Why We Should Meditate
Why We Should Meditate
The word meditation translates the Pali word Bhāvanā which means cultivating the mind, developing the mind, mental culture.So whole emphasis is on the mind.When you read the Buddhist texts you are so amazed at the Buddha's profound and deep statements about the human mind.It is amazing that he should have made these statements 2600 years ago.In fact,modern psychologists and psychotherapiests are also deeply inspired by the Buddha,s statements on the human mind.
KNOWING,SHAPING & FREEING THE MIND
Meditation is knowing the mind,shaping the mind and freeing the mind.So knowing the mind is understanding how the mind is working.If we do not know our mind we are really just like a machines.Therefore it is extremely important to know and to understand how our minds work.
And when we know the mind, then we can shape the mind. shaping the mind is developing mastery over the mind what happens is that we become a slave to our iwn mind. So when we become slaves to our mind then thoughts and emotions control us and that result in more and more suffering. Therefore it is very important to learn to shape the mind, and when you learn to shape the mind then tou can achive a mind that is free. So the importance of the meditation is learning to achive a mind that is free, a mind that is happy, a mind that is peaceful, a mind that has loving-kindness.
ACHIEVING A COMPLETELY HEALTHY MIND
It is interesting to see the things we do not to keep our body healthy. We feed our body, we keep the body clean, when the body becomes sick we go to the doctor and get medicine to cure the illnesses. We do so many things to keep our the body healthy. An interesting question is: what do we do to keep our mind healthy? Have you given thought to this very important question? We have to clear about what makes our mind sixk, what makes our mind unhealthy. What are the symptoms of the human sickness of the mind? So meditation is learning about them and achieving a mind that ia completely healthy.
We can consider some emotions as contributing to the illness of human mind. I would like to mention some of these emotions, and i am sure everyone here can relate to them: anxiety, stress, fear, insecurity and sadness. I can draw up a long list, which I think we can relate to. Sometimes we don't realise that they make our mind sick. If we don't know that they can create our sickness we can continue to have sickness without finding a solution to it. In one of my talks I will be speaking about emotions and I will present to you how meditation helps us to work with emotions. When I speak about emotions I will be interested to hear from you what emotions really bother you in this country. So I will be presenting practical way of working with these unpleasant emotions and then finding a way to be free from these emotion.
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