The Art of Meditation E-Book

Matthieu Ricard

• Herausgeber: Atlantic Books
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Seitenzahl: 160

Beschreibung

A Sunday Times bestseller, this new paperback is an elegant and inspiring short guide to The Art of Meditation: another instant classic from the bestselling author of Happiness. Wherever he goes, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard is asked to explain what meditation is, how it is done and what it can achieve. In this authoritative and inspiring book, he sets out to answer these questions. Matthieu Ricard shows that practising meditation can change our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. He talks us through its theory, spirituality and practical aspects of deep contemplation and illustrates each stage of his teaching with examples. Through his experience as a monk, his close reading of sacred texts and his deep knowledge of the Buddhist masters, Matthieu Ricard reveals the significant benefits that meditation - based on selfless love and compassion - can bring to each of us.

Leseprobe

Copyright

First published in France as L’art de la meditation in 2008 by NiL éditions, Paris.

First published in English in Great Britain in 2010 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd.

Copyright © Matthieu Ricard, 2008

Translation © Sherab Chödzin Kohn, 2010

The moral right of Matthieu Ricard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts of 1988.

The moral right of Sherab Chödzin Kohn to be identified as the translator of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

Atlantic Books

An imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd

Ormond House

26–27 Boswell Street

London

WC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

First eBook Edition: January 2010

ISBN: 978-1-848-87482-4

Contents

Cover

Copyright

Foreword

PART I: Why Meditate?

PART II: What to Meditate On?

PART III: How to Meditate?

Turning the Mind Towards Meditation

Mindfulness Meditation

Inner Calm

Meditations on Altruistic Love

A Sublime Exchange

Soothing Physical Pain

Deep Insight (Vipashyana)

Dedicating the Fruits of Our Efforts

Bringing Meditation and Everyday Life Together

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Foreword

We must be the change we want to see in the world.

—Gandhi

WHY THIS LITTLE BOOK ON MEDITATION? FOR FORTY years I have had the good fortune to study with authentic spiritual masters who inspired me and illuminated my path in life. Their precious instructions have guided my actions. I am not a teacher – I remain more than ever a student – but in the course of my travels round the world, I have frequently met people who have shared with me their wish to learn to meditate. I have tried to the best of my ability to direct them to qualified teachers, but this has not always been possible. So it is for all those people who have a sincere desire to meditate that I have collected these instructions, drawn from authentic Buddhist sources, into book form.

The real significance of meditation is inner transformation through training the mind, which is a really exciting adventure. The exercises you will find here are taken from a tradition that is more than two thousand years old. It is best to explore them gradually, but you may also practise them independently of each other, whether you devote only thirty minutes a day to meditation or practise it more intensively in the undisturbed environment of a retreat.

As to my personal history, I had the tremendous good fortune of meeting my spiritual master, Kangyur Rinpoche, in 1967 near Darjeeling in India. I owe him whatever goodness there is in my life. After his death in 1975, I spent several years in retreat in a small wooden hut built on stilts in the forest above his monastery. For a period of thirteen years, starting in 1981, I had the privilege of living in the presence of the great master Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and receiving his teachings. Since 1991 when he departed this world, I have often stayed in retreat in a small mountain hermitage in Nepal, a few hours away from Kathmandu, in a contemplative centre founded by the Shechen Monastery, where I usually reside. These periods of retreat have without a doubt been among the most fertile times of my life.

Over the course of the last ten years, I have also participated in several scientific research programmes intended to document the long-term effects of meditation practice on the brain and on behaviour. This research has shown that it is possible to make significant progress in developing qualities such as attention, emotional balance, altruism and inner peace. Other studies have also demonstrated the benefits of meditating for twenty minutes a day for a period of six to eight weeks. These benefits include a decrease in anxiety, in vulnerability to pain and in the tendency towards depression and anger, as well as strengthening attention, the immune system and an increase in general well-being. Thus no matter what point of view you approach it from – from that of personal transformation, the development of altruistic love or physical health – meditation emerges as a factor essential for leading a balanced life, rich in meaning.

It is a pity to underestimate the capacity we have to transform our mind. Each of us possesses the potential needed to free ourselves from the mental states that perpetuate our own suffering and that of others – the potential to find our own inner peace and contribute to the welfare of others.

PART I

Why Meditate?

TAKE A SINCERE LOOK AT YOURSELF. WHERE ARE YOU in your life? What have your priorities been up till now and what do you intend doing with the time you have left?

We are a mixture of light and shadow, of good qualities and faults. Are we really the best we can be? Must we remain as we are now? If not, what can we do to improve ourselves? These are questions worth asking, particularly if we have come to the conclusion that change is both desirable and possible.

