Meditation Lecture
Thank you Marvin for asking me to share my journey in Meditation
I feel Buddhism is a spirituality not a religion. I feel and have gained personal spiritual enrichment through the practice of mediation and that is what I will share today.
More common in present days, churches incorporate the practice of meditation. I am still active in holding mediations in the labyrinth at my church in Durham where I lived before Candler and visit regularly.
It is now more confirming and I am more inspired to share my own journey in Buddhism because of the recent media coverage of the
Thai monks completing their walk for peace from Fort Worth to Washington D.C.
I began my practice when I moved to Ventura, California twenty years ago. I went to a Vietnamese temple twice a week for group meditation.
It is easier to acquire the discipline of meditation in a group.
I lived in Thailand in the 80s and taught school there. I revisited Thailand in 2014. I was staying in a treehouse with my sister and early in the morning, we would hear the monks do their morning chantings.
We followed the chant and found
finding out later that this is one of the premier places in the world for foreign meditators.
I decided to do a vipasana the following year, a ten day retreat wherein you are silent the whole time except for daily reportings to a monk. The meditators work their way up to doing 12 hours of meditation daily. Conscience walking and sitting
I have now completed ten consecutive years of Vipasssanas.
The daily schedule is
Five Two and a half hours meditation sessions with breaks of breakfast lunch and reporting to one of the monks in the afternoon. And as all monks do we fasted after noon.
Fasting was difficult at the beginning.
story of stealing cabbage
In the daily reportings, the monk gives instructions of walking steps and breathing points. To concentrate on your breath helps one release the monkey in the brain and be in the present moment. The Thais have a saying:
“Don’t feed the monkey in the brain”
My second year my reporting monk asked me how many breathing points I had done. I responded I had done all 12 she responded there are 24
“Learn by doing” and working up to twelve hours of meditation daily is the goal.
One begins each set of meditation with
prostration bowing to the monk or nature or God
Six walking steps beginning with step one and gradually reaching step six
Sitting and concentrating on the breath
Working up to the 28 Breathing points that scan the body from top to bottom
And the benefits?
The head monk at the Wat Rampoeng said the true route to happiness is through meditation
I have very little anger in my life.
Dali lama says that meditation changes your brain. He speaks of not having anger and that the practice of meditation gives one mental happiness. Reading about the research on meditation benefits, I find others have felt the benefits I have felt.
Happiness comes from
to self and then to your fellow human beings and the world. Buddhism has many precepts to follow to guide you and your life. One of the precepts is
so one key thing I have learned from studying Buddhism and my meditation practice is to try to have right speech, I try to speak right speech with no negativity.
Expressing gratitude and forgiveness and loving kindness
I used to feel as if my mind was like a hamster going around a wheel. I would try to analyze and find answers for problems.
Now I feel more relaxed and let solutions run their own course. Letting go of controls.
I feel like I live more in the
present.
It may sound like a small benefit but I do not forget where I leave things because I feel I am conscious in the present moment.
I have a saying
“Walk to be here not to be there”.
One of the gifts of my vipasanas is that it slows me down to make note of everything in my life. I tend to literally walk slower and will let go of something in my life if it rushes me, takes me away from enjoying the present moment. I have learned to say to people when I am not sure I wish to make a commitment, that it is a possibility. This made an impression in my life from one of my monastic monks in the temple when he responded to my question if I could leave a day early from one my vipasanas,
“it is a possibility.”
We only have the present
The past is only a memory
The future is our imagination and projection.
Letting go of attachments
One reason I go on these long retreats is that toward the end of my ten days I
feel the presence of those who have passed on like my parents
During an early morning meditation, I felt my mother lying beside me and many other feelings of their presence. So the comfort meditation has given me to heal my grief is a huge benefit.
My parents have come to me vividly in dreams when I am in the temple whereas I do not dream of them outside of the temple.
I went February of last year and had a dream of my childhood home and again my mother and father were present. Last November when I went, I had the exact same dream. I believe this not to be a coincidence.
Toward the end of my last visit one of my monestic teachers asked at every daily reporting how many hours have you done? I told her this time that I felt I was meditating all the time. She smiled and said that is the point to reach this level of meditating.
It is important to incorporate meditation into your daily life and routines.
by trying to be present with your activities, like washing the dishes or going for a walk.
Starting with a daily practice of ten minutes a day is beneficial.
To continue a daily meditation practice, it allows us to keep clarity, consciousness and awareness to live our best life.
And now we will do a seven minute mediation.
We will Meditate now
One minute of Prostration
Three minutes of walking
Three minutes of sitting
May all who suffer
Be free from suffering
May all who have fear
Be free from fear
May all who have sorrow
Be free from sorrow
May all obstacles
Be away from your path
May all ailments cease
May no danger come to you
May you have a happy and long life
May all beings be well and happy
Saadhu Saadhu Saadhu
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