Сообщение от
Practical Buddhism: Taking responsibility for our lives, by Ajahn Jayasaro
MEDITATION
The third aspect of Buddhism is meditation, the development of mental calm and insight. In their normal state, our minds are scattered and out of control. We find it hard to stop thinking even for a moment. The tremendous energy of the mind is thus never harnessed and put to good use. Meditation is a way to focus the mind, so as to enable it to withdraw from its usual preoccupations, and penetrate the truth of our existence.
Meditation is not merely a means of relaxation, nor is it a technique to escape from stressful responsibility into blissful trance. It is rather a precise means for sharpening, strengthening, and ultimately purifying the mental faculties. Initially one concentrates the mind on a particular object, just as to tame a wild animal, one might tie it to a post. There are many possible objects to use for this purpose. One that many people find useful is the sensation of the breath at the tip of the nostrils, but whatever object is employed, the important point is to maintain a close, alert, and continual awareness of it.
At first, of course, we can't. Concentration is difficult. It goes against the grain of our distraction. But with patience, perseverance, and good humour, it is not impossible. When the mind strays away from the object one gently but firmly brings it back again - again and again and again.
Eventually the concentration becomes more or less effortless and the mind bright and firm. Here, fore.g.oing the initial object, one merely maintains a sharp, bare awareness of whatever is arising consciousness - be it a physical sensation, a feeling, a thought, a perception, or whatever - staying with the changing nature of each phenomenon rather than its content.
If the mind has been sufficiently stabilised by concentration one is able to maintain an equanimous gaze on the present reality and a direct non-conceptual appreciation of the true nature of our existence be.g.ins to grow. As we come to realise the changing, unstable, and inconsequential nature of all that goes to make up our lives, our wrong ideas and assumptions about ourselves fall away and our grasping attachment to things is completely undermined. It is here that true peace and liberation, the highest achievement of human beings and the goal of Buddhism, is finally achieved./.