Meditation
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.
Is meditation good for everybody?
Diamond Way meditations are for people who aim at enlightenment. If someone only wants to relax, other means are better suited for this purpose.
Generally, meditation is for people who have enough positive impressions in their store consciousness, enough insight and joy, so that they can stand to meet with their own subconsciousness. For psychotic people e.g. it can be dangerous to meditate, since they tend to take their feelings and inner conditions for too real and may experience many inconvenient projections. In this case, saying Mantras and trying to act in a positive way is better than to start with concentrative meditation too early. Only when one feels good without taking pills and is able to work, live on one's own and maintain relationships, it is time to start meditating.
Then, there are meditations which shouldn't be practiced without the so called Buddhist Refuge. It gives protection and creates a connection to the own Buddha nature, a connection to the teachings, to friends which are on the same way and to the Lama who gives the Refuge.
Moreover, meditation can only bring positive results to people who have the right foundations for the kind of meditation they practice. If difficult meditations are tried too early and outside of the well-tested gradual system, it may result in a so called "white wall" state: One feels calm but rather sleepy. This state can reduce intelligence and energy.
What we strive for is an awareness as sharp and clear as a diamond.
How to calm a busy mind during meditation?
Treat impractical or disturbing thoughts like a thief in an empty house. Give him nothing, let him look here and there, but not find anything. If you have a busy mind and do not attach to the thoughts which come up, there can be no harm. Don't give your thoughts any energy and you will not be bothered by them.
What meditation can be recommend to non-Buddhist friends?
A good suggestion is to try the "Meditation on Light and Breath". A booklet giving differenct practices is used around the Buddhist centers of the Karma Kagyu Lineage. Also see the topic "Meditations" on this server.
