Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu - How To Meditate: A Beginner’s Guide To Peace

How To Meditate:

A Beginner's Guide to Peace

Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu

Table of Contents

Introductioniii

Chapter One: What is Meditation?1

Chapter Two: Sitting Meditation8

Chapter Three: Walking Meditation14

Chapter Four: Fundamentals19

Chapter Five: Mindful Prostration26

Chapter Six: Daily Life31

Appendix: Illustrations41

This booklet is taken from a six-part video series on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/yuttadhammo ). It was originally intended for use in the Los Angeles Federal Detention Center, where it was impossible to distribute teachings by video, but has since become my preferred means of introducing the meditation practice to newcomers in general. While the videos provide a useful visual guide, this booklet contains much updated and expanded information that is not in the videos.

The lessons are laid out according to how I would expect a new-comer to learn meditation step-by-step. It may seem odd that chapters two, three, and five are presented in the opposite order in which they are to be practiced. The reasoning is that sitting meditation is easiest for a beginner to appreciate. Once one has become comfortable with the concepts involved in meditation, they may expand their practice to include walking and even mindful prostration if they are so inclined.

My only intention in completing this task is that more people may benefit from the meditation practice. It seems proper that if one wishes to live in peace and happiness, one should work to spread peace and happiness in the world in which one lives.

I would like to thank all who have helped to make this book possible: my parents and all of my past teachers, my current teacher and preceptor, Ajaan Tong Sirimangalo, and those kind beings who originally transcribed the teachings from the YouTube videos.

May all beings be happy.

Yuttadhammo

Dedicated to my teacher, Ajaan Tong Sirimangalo, who is to me a living reminder that the Buddha once walked this Earth.

This book is meant to serve as an introductory discourse on how to meditate for those with little or no experience in the practice of meditation, as well as those who are experienced in other types of meditation but interested in learning a new meditation technique. In this first chapter, I will explain what meditation is, and how one should go about practicing it.

First, it is important to understand that the word meditation means different things to different people. For some, meditation simply means the calming of the mind, the creating of a peaceful or pleasurable state as vacation or escape from mundane reality. For others, meditation implies extraordinary experiences, or the creation of mystical, even magical, states of awareness.

In this book I'd like to define meditation based on the meaning of the word itself. The word meditation comes from the same linguistic base as the word medicine. This is useful in understanding the meaning of meditation since medicine refers to something that is used to cure bodily sickness. As a parallel, we can understand meditation as being used to cure sickness in the mind.

Additionally, we understand that medicine, as opposed to drugs, is not for the purpose of escaping into a temporary state of pleasure or happiness and then fading away, leaving one sick as before. Medicine is meant to effect a lasting change, bringing the body back to its natural state of health and well-being.

In the same way, the purpose of meditation is not to bring about a temporary state of peace or calm, but rather to return the mind suffering from worries, stresses and artificial conditioning back to a natural state of genuine and lasting peace and well-being.

So when you practice meditation according to this book, please understand that it might not always feel either peaceful or pleasant. Coming to understand and work through deep-rooted states of stress, worry, anger, addiction, etc., can be at times quite an unpleasant process, especially since we spend most of our time avoiding or repressing these negative aspects of our mind.

It might seem at times that meditation doesn't bring any peace or happiness at all; this is why it must be stressed that meditation isn't a drug. It isn't supposed to make you feel happy while you do it and then return to your misery when you are not. Meditation is meant to effect a real change in the way one looks at the world, bringing one's mind back to its natural state of clarity. It should allow one to attain true and lasting peace and happiness through being better able to deal with the natural difficulties of life.

The basic technique of meditation that we use to facilitate this change is the creation of clear awareness. In meditation, we try to create a clear awareness of every experience as it occurs. Without meditating, we tend to immediately judge and react to our experiences as good, bad, me, mine, etc., which in turn gives rise to stress, suffering, and mental sickness. By creating a clear thought about the object, we replace these sort of judgements with a simple recognition of the object as it is.

The creation of clear awareness is effected through the use of an ancient but well-known meditation tool called a mantra.

A mantra refers to a word or phrase that is used to focus the mind on an object, most often the divine or the supernatural. Here, however, we use the mantra to focus our attention on ordinary reality, as a clear recognition of our experience as it is, free from projection and judgement. By using a mantra in this way, we will be able to understand the objects of our experience clearly and not become attached or averse to them.

For example, when we move the body we use a mantra to create a clear awareness of the experience using a mantra that captures its essence, as in, moving. When we experience a feeling, feeling. When we think, "thinking". When we feel angry, we say in the mind, "angry". When we feel pain, we likewise remind ourselves silently, pain". We pick a word that describes the experience accurately and use that word to acknowledge the experience for what it is, not allowing the arising of a judgement of the object as good, bad, me, mine, etc.

The mantra should not be at the mouth or in the head, but simply a clear awareness of the object for what it is. The word, therefore, should arise in the mind at the same location as the object itself. Which word we choose is not so important, as long as it focuses the mind on the objective nature of the experience.

To simplify the process of recognizing the manifold objects of experience, we traditionally separate experience into four categories. Everything we experience will fit into one of these four categories; they serve as a guide in systematizing our practice, allowing us to quickly recognize what is and what is not real, and identify reality for what it is. It is customary to memorize these four categories before proceeding with the meditation practice:

1. Body the movements and postures of the body;
2. Feelings bodily and mental sensations of pain, happiness, calm, etc.;
3. Mind thoughts that arise in the mind of the past or future, good or bad;
4. Dhammas groups of mental and physical phenomena that are of specific interest to the meditator, including the mental states that cloud one's awareness, the six senses by which one experiences reality, and many others.

These four, the body, the feelings, the thoughts, and the dhammas are the four foundations of the meditation practice. They are what we use to create clear awareness of the present moment.

First, in regards to the body, we try to note every physical experience as it happens. When we stretch our arm, for example, we say silently in the mind, "stretching". When we flex it, flexing. When we sit still we say to ourselves, "sitting". When we walk, we say to ourselves, walking.