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Benefits of meditation |
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The benefits of meditation can be experienced quickly and easily by complete beginners. If we practice simple meditation
- such as a breathing meditation - regularly, gradually our distracting
thoughts will subside and we will experience a sense of inner peace
and relaxation. Our mind will feel lucid and spacious and we will
feel refreshed. When the sea is rough, sediment is churned up and the water becomes murky, but when the wind dies down the mud gradually settles and the water becomes clear. In a similar way, when the otherwise incessant flow of our distracting thoughts is calmed through concentrating on the breath, our mind becomes unusually lucid and clear. Even though breathing meditation is only a preliminary stage of meditation, it can be quite powerful. We can see from this practice that it is possible to experience inner peace and contentment just by controlling the mind, without having to depend at all upon external conditions. When the turbulence of distracting thoughts subsides and our mind becomes still, a deep happiness and contentment naturally arises from within. This feeling of contentment and well-being helps us to cope with the busyness and difficulties of daily life. So much of the stress and tension we normally experience comes from our mind, and many of the problems we experience, including ill health, are caused or aggravated by this stress. Just by doing breathing meditation for ten or fifteen minutes each day, we will be able to reduce this stress. We will experience a calm, spacious feeling in the mind, and many of our usual problems will fall away. Difficult situations will become easier to deal with, we will naturally feel warm and well disposed towards other people, and our relationships with others will gradually improve. We should train in this preliminary meditation until we gain some experience of it. Then we can progress to more practical forms of meditation, such as the cycle of twenty-one Lamrim meditations explained in The New Meditation Handbook by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. Further information on the benefits of meditation can be found in Geshe Kelsang's recent books, The New Meditation Handbook and (from tharpa.com) Joyful Path of Good Fortune. top of page |
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