In the West, we are consumed from morning till night by endless activity. We do not have much time or energy left over to consider the basic causes of our happiness or suffering. We imagine, more or less consciously, that if we undertake more activities we will have more intense experiences and, therefore, our sense of dissatisfaction will fade away. But the truth is that many of us continue to feel let down and frustrated by our contemporary lifestyle.

The aim of meditation is to transform the mind. It does not have to be associated with any particular religion. Every one of us has a mind and every one of us can work on it.

Is Change Desirable?

There are very few people who would say that there is nothing worth improving in the way they live and experience the world. However, some people think their own particular weaknesses and conflicting emotions are something rich that contributes to the fullness of their lives. They believe this particular alchemy in their character is what makes them unique and think they should learn to accept themselves the way they are. They do not realize that this kind of thinking can lead to a life of chronic discontent. Nor do they realize that they could help themselves with just a little reflection and effort.

Imagine someone suggested you spend an entire day tormented by jealousy. Would you want to do that? I doubt it. If, on the other hand, someone suggested you spend that same day with your heart filled with love for all beings, you would probably be quite willing to do so. I’m sure you would find that infinitely preferable to a whole day of jealousy.

As things stand now, no matter what our preferences might be, our mind is often filled with troubles. We spend a great deal of time consumed by painful thoughts, plagued by anxiety or anger, licking the wounds we receive from other people’s harsh words. When we experience these kinds of difficult moments, we wish we could manage our emotions; we wish we could master our mind to the point where we could be free of these afflicting emotions. It would be such a relief. However, since we don’t know how to achieve this kind of control, we take the point of view that, after all, this way of living is ‘normal’ or ‘natural’, and that it is ‘human nature’. Even if it were natural, that would not make it desirable. Illness, for example, comes to everybody, but does this prevent us from consulting a doctor?

We don’t want to suffer. Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks: ‘Oh, if I could only suffer all day today and, if possible, every day for the rest of my life!’ Whatever we are occupied with – an important task, routine work, walking in the woods, pursuing a relationship, drinking a cup of tea – we always hope we will get some benefit or satisfaction out of it, either for ourselves or others. If we thought nothing would come of our activities but suffering, we wouldn’t do anything at all and we would fall into despair.

Sometimes we do have moments of inner peace, of altruistic love, of deep-felt confidence, but, for the most part, these are only fleeting experiences that quickly give way to other less pleasant ones. What if we could train our mind to cultivate these wholesome moments? No doubt it would radically change our lives for the better. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to become better human beings and lead lives in which we experience inner fulfilment, while also relieving the suffering of others and contributing to their well-being?

Some people think life would be dull without inner conflict but we are all familiar with the suffering that accompanies anger, greed or jealousy, and we all appreciate the good feelings that go along with kindness, contentment and the pleasure of seeing other people happy. The sense of harmony that is connected with loving others has an inherent goodness in it that speaks for itself. The same is true of generosity, patience, emotional balance and many other positive traits. If we could learn to cultivate altruistic love and inner calm, and if at the same time the self-centred approach of the ego and the frustration that arises from it could be reduced, then our lives certainly would not lose any of their richness – quite the opposite.

Is Change Possible?

So the real question is not whether change is desirable; it is whether it is possible to change. Some people might think they can’t change because their afflictive emotions are so intimately associated with their minds that it is impossible to get rid of them without destroying a part of themselves.

It is true that in general people’s characters don’t change very much. If we could study the same group of people every few years, we would rarely find that the angry people had become patient, that the disturbed people had found inner peace, or that the pretentious people had learned humility. But as rare as such changes might be some people do change, which shows that change is possible. The point is that our negative character traits tend to persist if we don’t do anything to change the status quo. No change occurs if we just let our habitual tendencies and automatic patterns of thought perpetuate and even reinforce themselves thought after thought, day after day, year after year. But those tendencies and patterns can be challenged.

Aggression, greed, jealousy and the other mental poisons are unquestionably part of us, but are they an inalienable part? Not necessarily. For example, a glass of water might contain cyanide that could kill us on the spot. But the same water could also be mixed with healing medicine. In either case, H2O, the chemical formula of the water itself, remains unchanged; in itself, it was never either poisonous or medicinal. The different states of the water are temporary and circumstantial. Our emotions, moods and bad character traits are just temporary and circumstantial elements of our nature.

A Fundamental Aspect of Consciousness

This temporary and circumstantial quality becomes clear to us when we realize that the primary quality of consciousness, which is comparable to the water in the example above, is simply knowing. Knowing in itself is neither good nor bad. If we look behind the turbulent stream of transient thoughts and emotions that pass through our mind day and night, this fundamental aspect of consciousness, knowing, which makes possible and underlies all perception no matter what its nature, is always there. Buddhism describes this knowing aspect of the mind as luminous, because it illuminates both the external world and the inner world of sensation, emotion, reasoning, memory, hope and fear.

