Religious Practice

Meditation

• What is Meditation?
• anything and everything
• in west meditation is a particlar seated position thinking deeply about religious matters
• Zen argues anything can be meditation if correct attitude is adopted.
• Meditation in Theravada Buddhism
• important practice; makes up three aspects of the eightfold path essential for nibbana
• done under guidance to make sure it fits individuals needs
• achievement of jhanas by buddha under the bodhi tree
• aim to see world as it really is
• samatha and vipassana two main types samatha precedes vipassana; practiced in conjunction
• Samatha
• calm meditation; develop control of mind
• metta meditation is a form of samatha; extended into three further forms of love
• samatha begins by encouraging the practitioner to become aware of their body through breathing exercises or meditations of walking - awareness of emotional and mental states. this calms the indicidual
• Finally, meditator able to detach themselves from ordinary concerns and cares of the world of samsara and sense desire, enter world of pure form.
• hierarchy of achievement jhanas
• first jhana - clarity, ability to examine and detach oneself from the world of sense desire
• second jhana - happiness, joy as mind is calmed
• third jhana - joy, equanimity, composed as the rapture at one's earlier joy fades
• fourth jhana - equanimity, clear, calm peaceful, a state of pure consciousness
• further four described as infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness and neither perception nor non perception. Debate whether these form higher levels…