditate effectively?, when you mind is more or less stable and thing of the world don’t continuously put your mind outwards. This happens because of the false notion of the world we have, we don’t see the Divinity underlying everything. One way to also work with meditation is understanding how the mind works. For that there is a full analysis contained in the Abhidhamma Piṭaka or Buddhist Psychology, Suttas given by Lord Buddha about the science of the mind.
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