WHAT BUDDHISTS BELIEVE Meditation ~ Ven. Dr K Sri Dhammananda

WHAT BUDDHISTS BELIEVE
Meditation 
~ Ven. Dr K Sri Dhammananda 

Meditation is the psychological approach to mental culture, training and purification of the mind. 

In place of prayer, Buddhists practise meditation for mental culture and for spiritual development. No one can attain Nirvana or salvation without cultivating the mind through meditation. Any amount of meritorious deeds alone will not lead a person to attain the final goal without the corresponding mental purification. Naturally, the untrained mind is very elusive and persuades people to commit evil and become slaves of the senses.Imagination and emotions always mislead humans if their minds are not properly trained. One who knows how to practise meditation will be able to control the mind when it is misled by the senses. Most of the troubles which we are confronting today are due to the untrained and undeveloped mind. It is already established that meditation is the remedy for many physical and mental sicknesses. Medical authorities and great psychologists all over the world say that mental frustration, worries, miseries, anxieties, tension and fear are the causes of many diseases, stomach ulcers, gastritis, nervous complaints and mental illness. And even latent sickness will be aggravated through such mental conditions. 

When the conscious ‘I’ frets too much, worries too much, or grieves too long and too intensely, then troubles develop in the body. Gastric ulcers, tuberculosis, coronary diseases and a host of functional disorders are the products of mental and emotional imbalance. In the case of children, the decay of the teeth and defective eyesight are frequently related to emotional disorders.

Many of these sicknesses and disorders can be avoided if people could spend a few minutes a day to calm their minds through the practice of meditation. Many people do not believe this or are too lazy to practise meditation owing to a lack of understanding. Some people say that meditation is only a waste of time. We must remember that every spiritual master in this world attained the highest point of his life through the practice of meditation. They are honoured today by millions of people because they have done tremendous service to humanity with their supreme wisdom which they obtained through the practice of meditation.

Meditation should not be a task to which we force ourselves ‘with gritted teeth and clenched fists’, it should rather be something that draws us, because it fills us with joy and inspiration. So long as we have to force ourselves, we are not yet ready for meditation. Instead of meditating we are violating our true nature. Instead of relaxing and letting go, we are holding on to our ego. In this way meditation becomes a game of ambition, of personal achievement and aggrandizement. Meditation is like love: a spontaneous experience—not something that can be forced or acquired by strenuous effort.

Therefore Buddhist meditation has no other purpose than to bring the mind back into the present, into the state of fully awakened consciousness, by clearing it from all obstacles that come through the senses and mental objects.

The Buddha obtained His Enlightenment through the development of His mind. He did not seek divine power to help Him. He gained His wisdom through self-effort by practising meditation. 

To have a healthy body and mind and to have peace, one must learn how to practise meditation.