Bodhipaksa - Wildmind: A Step-by-Step Guide to Meditation

Table of Contents

The teachings of the Buddha are always fresh and apt, and Bodhipaksa has a canny way of making them so for us. He teaches here the best prescription I know for true happiness. What could be more basic, and totally transformative, than conscious breathing, mindful sitting and walking, and opening the heart? Wildmind brings us directly to that awakened wisdom of our true nature. Taste and see!

Gary Gach, author of The Complete Idiots Guide to Buddhism

Of great help to people interested in meditation and an inspiring reminder to those on the path.

Joseph Goldstein, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society and author of One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism

Bodhipaksa has written a beautiful and very accessible introduction to meditation. He guides us through all the basics of mindfulness and also loving-kindness meditations with the voice of a wise, kind, and patient friend.

Dr. Lorne Ladner, author of The Lost Art of Compassion

Bodhipaksa is a meditation teacher of years and it shows. Filled with case studies, practical advice, and uplifting quotes, Wildmind is one of the most comprehensive and accessible books on the subject covering everything from preparation for meditation and the meditation process, to the many practical benefits of meditation in everyday life.

Maggie Hamilton, MindBodySpirit Magazine

I am warmly grateful for all your inspired work, wisdom, and profoundly human compassion.

Caroline

I feel the most valuable thing I will be taking away from this class is that I can change almost any situation and my feelings about how I react. I find myself being so much more understanding in almost every life situation.

Ginny

Wildmind
A Step-by-Step Guide to Meditation

Bodhipaksa

Published by

Windhorse Publications

169 Mill Road, Cambridge

CB1 3AN, UK

info@windhorsepublications.com

www.windhorsepublications.com

Bodhipaksa 2003, 2011

First published in paperback 2003

Electronic edition 2011

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

Cover design by Stefanie Ine Grewe

Illustrations by Jacob Corn www.jacobcorn.co.uk

Photographs by Amoghavira www.amoghavira.com

Gatha from The Blooming of the Lotus by Thich Nhat Hanh, 1993 Thich Nhat Hanh,

reprinted by kind permission of Beacon Press, Boston.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-899579-91-4

epub ISBN: 978-1-907314-32-2

kindle ISBN: 978-1-907314-31-5

As this work is not of a scholarly nature, Pali and Sanskrit words have been transliterated without their diacritical marks.

A Windhorse Publications ebook

Windhorse Publications would be pleased to hear about your reading experiences with this ebook at info@windhorsepublications.com

References to Internet web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Windhorse Publications is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

For the audio guides please go to: http://windhorsepublications.com/wildmind-audio

Bodhipaksa was born Graeme Stephen in Dundee, Scotland, in 1961. He has been practising Buddhist meditation for twenty years, and became a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order in 1993. He has been teaching meditation for more than ten years, including two years in the University of Montanas religious studies program. While at the University of Montana, he developed approaches to teaching meditation online using the multimedia capabilities of the Internet, and he now runs a thriving online meditation teaching service called Wildmind at www.wildmind.org.

Previous publications include Vegetarianism (Windhorse Publications, 1999, 2009), an account of the relationship between Buddhism and vegetarianism, and Reinventing the Wheel a chapter in Spiritual Goods: Faith Traditions and the Practice of Business (Philosophy Documentation Center, Virginia 2001), an overview of Buddhist business ethics. Bodhipaksa holds an interdisciplinary Masters degree in Buddhism and business studies.

He is currently working on another meditation book, also based on the material he has written for Wildmind . He is married and lives with his partner, Shrijana, and Yoda their pet iguana, in New Hampshire, USA.

I would have nothing to offer if it were not for what has been passed on to me by others. I would like first to thank Urgyen Sangharakshita, whose spiritual teachings introduced me to Buddhism and gave my life new meaning and direction. May he have long life and continued happiness.

I am also indebted in particular to several members of the Triratna Buddhist Order who have been a source of instruction on meditation. The most notable of these teachers have been Vajradaka, Tejananda, and Kamalashila, whose book, Meditation: The Buddhist Way of Tranquillity and Insight , I would highly recommend, and which has been a source of advice and inspiration.

In addition there have been many other meditation teachers whose ideas, imagery, and practices have found their way by a process of osmosis into my own teaching and into this book. I thank you all, although you are too numerous to mention by name.

Id also like to thank all of my students over the years. You have stimulated me, forced me to clarify my thinking, and on many occasions shamed and inspired me into taking my own practice more seriously. Without you I could never have written this book, and I owe you a debt of gratitude for sharing in the process of learning with me.

Particular thanks go to Tejananda, Henry Harlow, and Gillian Golding, who read this book in manuscript form and gave me valuable feedback.

Lastly, Id like to thank all of my friends in the Dharma who have supported me, challenged me, tested me, encouraged me, shown me patience and kindness, and been incredibly generous in many ways, small and large. Again you are too numerous to mention. You are all greatly appreciated.

Wildmind might seem an odd name for a book on meditation. Isnt meditation about calming down and relaxing? Isnt it about taming your mind rather than letting it run wild? Yes and no.

There are two kinds of wild mind. The first is what you might expect. Most of us, when we first learn to meditate, are shocked to discover how unruly our minds are. Thoughts come and go at bewildering speed, seemingly unconnected to one another. The wild mind (the normal state of mind for many of us) is said to be like an excited monkey in a fruit tree, discarding one half-eaten fruit in favour of the next temptation. Our minds can seem like butterflies, flitting from one flower to another, never settling. Our minds can seem overwhelmed by a chaotic flood of images, memories, and imaginings. Our thoughts can seem like leaves swirling in an autumn gale. Our emotions can seem like a storm at sea. And although our mind is wonderfully alive, this unruly experience is shallow and unsatisfactory, at worst deeply unpleasant, disturbing, even destructive. Its this kind of wildness even craziness that we rightly want to get away from.

But there is another kind of wildness that we can experience. If we patiently work at calming those unruly forces, we find that rather than our mind becoming less alive, it becomes more vital and energetic. We can cultivate a mind thats as spacious as a clear blue sky, as still as a lake at dawn, as stable as a mountain, and as full of subtle currents of energy as a forest is full of wild creatures.