How can buddhism change your life

With developed insight, our mind can be fully aware of the evolving, processing, and dissolving of everything that happens to us. So we train the mind to see things as they happen, neither before nor after. We participate in what is happening and at the same time observe it without clinging to the events of the past, the future, or the present. We experience our ego or self arising, dissolving, and evaporating without leaving a trace of it.

We see how our greed, anger, and ignorance vanish as we see the reality in life. Mindfully we watch the body, feelings, sensations, perceptions, and consciousness and experience their dynamic nature.

Watching impartially opens the mind to realize that there is no way that we can stop this flux even for a fraction of a second. We experience the freshness of life. Every moment is a new moment. Every breath is a fresh breath. Every tiny little thing is living and dying every fraction of a second. There is no way that we can see these momentary existences with our eyes. Only when the mind is sharp and clear, without the clouds of craving, hatred, and confusion can our mind be fully aware of this phenomenon.

The moment we try to cling to any part of our experience—however pleasant or peaceful—joy, peace, and happiness disappear. The very purpose of Vipassana meditation is to liberate the mind from psychic irritation and enjoy the peace and happiness of liberation.

Nevertheless, if we cling to peace or happiness, that instant that very peace and happiness vanish. This is a very delicate balance that we should maintain through the wisdom that arises from Vipassana meditation.

Walking meditation is a practice through which we develop concentration and mindfulness. We learn to cultivate mindfulness of the body while the body is moving. We learn to be awake. Walking meditation is a particularly important practice in that it enables us to make the transition from sitting meditation to being awake in our daily lives, in our work, and in our relationships. Walking meditation is a simple practice.

You choose a straight path—indoors or outdoors—roughly fifteen or twenty steps long. You walk from one end of the path to the other, turn around, and walk back. You continue in this fashion, walking back and forth, focusing your attention on your feet. Your posture is upright, alert, and relaxed. You can hold your hands at your sides, or clasped in front or behind.

Keep your eyes open, cast down, and slightly ahead. As you walk, direct your attention to the sensations in the feet, to the bare experience of walking. Try to feel one step at time. Be fully, wholeheartedly aware of the physical sensations involved in taking each step. Feel your foot as it lifts, moves through the air, places down against the ground. In particular, pay attention to the touching down of the foot, the sensations of contact, and pressure.

The mind wanders, drifts. And return gently to the physical sensations, the lifting, moving, placing of the foot. Just keep bringing your attention back. As you walk, cultivate a sense of ease. This is a good instruction: just walk. As you walk, as you let go of the desire to get somewhere, you begin to sense the joy in simply walking, in being in the present moment. You begin to comprehend the preciousness of each step. You can start by practicing walking meditation for ten minutes a day.

Gradually, you can expand the amount of time you spend on this formal walking meditation. As always, the objective is to pay attention. Pay attention to your feet. Practicing in this way, you begin to live more mindfully. This is when meditation practice takes hold and assumes a new relevancy.

Being awake is no longer reserved for the times you spend in formal sitting meditation; it is the way you live. Those who consider Buddha a pessimist because of his concern with suffering have missed the point. In fact, he is a skillful doctor — he may break the bad news of our suffering, but he also prescribes a proactive course of treatment.

In Buddhism, this treatment is not a simple medicine to be swallowed, but a daily practice of mindful thought and action that we ourselves can test scientifically through our own experience. Meditation is, of course, the most well known tool of this practice, but contrary to popular belief, it is not about detaching from the world.

Rather it is a tool to train the mind not to dwell in the past or the future, but to live in the here and now, the realm in which we can experience peace most readily. All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts. If one speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows one, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the wagon. If one speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows one, like a shadow that never leaves.

During the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE, Siddhartha Gautama of Shakya, who later became known as the Buddha, was born in modern-day Nepal near the Indian border. While there are several mythical stories surrounding his conception and birth, the basic facts of his life are generally agreed upon.

Born into a wealthy royal family, the Buddha was born and raised in worldly luxury. Each of these experiences troubled him and made him question the meaning and transience of life and its pleasures.

After this, he encountered an ascetic who, by choice, lived a life renouncing the pleasures of the world. These shocking experiences moved Buddha to renounce his comfortable lifestyle in search of greater meaning in life. During his life, he had experienced intensive pleasure and extreme deprivation but he found that neither extreme brought one to true understanding.

He then practiced meditation through deep concentration Dhyana under a bodhi tree and found Enlightenment. He began teaching the Four Noble Truths to others in order to help them achieve transcendent happiness and peace of mind through the knowledge and practice that is known today as Buddhism. These Four Noble Truths, monks, are actual, unerring, not otherwise. Therefore, they are called noble truths. Samyutta Nikaya Buddha believed that dukkha ultimately arose from ignorance and false knowledge.

Impressive, yes, but no doubt a mastery gained because, well, what else are monks going to do all day? But then as I continued roaming the temple grounds, I came across a Japanese woman decked out in a clearly expensive business suit sitting cross-legged on the ground, with her heels and purse placed at her side.

She too was meditating exactly as the monks were—eyes closed, effortless breathing, seemingly impervious to the noise of the people around her. Indeed, recent scientific studies support the facts that the 1,year-old practice that originated in China and then spread to Japan, Vietnam, Korea, and, more recently, to the West, has real-world mental and physical health benefits that everyone—not just monks—can benefit from.

These studies have shown that meditation like the kind practiced in Zen Buddhism can do everything from ease anxiety and stress to lessen the perception of pain to make us more focused and productive at work. Of course, like many, my days are packed with meetings and work obligations, family and friend commitments. Who has time for meditating? Specifically, I did zazen meditation, which is the most traditional form. This is where you sit in the lotus position legs folded, hands resting outwards on the knees.

In zazen, posture is critical because it aligns your body and enables optimal breathing. You are supposed to keep your mouth closed and only breath in and out through the nose. Exhaling through the nose is the hard part and takes some getting used to since most of us are mouth breathers. A terrific overview of how to do zazen can be found on Zen-Buddhism. The position plus the breathing plus attempting to clear your mind of thoughts, once perfected, leads to increased alpha and theta brainwaves inside your head, as medical scans have shown.

The increased alpha and theta brainwave activity could very well be the reason for the psychological and physical benefits of Zen meditation mentioned in the studies above. Personal Information First Name. Last Name. Email Address. Finish Donation. Create a Post or Sign In. Sign up with Facebook Already have an account? Login here or. Join Here or. Sign Into Your Account. Sign in using Facebook or.

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