The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, Nyanaponika Thera. pg. 44.
Rather than dwell upon the downers that I am going through at present , which mostly is about kids and money, i would rather share what I have been studying and making an effort to accomplish as i attempt to fulfill the fourth of the Islamic five pillars that is the fasting in the month of Ramadan. The Heart of Buddhist Meditation is to achieve enlightenment through a thorough development of insight through meditation and various other practices such as the practice of Bare Attention. You see a half naked beautiful young girl walking by you do not attach your mind to her giving her all the attention you can muster, identifying and projecting all your energies towards possessing her, which eventually leads you to lust for her and then she is gone, but your mind has registered all and carried with it till the next attraction comes along; I do this sadly enough! Perhaps you do too. We waste our energy by attachment to distractions and then spend the rest of the day trying to forget the episode because through our understanding of the spiritual teachings this is no right, to lust for someone or something is just not cool, a waste of precious energy and sooner or later leads to negative effects.
A simple lesson fro a normal day to day reaction we have upon our externals especially if the event of persons are desirable to our senses. Simple though it may seems these attachment habits in the long run will take strong negative control upon our lives as we give in to them day to day without any reservations. Sometimes it becomes so common that we are not even aware of it anymore that our consciousness is being sucked out by these distracting phenomena and they become a part of our psyche. Today however an even more illusive but more destructive habit has taken shape in the form of video games or digital aphrodisiacs or stimulants which captures our attention and holds it there for long period of time until we become oblivious to our surrounding.and slowly but surely we become like zombies incapable of communicating with others without eh need for this sidetrack I have friends who listens to me while their mind is on a video game and half of what is said to them slips by into the background; I stop communicating with them..
"Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. It was rediscovered by Gotama Buddha more than 2500 years ago and was taught by him as a universal remedy for universal ills, i.e., an Art Of Living. This non-sectarian technique aims for the total eradication of mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full liberation.
Vipassana is a way of self-transformation through self-observation. It focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body, which can be experienced directly by disciplined attention to the physical sensations that form the life of the body, and that continuously interconnect and condition the life of the mind. It is this observation-based, self-exploratory journey to the common root of mind and body that dissolves mental impurity, resulting in a balanced mind full of love and compassion.
The scientific laws that operate one's thoughts, feelings, judgements and sensations become clear. Through direct experience, the nature of how one grows or regresses, how one produces suffering or frees oneself from suffering is understood. Life becomes characterized by increased awareness, non-delusion, self-control and peace."
As taught by S.N. Goenka
In this day and age i find that more and more of us are being drawn out into the external world of events and phenomena and we crave ever so increasingly for what is out there, what others have what is the latest in the the market and who does what to whom and how so much so that we become lost to ourselves. We do not know who we are anymore and our mind is totally engulfed by and manipulated into thinking that this is all there is to the who am I. Many who realized this are making every effort to create a come back to a reality that they have discovered from religions and spiritual books and so forth, to who they truly are. Religious groups are formed and the need to find a right spiritual means towards understanding ourselves has become yet another commodity in the spiritual bazaar as everyone is window shopping now for the right cure.
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