What is Buddhist Meditation?
The Purpose and Starting Point of Buddhist Meditation
It’s quite useful to have an overview of what we’re trying to do in Buddhist meditation, to have a ‘map’- to put experiences we may have in meditation in context and help guide us- with the important caveat that a map is not the same as the terrain.
Buddhist meditation can have many wonderful benefits such as less stress and anxiety but ultimately is for becoming enlightened, (the best way to be totally free from stress and anxiety is to become a Buddha anyway).
Meditation starts from how we find ourselves right now. Not how we’d like to be, not how we imagine we are, not a ‘Spiritual you’ but how we actually are. Some people think ‘I can’t meditate because I cant concentrate I get too distracted.” But whatever mind you’ve got that’s where work from. We start from where we are.
Ordinary Consciousness
Most of the time we are in ‘Ordinary Consciousness’- which is to say we have at least one of the 5 hindrances in our experience: Craving for sense experience, Ill-Will, Doubt and Indecision, Anxiety, and Sloth and torpor.
These 5 hindrances weigh us down and ‘cover’ our minds, so we cannot experience our minds as they are underneath- which is intensely positive and radiant. So we start with practices such as the Mindfulness of breathing in which we become asorbed in the direct sensations of breathing, or Metta Bhavana in which we cultivate kindness towards ourselves and others- thereby loosening the grip of the hindrances.
Access Concentration
Next comes ‘Access Concentration’ - this is when the hindrances begin to lose their power, and we have access to the ‘Dhyanas’.* In access concentration meditation become easier and more enjoyable, and you often experience a delightful release of energy and emotion.
The Dyhanas
Next the 1st dhyana, which is when none of the hindrances are present and is very pleasurable and inspired state of mind. Thinking is still present, but is thinking of a very focused and directed kind.
The second dhyana is more refined than the first, and thinking is absent. There are 8 Dhyanas enumerated, each more refined and pleasurable than the last. People report having amazing visions and experiences and developing special abilities from these states.
Because the in the first dhyana thinking is still present, it is from that state you can gain insight, because you can reflect on the nature of reality. Traditionally you reflect on the transitory nature of things (Anicca) or suffering (Dukkha) or the insubstantial nature of things (Anatta), using these concepts as gateways into a direct seeing of reality.
Insights
Gradually you become better at working with your mind, so that you become more accustomed to these higher states of consciousness. You start to gain flashes of insight, and these become more regular and eventually become constant illumination. A new you- the REAL you – emerges.
Cautions
Not everyone likes emphasizing ‘levels’ of consciousness, and the dhyanas- for fear of encouraging an attitude of grabbing pleasure or even competitiveness- or worrying if we are not having blissful or visionary experiences, we are doing something wrong! Its important that we don’t make meditation about forcing peak experiences- it should be seen as a way of raising the general level of consciousness, ideally as part of a coordinated effort with the rest of our life outside of meditation.
*Interestingly, dhyana is where we get the word ‘zen’ from- when Buddhism went to China the word dhyana became ‘chan’, and when it arrived in Japan it became ‘zen’