Although this faculty of knowing underlies every mental event, it is not itself affected by any of these events. A ray of light may shine on a face disfigured by hatred or on a smiling face, it may shine on a jewel or on a garbage heap; but the light itself is neither mean nor loving, neither dirty nor clean. Understanding that the essential nature of consciousness is neutral permits us to understand that it is possible to change our mental universe. We can transform the content of our thoughts and experiences. The neutral and luminous background of our consciousness provides us with the space we need to observe mental events, rather than being at their mercy, and then to create the conditions necessary to transform them.

Just Wishing is Not Enough

We have no choice about what we already are, but we can wish to change ourselves. Such an aspiration can give the mind a sense of direction. But just wishing is not enough. We have to find a way of putting that wish into action.

We don’t find anything strange about spending years learning to walk, to read and write or to acquire professional skills. We spend hours doing physical exercises in order to get our bodies fit. Sometimes we expend tremendous physical energy pedalling a stationary bike that goes nowhere. To sustain such tasks, we have to have a minimum of interest or enthusiasm. This interest comes from feeling that, in the long run, these efforts are going to benefit us.

Working with the mind follows the same logic. How could it be subject to change without the least effort, just from wishing alone? That doesn’t make any more sense than expecting to learn to play a Mozart sonata just by occasionally doodling around on the piano.

We expend a lot of effort to improve the external conditions of our lives, but in the end it is always the mind that creates our experience of the world and translates it into well-being or suffering. If we transform our way of perceiving things, we transform the quality of our lives. It is this kind of transformation that is brought about by the form of mind-training known as meditation.

What is Meditation?

Meditation is a practice that makes it possible to cultivate and develop certain basic positive human qualities in the same way as other forms of training make it possible to play a musical instrument or acquire any other skill.

The words that are translated into English as meditation are bhavana from Sanskrit, which means ‘to cultivate’, and gom from the Tibetan, which means ‘to become familiar with’. Primarily, meditation is a matter of familiarizing ourselves with a clear and accurate way of seeing things and of cultivating the good qualities that remain dormant inside us until we make the effort to bring them out.

So let us begin by asking ourselves, ‘What do I really want out of life? Am I content to just keep improvising from day to day? Am I going to overlook the vague sense of discontent that I always feel deep down when, at the same time, I am longing for well-being and fulfilment?’

We have become accustomed to thinking that our faults are inevitable and that we have to put up with the setbacks they have brought us throughout our lives. We have come to take the dysfunctional aspect of ourselves for granted without realizing that it is possible to free ourselves from the vicious circle that is exhausting us.

From a Buddhist point of view, every being has the potential for enlightenment just as surely, say the traditional texts, as every sesame seed contains oil. Despite this, to use another traditional comparison, we wander about in confusion like a beggar who is simultaneously both rich and poor because he does not know that he has a treasure buried under the floor of his hut. The goal of the Buddhist path is to come into possession of this overlooked wealth of ours, which can imbue our lives with the most profound meaning.

Transforming Ourselves to Better Transform the World

Developing our own positive inner qualities is the best way to help others. At the beginning, our personal experience is our only reference point but, as we continue, it can become the basis for a much larger point of view that includes all beings. We are all dependent on each other, and none of us wants to suffer. Being happy in the midst of an infinite number of other beings who are suffering is absurd (if it were even possible). Seeking happiness for oneself alone is doomed to certain failure, since self-centredness is the very source of our discontent. ‘When selfish happiness is the only goal in life, life soon becomes goalless,’ wrote the French novelist Romain Rolland.1Even if we show all the outward signs of happiness, we cannot be truly happy if we fail to take an interest in the happiness of others. Altruistic love and compassion are the foundations of genuine happiness.

These remarks are not intended to be moralistic; they simply reflect reality. Seeking happiness selfishly is the best way there is to make yourself, or anyone else, unhappy. Some people might think that the smartest way to guarantee their own well-being is to isolate themselves from others and to work hard at their own happiness, without consideration for other people. They probably assume that if everybody does that, we’ll all be happy. But the result would be exactly the opposite: instead of being happy, they would be torn between hope and fear, make their own lives miserable and ruin the lives of the people around them as well. In the end, just ‘looking out for number one’ is a losing proposition for everybody. One of the fundamental reasons such an approach is doomed is that the world is not made up of independent entities endowed with intrinsic properties that make them by nature beautiful or ugly, friends or enemies. Things and beings are essentially interdependent and in a constant state of transformation. The very elements that compose them only exist in relationship to each other. The self-centred approach of the ego continually runs afoul of this reality and only succeeds in creating frustration.