Is meditation a goal or a practice used to achieve a goal?
If it is a goal,
How do I know if I have achieved it?
If it is a useful practice,
Then what is the goal?
Is meditation a goal or a practice used to achieve a goal?
If it is a goal,
How do I know if I have achieved it?
If it is a useful practice,
Then what is the goal?
So meditation is both an end itself and also a means to an end.
It can be both.
The goal of spiritual practice is to arrive at a state of nirvana in which no suffering arises.
No hatred.
No suffering.
No anger,
No frustration.
No sadness.
No loneliness.
No concerns,
Worries.
No anxiety.
No sense of emptiness.
No tension.
In other words,
A state where you don't suffer any mental stress.
And to be at that state,
That is the goal of spiritual practice.
There are three things that we have to do to be at that state.
We have to watch out for our actions and words.
It's to refrain ourselves from acting in such a way that causes harm to others despite all the anger,
Desires that may arise within us.
In some ways,
It's a matter of cultivating your sense of character.
However,
If you don't want to go there and prescribe your own actions and words by suppressing what you want to do.
So you want to get to this natural state of prescribing your actions and words so that you don't cause harm to others in a natural way through meditation.
Basically,
Get at the state of samadhi.
And you also have to be aware,
Transparently aware of how your mind works.
So when somebody else gets angry,
Understand that there is a cause for them to be angry.
If that somebody's anger elicits a discomfort in your own reaction,
Just be aware that you're feeling uncomfortable with somebody's anger.
And realize that nothing stays the same in this world.
Everything changes.
And know this not as a matter of knowledge,
But know it as a matter of personal experience.
And realize that there's nothing permanent or eternal that you can call yourself as you,
That know you exist as a relationship and connections with everything else around you.
And because there's nothing that you can point to and say that is a sense of me or mine,
It follows that there's nothing for you to really be attached to.
And you also know the principle that if there's pleasure,
Then also there's a downside to pleasure.
That's why you don't chase after joy or pleasure.
Or if you do pursue pleasure or chase after joy,
Realize and fully acknowledge that the downside of that will always come.
Basically,
The logical chain by which suffering happens,
And before they used to call it suffering,
Today it's closer to your sense of stress.
And how that occurs,
How that arises,
And what are the consequences,
And how do you get rid of it?
So in order to get to that state,
The spiritual practice to get to that state is usually traditionally divided into three steps.
The first is follow the precepts.
Second is arrive at Samadhi.
And three is attain that wisdom.
And that's when you arrive at a state of no suffering,
Nirvana.
So going back to the question,
Then the Samadhi and the way to get there is actually a means to get to Nirvana,
The end.
However,
Because you do experience Nirvana in the middle of deep meditation,
You can also say that meditation in itself is the end.
So as we sit quietly,
We become aware of our own breath.
But if that was the objective,
Then we have to sit all the time and be still.
But for us to live our lives,
We can't just sit still.
We have to go around,
Walk around,
Be active.
So when we move around,
We have to be aware and sensitize to our emotions.
So when we practice this,
Being aware of ourselves,
That extends to you being sensitized to your own mental actions,
Being aware of your own mind.
So you arrive at the state in which you become keenly aware of how you're reacting to all the different stimulus that you are experiencing,
Including others,
What others are telling you.
And you also engage in a state of really active and careful listening to others.
So meditation is a way for you,
It's a review,
It's almost a test for you to see where you are in terms of arriving at that state of kind of quiet,
Quiet keenness.
And usually,
We don't arrive at that state.
In some ways,
We're actually worse off than animals.
Because animals tend to be relaxed and tensionless unless they're attacked or in a moment of crisis.
But we human beings tend to tense up.
We're under constant stress and under constant suffering even though we're not doing anything.
And that is not in the natural kind of default.
That's why first and foremost,
We need to practice being relaxed and at peace while doing sitting down in this fashion.
And that practice kind of extending the sense of peace and relaxation even though we may be working or active.
Without tension,
Without lethargy.
Like as a cow grazes,
There's no sense of effort or laziness or hesitancy.
It just does it in a very consistent and constant way.
That's how you need to be able to maintain that equanimity in everyday life.
Then,
There may be instances where you're attacked from the outside.
Whether you're insulted or gets criticized by others.
So for animals,
When they're attacked like this,
Then they get afraid,
They fear,
And they tense up.
However,
Buddha maintained equanimity even while under attack.
Basically,
He was able to elevate his own reactions higher than the natural baseline.
So currently,
We modern humans actually live below our natural baseline.
So it's important for us to get back to that natural baseline.
But our goal is to kind of elevate ourselves beyond the baseline.
Get to that state in which we are relaxed and at peace in normal everyday life and also stay relaxed and at peace even while attacked or under different stimulus.
In short,
Free ourselves from depending on external circumstances to drive the state of our mind.
And we meditate in order to get to that stage.
