Meditation As A Relief From Suffering

This meditation is for both the advanced and the beginning mediator. The intention of the meditation is to understand the origin of suffering and how a basic meditation can help in the awareness of this.

Transcript

We want to keep in mind that any kind of difficulties that come up for us,

Whether they come up in meditation or outside of meditation,

Are valuable for us because there's lessons to be learned from that.

And that's universal.

Every problem that everybody has can be very valuable.

And we can actually learn to cherish it because of the lessons that we can get from that.

Everything has a lesson tied to it.

And we have to get these lessons in life,

Otherwise they'll show up again and again and again and again.

So the sooner that we get them and pay attention to them,

The more we can start really enjoying life and understanding life.

But things do come up in our meditation and they come up for a reason.

They come up because it's basically our subconscious or maybe even our conscious talking to us and saying,

This is what we got to get.

This is what we have to learn today.

I will guide us through the first part of it.

And I'm just going to do kind of a basic meditation guiding,

Talk a little bit about the body and the idea to come into this presence that is really our true nature.

So please make yourself comfortable.

Close the eyes.

Take a few nice deep breaths if you like,

Become familiar with the breath.

When we meditate,

If we can focus on something that has very little meaning to us intellectually,

This is usually the best or one of the best objects that we can use to focus on.

And that's one of the reasons we use the breath,

At least many of us do.

We find the area on the body where we feel the breath and use that as our focal point.

That the breath is not important is very important for us.

But it is more or less controlled by the subconscious.

We breathe on our own,

The body breathes while we sleep,

The body breathes while we're thinking about other things other than breathing.

And so it's just a natural function of the body,

Much like the heartbeat or the cleansing of the body that the kidney and liver does.

So as meditators,

The breath can be a very important tool.

And interestingly enough,

Anytime we focus on any aspect of the body,

We can really look at this as one of the better meditation objects.

Because the body has sensations,

And it has a great deal to teach us in the area of selfing as far as feeling as if this is our body.

The body is not very stable,

It's constantly changing.

It's a very valuable lesson in itself,

Impermanence.

But it's really our vehicle,

Our vehicle of choice we could say,

When we focus on it.

It was the body that got us to the place that we're at right now.

It's the body that took us through our life growing up.

My body carried me through South Dakota,

My childhood,

Traveling around the world,

Ending up in Wisconsin and now being in Arizona for the last 20 years.

And it's the body that did all this,

It functioned as it's supposed to function.

It's the vehicle.

And it's also the body that will wear out when its time is done.

So focusing on any aspect of the body can seem boring from the standpoint of everyday life,

Everyday living.

If we find somebody on the street and ask them to stop and focus on some aspect of the body,

They would find it extremely boring unless they were a meditator.

But with all these lessons that the body has to teach us,

It allows us to come into the present moment through that focus,

That light focus of the body.

So if we use the breath,

Again we find a place in the body where the breath physically touches the body,

Where we can feel that movement and we focus on that.

We can notice the impermanence,

We can notice the change,

The temperature,

The sensation,

All these different aspects.

And while we do that,

We're relinquishing our thoughts of the past and our thoughts and ideas of the future.

So it's an instant surrender.

We're letting go of this story.

And then we realize that this story really isn't necessary for us to be happy.

And it actually gets in the way of our peace of mind.

Many of us are familiar with the five hindrances and how the five hindrances are the things that hinder our concentration and they also hinder our happiness in life.

The desires that we have for things to be different,

The desires for things to be better in the future,

The desire to have more control.

These things have everything to do with our life outside of the present moment.

Consciousness and worry.

Is the mind continually coming back to a thought,

Coming back to a problem?

Is the continual going back to the future,

Going back to the past to make,

Seemingly make our lives more complete in some way?

We can be worrying about ourselves or we can be worrying about others or we can be worrying about situations and things.

And any kind of ill will,

Another hindrance or anger is based on something that has happened in the past,

Angry at other people,

Angry at situations,

Angry at a predicament that we're in,

Angry at world affairs and simply visiting thoughts that we've had already in the past,

Conditioned and we're wishing to condition them in a certain way by having more control.

So these hindrances,

Including sloth and torpor or fatigue,

Mental cloudiness or boredom and doubt in our abilities,

Doubt in other people's abilities,

Doubt in the abilities of our leaders of the world.

All these things have to do with the mind getting tangled up in thoughts of the past or the future.

And so when we're meditating we have an opportunity to come into the present moment and this is our vacation spot,

If you will.

It's not that we're hiding from anything but we're actually in the come to the present moment to learn,

To understand who we are and what we are and how our mind operates,

How the world operates.

And coming into the present moment gives us an opportunity to see the real world in many ways.

When everything is said and done we come to the end of our time.

When we'll be relinquishing the past,

When we won't be looking toward the future.

When we're done with this body it would be like taking off a coat,

That old coat that we have and no longer needing it anymore,

Just setting it aside.

We can even visualize ourselves walking away from it.

But of course nobody will be walking.

And we,

At least for a while,

Will be in perpetual present moment reality.

And so meditation gives us an opportunity to understand what that is and how it is.

And to live life in the present moment outside of meditation can be a real gift for us as well.

To be in the present moment as much as we possibly can,

From moment to moment.

And that's where we find true peace of mind.

Seeing the struggle,

The need for things to be a particular way.

Realizing that nothing has to change from the way it is at this moment in order for us to be happy.

This is the key to awakening.

So we sit in our meditation posture on the floor or in a chair.

We bring our attention to the breath.

We allow the breath to take us into the presence.

When we catch the mind wandering into the past or the future,

We notice that and then bring it back to the breath or whatever we might be using as the meditation object.

And we understand that this place is really a place of unconditional love.

In fact,

That's what this presence is.

Absolute acceptance due to this unconditional love.

An opportunity to surrender and to let go.

From all the all-l If you'd like to,

You can bring your hands together in front of your heart.

May each one of us and all beings be well,

Happy and peaceful.

May no harm come to us.

May no difficulties come to us.

May we all meet with spiritual and worldly success.

And may we have the patience,

The courage and the understanding to meet and overcome any problems or any difficulties that we might face in life.

Thank you.

You

Reviews

Simple short encapsulation of breath meditation to let go of hindrances. Present mindfulness uncovers peacefull and creative alpha brain waves unlocking the shackles of chronic poisonous over thinking and worry .