 The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: An Introduction
As a westernized society, we all define religion by our own particular beliefs. We associate ourselves and everything we do or experience as a relation of God, redemption, punishment, and obedience. This is what we define as part of religion, other than worship and revelation. To most of us, there is a fine line drawn when calling Buddhism a religion, but the reality of Buddhism is really simple. Buddhism does not rely on a basis of God, but instead it is based on the mind. The main belief of Buddhism states that our mind and our consciousness are the very core of our being; it is our whole existence. The feelings and experiences that we go through have no real meaning; we are simply aware of them.
The goals of Buddhist meditation are what can be called the whole heart of Buddhist meditation. The heart of Buddhist meditation is about realizing Nibbana (a level that is experienced when you reach full psychological and moral maturity) and releasing all suffering. In order to accomplish these levels in your meditation, you must concentrate first on two lesser goals.
The first goal to help you learn the heart of Buddhist meditation is learning how to appreciate and become aware of ourselves. Once we gain some self-understanding, we see that our positive feelings of love and compassion, among others, are meaningful. They are completely independent of anything related the outside world. You are essentially learning how to increase your positive feelings. The second goal to help you understand the heart of Buddhist meditation is to effectively learn how to rid the mind and body of the negative feelings, like greed and hate - anything that causes disgust or aggravation.
While the heart of Buddhist meditation has the primary goals of reaching Nibbana and ending suffering and the secondary goal of positive feeling realization, there are lower level goals that need to be met. There are three: concentration, non-attachment, and insight.
In understanding the heart of Buddhist meditation, reaching the concentration goal is about learning how to overcome your mind and its natural ability to stay focused between subjects. Concentration is one of the infantile goals that define the heart of Buddhist meditation because it is helping you learn how to keep your attention to one specific thing for a certain period of time.
Non-attachment is another aspect that makes up the heart of Buddhist meditation. With non-attachment, you learn how to gain serenity and freedom from the addictions to emotional and/or sensual pleasure that you have. It is liberation, of sorts.
Finally, we have insight. Since the heart of Buddhist meditation is ultimately about realization, insight describes both awareness of existence and the realization that everything is temporary. The awareness of our existence includes our own mortality and suffering, and works with the realization that all things within the outside world and universe have a temporary existence.
Although you can find a wealth of information, guides, and tips about Buddhist meditation, the only way to truly understand what makes up the heart of Buddhist meditation is to try it for yourself. Jump in there and give it a shot.
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