A tremendously important part of all Buddhist
philosophy is the emphasis it places on meditation as
the way to salvation. In the west we have access to
so many different systems that it can be very confusing
to know where to start. We not only have all the many
Buddhist forms available to us but there are the systems
to be found in yoga, Hinduism, Theosophy, Spiritualism,
Taoism, New Age etc. etc. This is not a bad thing. The
Tibetan Buddhists themselves have thousands of meditation
techniques. Each has a different objective and different
styles suit different types of personality. But from
a Buddhist perspective the ultimate goal of all meditation
is to travel beyond the 'I' into the great immensity
called Nirvana.
BENEFITS OF MEDITATION
To practice even
a little meditation can bring great benefit to you.
From a practical standpoint you will gain greater vitality,
mental alertness and health but most importantly you
will gain the inner treasure of peace. This in turn
will inevitably improve your relations with others,
hopefully increase your compassion and make you a better
and more stable person. On a more subtle level you are
making tremendous progress spiritually and may bring
yourself great merit that will serve you well in future
lives. And your progress will become even more advanced
when you perceive meditation not as a means of self
gain but as something that is of benefit to all beings.
When meditation becomes a form of service for the sake
of all beings then you have put your foot on the bodhisattva's
road.
A Tibetan Buddhist
respects the various meditation techniques of the different
systems within and outside their own tradition. As with
most meditation practices the Tibetans advise that it
is best to practice meditation in a quiet place during
the morning when the mind is very clear and alert. The
meditation experiment that follows is a traditional
and widespread Tibetan technique used to fix the concentration.
Although it is in itself very simple some the Tibetan
adepts used variations on this method to develop the
most advanced systems.
HOW TO MEDITATE
1) First you must
make yourself comfortable. Sit on a chair or on the
floor if you can. Arrange your legs in the most comfortable
position and make your backbone as straight as an arrow.
Place your hands in the meditative equipoise at about
2" below the navel. Place the left hand on the
bottom and the right on top with your thumbs touching
to form a triangle. Your hands are now in the gesture
of meditation. The nerve channel associated 
with the
mind of enlightenment (Bodhichitta) passes through the
thumbs. Thus, joining of the two thumbs in this gesture
is of auspicious significance for the future development
of the mind of enlightenment. Furthermore this placement
of the hands has connection with the place inside the
body where inner heat in generated.
2) Now bend the
neck down slightly. Let the top of the tongue touch
the roof of the mouth near the top of the teeth. In
some Tibetan practices the eyes are focused on the tip
of the nose but for this exercise let the eyes gaze
gently downwards. Gaze without straining toward the
floor in front of you. Do not open the eyes wide rather
let the lids relax. Occasionally they may close of their
own accord. Do not worry about this, once your mental
equilibrium is steady the eyes will fix naturally into
the gaze. Become aware of how your mind is becoming
quiet and how your breathing is slowing down.
3) Now you will
shift the attention away from the mind and meditate
on an object of observation. In Tibetan meditative techniques
these can be external or internal. Something with spiritual
significance or symbolism can be used in this technique.
You can choose any item you such as flower, a cross
or perhaps the face of a great spiritual teacher. For
this exercise we'll imagine a statue of the Buddha.
Visualise that it is about four feet in front of you
at the same height as the eyebrows. It is about 2"
high and is radiating light. As well as using your visual
imagination also conceive of it as being heavy this
will help you to fix the attention further. The heaviness
is said to prevent over excitement and the brilliance
of the light will prevent laxity. You have two objectives:
a) make the object of observation clear and b) make
it steady.
4) Observe your
thoughts and impressions. Are the things you see with
your eyes bothering you? If they are then close the
eyes and observe what you see. If you see a reddish
appearance when the eyes are closed then you are too
involved in eye consciousness. Try to withdraw the attention
from the eye to the mental consciousness. Your attention
should be entirely concentrated on the Buddha that you
are visualising.
5.) The steadiness
of your observation of your Buddha will fluctuate depending
upon the excitability of your thoughts. To stop this
scattering withdraw the mind even more within so that
the intensity of your thinking begins to lower. To help
this process it is advised that should briefly think
about something sombre. These weighty thoughts will
slow down the heightened mode of appreciation of the
Buddha image you are visualising. This will increase
the stability of your mental inner observation.
6.) To get the balance
right you must also develop clarity. The biggest enemy
of this is laxity which can lead to lethargy and the
complete loss of the mental image. This is caused by
an over-withdrawal of the mind. To stop this you must
raise the mode of appreciation. It is the opposite of
what you did in order to get stability of the observation
This time you should think of something that makes you
feel joyous or exhilarated such as looking at a beautiful
scene from the mountain tops. This will lift the mind
and heighten its mode of appreciation. You must judge
the appropriate times when you need to increase your
clarity or stability of your mental picture. Notice
how by controlling your sombre and joyous thoughts you
affect the mental picture that you are creating.
7.) Now inspect
the mental image of the Buddha that you have created
in your mind's eye. Observe it from all angles; from
above, from the corners. Is it both clear and stable?
Observing the mental image in this way is called 'introspection'
by the Tibetan Buddhists. By learning to do this and
control the steadiness and clarity of the mental picture
you are at the same time controlling the mind. When
you develop mindfulness, you can catch laxity and excitement
of thoughts before they arise and even control the arising
of these thoughts.
The above technique
is the classic way a Tibetan monk will sustain meditation
using an external object of meditation. In a similar
way the meditator can look at the mind itself. The consciousness
will become empty like clear water. It is then at the
very heart of observation itself.
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