(advicoachnva.com)What is the best or most optimal (samma) attitude to Buddhist meditation? We find out from Burma to Berkeley: Meditation master Ven. U Tenjiva Sayadaw explains from an Eastern experiential point of view, and Barbara Gates (author of Already Home, A Topography of Spirit and Place, cofounder and coeditor of the Buddhist journal Inquiring Mind, and a Western student-practitioner) ties it together from Berkeley.
(2012 IndyInfo.com)The Right Attitude
Sayadaw U Tejaniva
1. Meditating is observing and acknowledging whatever happens -- pleasant or unpleasant -- in a relaxed way.
2. Meditating is watching and waiting patiently with bare awareness and understanding, rather than trying to experience something one has read or heard about.
3. Meditating is paying attention to the present moment without getting lost in thoughts about the past or the future.
4. Meditating is being comfortable in both body and mind.
Burmese novice intently meditating at Shwedagon Pagoda (alibaba.com)5. Meditating is effortlessly focusing rather than "efforting" (straining, muscling) or lapsing (overcome by sloth or torpor). Why would we fall to extremes of stress or laxity? Do we want something to happen or stop happening?
6. Meditating is letting go, not focusing too hard nor trying to control the unfolding. The mind at peace can do it, whereas forcing or restricting oneself means tension which ruins it.
Barbara Gates Dharma Talk: "Neighborhood Inquiries"Download audio
7. Meditating is allowing, neither trying to create nor reject nor become unaware of what is happening, but just being aware of the object of our attention. Trying to get something to happen is greed, rejecting something that is happening is aversion, and not knowing if something is happening or has stopped happening is delusion. [Greed, hatred, and delusion are the three poisons of the heart/mind.]
8. Meditating is being mindful to the extent that the observing mind if free of greed, aversion, or lapses in mindfulness.
Public displays of meditation, MedMob-Amsterdam (UTNE.com)9. Meditating is setting aside expectations without clinging to anything, without being anxious about gain and loss, without allowing attention to drift mindlessly, because these are the opposite of meditating.
10. Meditating is allowing, rather than forcing, things to be or to turn out a certain way and instead knowing what is happening just as it is.
11. Meditating is knowing what is the mind is doing rather than thinking (evaluating, judging, measuring) about it.
12. Meditating is knowing where the mind is NOW -- inside, outside, past, present, future?
13. Meditating is watching and observing the mind to know if it is properly aware or only superficially aware.
14. Meditating is letting rather than practicing with a mind that wants something or wants something to happen in a particular way, which only results in getting tired out.
15. Meditating is accepting and watching both good and bad experiences. We want only good experiences without even the tiniest unpleasant experience? Is that reasonable? Is that the way of the enlightening Dharma?
Occupation meditation in public squares (publicmeditation.com)16. Meditating is checking to see what attitude we are meditating with, because a light and free mind enables us to meditate well, so we are helped by the question, Do I have the right attitude?
17. Meditating is not feeling disturbed by the thinking mind since we are not practicing to prevent thinking but rather to recognize and acknowledge thinking as it arises.
18. Meditating is accepting rather than rejecting any object that comes to our attention. This way we get to know the defilements (samyojana, see The Hindrances and Their Conquest) that arise in relation to these objects so that we remain aware of them as long as they are present.
19. Meditating is being attentive, watching, observing; the object of attention is not as important as the observing mind working in the background to remain aware. In a sense, if the observing is done with the right attitude, any object being observed is the right object.
20. Meditating is only when confidence or faith (saddhā) is present because this is when effort (viriya) arises. And only with effort will mindfulness (sati) be continuous. And only when mindfulness is continuous will stability of mind (samādhi) become established. And only when stability of mind is established will we start understanding things as they really are (paññā). And only when we start understanding things as they really are will confidence or faith grow stronger.*BARBARA GATES has been practicing Buddhist meditation since 1975. Her editorial projects include books by the Dalai Lama, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and Joanna Macy. She lives with her husband and daughter in Berkeley, California.
