These guidelines are prepared for anyone who wishes to practice meditation. It may also be used for leading group meditations for the public. To download the entire booklet, click here: Guidelines in Meditation2.
I. Basic Principles of Meditation
1. Meditation has two purposes: to attain daily equanimity and to attain the transcendent life.
2. Its practice is characterized by the growing presence of one fundamental factor: non-judgmental awareness.
3. Its success depends on (a) the regularity of practice, (b) the sustenance of awareness in daily life, and (c) the congruence of one’s daily behavior with the meditative life.
II. Basic Needed Knowledge in the Practice of Meditation
1. Human Nature. Human beings have levels of consciousness as well as outer and inner bodies. Life effectiveness, equanimity and spirituality depend upon the harmonious integration of these levels of consciousness and bodies.
The basic levels and bodies are as follows:
- Physical body
- Energy body (also called astral body and etheric double)
- Desire body (also called Kamarupa and astral body in certain books)
- Lower mind (concrete thinking)
- Higher mind (abstract thinking)
- Spiritual consciousness (buddhi, prajna, contemplative consciousness)
- Universal consciousness (Atma or Spirit)
2. Fragmentation. These facets or levels can
(a) have unwholesome habits or conditionings (such as anger, fear, resentment, etc.)
(b) be undeveloped (such as higher mental and spiritual)
(c) be in conflict with each other (such as wanting to love and at the same tendency to be angry with a loved one, or wanting to be healthy but have harmful dietary habits)
3. Higher and Lower Selves. The seven layers are divisible into two major groupings:
Individuality or Higher Self: consists of the highest three levels: higher mind, spiritual consciousness and universal consciousness. It is impersonal and objective.
Personality or lower self: consists of the lower mind, desire body, energy body, and physical body. Its behavior is mainly a product of upbringing and conditioning.
These two are often in conflict with one another. The personality must eventually give way to the individuality.
4. Stages of Meditation. There are three stages of meditation with different purposes:
(a) The taming stage: this is to re-train the lower mind to follow the dictates of the higher. The lower mind produces thoughts out of habit and is often uncontrolled. The meditation practice below (III-5) aims to tame the mind until it can remain attentive on a chosen object or word and not stray uncontrollably.
(b) Meditation proper: After the lower mind is tamed and re-trained, then the awareness can now dwell continuously on any subtle thought, object or theme by the inner will even without the repetition of any mantra.
(c) Awareness of the ego: This is the highest stage where the sense of ego or self is able to dissipate and be transcended.
5. Congruence with Daily Life. Meditation cannot succeed when the consciousness and activities of daily life are incongruent with the quiet mind. Hence the meditator must live a way of life that minimizes thoughts, feelings and actions that create guilt, distress, aggressiveness or unethical actions.
6. Time-tested Methods in Meditation. There are numerous meditational techniques being offered around the world. It is important to distinguish between the time-tested approaches that can attain goals of meditation: equanimity and then later, the spiritual life.
Valid methods of meditation are essentially identical whether they are under different religious or non-religious traditions.
III. A Recommended Classic Meditation Method
1. Posture and Sitting Position. Meditation can be practiced either sitting on a chair, in a lotus posture (half or full), or in a kneeling position. When using lotus or kneeling it is best to have a small cushion to sit on to elevate the body in relation to the legs. The back should be straight and aligned.
2. Eyes. The eyes can closed or half open. If half-open, then better to face a wall to avoid distracting sights. If meditating with eyes half open is found to be difficult, then do so with eyes closed.
3. Relaxation. It is essential for the body to be relaxed first. At the start, check first whether there is any tension in parts of the body from the head downwards: eyes, neck, shoulders, arms, front body, back, hips and legs. If there is any tension, then feel the tension as you breathe in, then feel the rest of the body, arms and legs, as you breathe out. Let the body and limbs be loose. Let go.
When the body has become relaxed, it will be noticed that the emotions also become calm.
Devote about 3 minutes or longer to this relaxation or calming phase.
4. Awareness of Contents of the Mind. After you are relaxed, observe the contents of the mind: thoughts, images, sounds, including the sensations of the body. Devote half a minute or a minute to this. Notice that the thoughts come and go. Do not entertain incoming thoughts. If they are important, then take a mental note that you will attend to it later after meditation. Keep this promise, because if you don’t, your mind in future meditation sessions will continue to be anxious about your concerns since it does not believe that you will attend to it later.
When watching the thoughts and sensations, be aware of the space of the consciousness that contains all these experiences and perceptions. This space has no boundary. It extends beyond all its contents.
Dwell in this state of awareness for half a minute or a minute.
5. Stage 1: Meditation to Tame the Mind
This is the meditation method itself.
Be aware of the cycle of your breathing.
As you breathe in, mentally say “one.” As you breathe out, mentally say “two.” As you breathe in, say “three.” As you breathe out, say “four.” Do this until you reach “ten.” Then start from “one” again.
While doing this, you will notice that the mind strays away from the counting and the breath. When it goes away, just notice that it is thinking of something else, then gently go back to the breathing and the counting. If it goes away a hundred times, just notice it a hundred times and come back to the breathing and counting a hundred times.
Do this for at least twenty minutes each day. It is best to do it in the morning upon waking up. During days when you are really short of time, then you may do this for ten minutes.
Through days and weeks of daily practice, you will notice that the mind tends to stay longer on the breathing and counting, and will not stray out anymore.
When the mind becomes quiet, not thinking of anything, and the counting disappears by itself, then just sustain this empty awareness during the whole duration of your practice. Once this happens then you are in meditation proper — no longer trying to control the thoughts. The thoughts are naturally quiet, and yet you retain awareness.
