My Experience with Meditation
As I started to learn more and more about meditation, I find its fascinating and very powerful. The way I look at meditation is like a way of training the mind to be control without forcefulness. Learning how to quiet the mind, and all its illusionary thoughts. When I get into zazen posture, I take a deep breath and then bow down to the Creator, my Buddha Nature that lives within me. While I am in bowed position, I say within me I give my entire being up, I give up all my concerns, all my issues up right here and right now, and I sit here and absorb the greatness from inner being, my Buddha Nature, letting the joy, the peace, the compassion to radiate inward and outward, letting go all things, right here and right now. And then I try to shut my mind off, by not trying to think of anything, trying to get into the state I felt or experience when I was a fetus within my mothers womb, having no thought, no worry, no doubt, nothing.
Wanting nothing is the goal.
Of course thoughts do arise, but I try my best to see it rise and fall, like particles in the water, they just fall slowly down to the bottom. Of course I hear things, like the sound of my wife cooking in the kitchen, the sound of a passing car, by what I’ve learn is not to cling to those sounds, not to classified or label those sounds, like saying, thats a car, or my wife is cooking. Trying to not think about what you just heard, just letting it pass by with out any worry or thought. Its almost like saying hearing without thinking, just if somebody was talking to you and you happen to be thinking of something else while that person was talking to you and the person looks at you and says “hey are you listening to me?”
In reality, you are not really listening to that person for that moment. So in the case of meditation, its not that you are listening to anything else, you can be aware and paying attention to your breathing, counting your breaths, and then you notice the sound of a passing car, but you do not cling to the sound in your mind, just let it rise and fall, that is all. I use to be bothered when sounds happen to pop up when I am trying to meditate, but in reality, its good, because it helps me sharpen my concentration. I look at it like a baseball player who is batting, and he is playing in the competitors home stadium and everyone is booing, but the professional baseball player is so discipline that while he is in his batting stance, concentrating on the ball, that he actually learned how to block out all the distractions that surrounds him, that is what we need to do.
Concentration is a process, but welcome the noise around you, it helps to sharpen your mind. Yes, don’t get me wrong, when I have a quiet place to meditate, I love it because I am able to enter levels in meditation, that is beautiful, but a noisy background is a training ground for the mind. And what I have learned with meditating is, it helps me control my thoughts when I am outside in the public, when things arise, like when I am driving my car and another a car cuts me off or someone tail gates me trying to make move out there way, should I get upset? or should I use the skill of quieting the mind from any thought of anger that tries to manifest? of course use the skill of what I have learned in my time of mind training.
Meditating is not just to make you to feel peaceful when you are in zazen posture at home or at the temple, its a state of mind you carry with you everywhere you go. The power of meditation actually teaches you to not think like a barbaric man or women anymore, but to be absorbed in the realm of peace, compassion, and kindness, it trains you to learn how to deal with your everyday tasks at home, at the grocery store, driving your car, talking to a person etc. I am no expert but this is what I have learned as a beginner student.
Of course since I am learning this beautiful tool, I will slowly evolve in my practice and probably adapt to new techniques while I walk this beautiful path.
I hope this was useful for you, take care, and be well.
No Comments