Depth of Buddhist Meditation

Depth of Buddhist Meditation

Mind is the forerunner of all (evil) conditions. 

Mind is their chief, and they are mind-made. 

If, with an impure mind, one speaks or acts, 

Then suffering follows one

Even as the cart wheel follows the hoof of the ox. 
Mind is the forerunner of all (good) conditions. 
Mind is their chief, and they are mind-made. 
If, with a pure mind, one speaks or acts, 
Then happiness follows one 
Like a never-departing shadow.

These words, which are the opening lines of the Dhammapada, were spoken by Gotama Buddha 2500 years ago. They illustrate the central theme of Buddhist teaching, the human mind.

Buddhism is probably the least understood of all major religions. Indeed, from an Occidental viewpoint we might well question whether it warrants the title of religion. In the West we are accustomed to thinking of theology in terms of God, revelation, obedience, punishment, and redemption. The themes of creation, worship, judgment, and immortality have been major concerns in the Christian heritage and are virtually inseparable from our concept of religion. Against such a cultural background Western man views Buddhism and in so doing unconsciously projects his own concepts, values and expectations. Erroneously he perceives ceremonies and bowing as examples of worship or even idolatry.

Reality escape

He may extol its scientific world view or abhor and condemn its “atheism.” The Buddha is vaguely equated with God or Jesus, and meditation is suspected of being a hypnotic approach to mysticism or an escape from reality.

However, such erroneous notions of the Dhamma, the teaching of the Buddha, are not entirely the result of Western ignorance and ethnocentrism.

Before his demise the Buddha predicted that within a thousand years his doctrine would fall into the hands of men of lesser understanding and would thereby become corrupted and distorted. Such has been the case throughout much, if not most, of the Orient. Ritual has replaced self-discipline, faith has replaced insight, and prayer has replaced understanding. If the basis of Christianity is God, the basis of Buddhism is mind.

From the Buddhist viewpoint, mind or consciousness is the core of our existence. Pleasure and pain, good and evil, time and space, life and death have no meaning to us apart from our awareness of them or thoughts about them.

Whether God exists or does not exist, whether existence is primarily spiritual or primarily material, whether we live for a few decades or live forever — all these matters are, in the Buddhist view, secondary to the one empirical fact of which we do have certainty: the existence of conscious experience as it proceeds through the course of daily living.

Therefore Buddhism focuses on the mind; for happiness and sorrow, pleasure and pain are psychological experiences. Even such notions as purpose, value, virtue, goodness, and worth have meaning only as the results of our attitudes and feelings.

Buddhism does not deny the reality of material existence, nor does it ignore the very great effect that the physical world has upon us. On the contrary, it refutes the mind-body dichotomy of the Brahmans and says that mind and body are interdependent. But since the fundamental reality of human existence is the ever-changing sequence of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and perceptions which comprise conscious experience, then, from the viewpoint of early Buddhism, the primary concern of religion must be these very experiences which make up our daily lives. Most significant of these are love and hate, fear and sorrow, pride and passion, struggle and defeat. Conversely, such concepts as vicarious atonement, Cosmic Consciousness, Ultimate Reality, Buddha Nature, and redemption of sins are metaphysical and hypothetical matters of secondary importance to the realities of daily existence.