After twenty minutes (or longer if you wish), then gradually end the meditation by first being aware of the sounds around the room. Then be aware of the sensations of your body touching the chair or bed or garments. In doing so, continue to be aware of the inner space of the consciousness. This may take half a minute or so. Then open your eyes and be conscious of the surroundings, but still being aware of the inner space. Stay with this inner and outer awareness for some moments. Then as you begin to move your limbs or body, be aware that you are moving it.
Try to sustain this quality of awareness for a few minutes after you start moving around.
6. Stage 2: Meditation Proper
After successfully practicing the first stage of meditation, then the practitioner can now sustain a state of quiet awareness without the need for counting or following the breath. In this state, one can be aware of the subtler levels of consciousness, such as arising of thoughts, subtle reactions to memories, and a state of awareness without images, memories or reactions.
After allowing the body, emotions and thoughts to be calm and quiet, sustain a state of awareness of the space of one’s consciousness. If there are passing thoughts, just be aware of them and let them come and go.
IV. Notes on the Practice of Meditation
1. Frequency and Location. It is best that meditation be practiced at least once a day. Twice when you are able to. Early morning upon waking up would be best. Do it for twenty minutes. Make it longer during weekends or when you have longer time available.
Try to fix the location where you meditate. Avoid changing from one place to another day after day because your body and mind tend to adjust to the new location.
2. Phenomena during Meditation. During the practice, it is common that different people experience different things that may alarm them, such as the following:
(a) Tingling and similar sensations. This may be felt on the crown of the head, like a hundred ants crawling all over. This will pass away after some time. They are surges of energy in certain parts of the body that occur when one becomes inwardly serene.
It may also be felt like moving sensations at the back. Again they will fade away later.
(b) Heat and cold. Sometimes one may feel hotness in some part of the body, or coldness in another part. Again these are the movements of the qi energy and they will fade away.
(c) Swaying of the body. Some may find that their body sways forward and backward, or sidewards, or in a rotating manner. When it happens, then just be aware of the portion around the hip or waist area where there is involuntary contractions of the muscles that cause such movements. Allow the body to move, but with awareness. Then the swaying or rotating will diminish and stop.
(d) Pressure or pain on the head. When there is headache, then it means that one is not relaxed while meditating. Pause the meditation practice, open the eyes, and then go through the relaxation exercise through breathing. Breathe in and be aware of the specific pain, pressure or discomfort, being conscious of its exact location, size, shape and intensity. Breathe out and be aware of the rest of the body, particularly the back, the legs and the arms.
(e) Images or visions. When images, colors or visions appear, just be aware of it until it fades away. We need to remember that meditation means transcending the sensations or perceptions of the body, emotions and mind. When such phenomena happen, just be aware of them but not entertaining or rejecting them. The spiritual life is beyond shapes, sounds and images.
3. Sleepiness. Meditation is a very relaxing practice that if the body lacks sleep, then one tends to want to go to sleep. If the sleepiness is strong, then it may be better to go to sleep rather than continue meditating.
When the body does not lack sleep, then meditation will not induce sleepiness. On the contrary, one becomes highly alert and awake.
4. Daily Awareness. The awareness of meditation should flow over to daily life
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. In the same way that awareness during meditation will calm down thoughts and feelings, so awareness in daily life will lessen agitation, anxiety, reactiveness, anger and other forms of distress. Awareness is non-judgmental.
5. Ethical Life. An ethical life goes hand in hand with equanimity. When we do actions that injure other people or do injustice towards others, it is hard to have inner peace. In addition to guilt and being bothered, karma will also bring to our lives the sorrowful consequences of our actions. it is therefore essential that our daily life, livelihood and interactions with people should be governed by ethical principles.
V. The Fruits of Meditation
The increase in daily awareness through meditation will have crucial and highly beneficial effect in one’s life.
1. Calmness. One’s tendency to quickly react to situations will simmer down. This is specially true with distressful reactions, such as anger, hurt, resentment or fear. A calm and thoughtful disposition will prevail more and more. One gets less stressed in daily life.
2. Better relationships. As a result of such calmness and the diminishing of the automaticity of reactions, one’s relationship with people will improve. There will be a greater tendency to be positive in one’s communication.
3. Cheerfulness. The meditative person will tend to be more positive in life and thus increasing one’s capacity for general happiness and well-being. Depressiveness or pessimism will tend to disappear in life.
4. Awareness of one’s deeper values. Meditation makes one become more in touch with one’s deepest values in life. This helps clarify the deeper purpose of life. It may lead to shifts in one’s career, preoccupations and activities. This gives deeper meaning to life.
5. Awakening of intuition. Intuition is one of the most important faculties that individuals can awaken. It is superior to rational decision-making. It is not the same as extra-sensory perception or gut feel. Animals also have ESP. Intuition is the capacity to see the larger and deeper picture of an issue or a complex web of issues. Its perception is an integration of core values, personal values, and rational, emotional, social, and financial factors.
6. Spirituality. Meditation, accompanied by an ethical life, intuition, selflessness and compassion, is the gateway to the spiritual and transcendent life. It is quietness that enables a person to become sensitive to the higher levels of one’s consciousness.
7. Self-Actualization. Meditation enables an individual to integrate one’s life into a harmonious whole, enabling a person to rise up to one’s higher potential.
The above guideline can be used for public meditation sessions by lodges or sections. For any inquiry or clarification, please email to v.haochin@gmail.com.
Copyright 2017 © Vicente Hao Chin Jr.