Diamond Way Buddhist Center in Edmonton

What is Meditation?

Meditation turns accepted information into experience. On the first level, its purpose is to calm mind and keep it in one place. It creates space between the experiencer and his experiences, permitting the wise to choose roles in the comedies of life and avoid its tragedies. This protective distance is most frequently achieved through awareness of one's breath or the concentration onto a Buddha form, a meditation called 'Shamatha' in Sanskrit and 'Shine' in Tibetan. Whoever can hold this state of mind in the lab situation of one's meditation, will gradually accomplish the same in daily life. This is a first step in one's development and a necessary foundation for both penetrating insight and more elaborate practices.

The second level of meditation is called 'Vipassana' in Sanskrit and 'Lhaktong' in Tibetan. Here, the meditation is formless and aims at the nature of the mind itself. By being aware without an object to be aware of, insight and understanding arise spontaneously. So meditation is the concentrating of the mind onto something and the clarity which arises from this.

Introduction to Buddhist Meditation
by Lama Ole Nydahl (Audio 00:06:18)