The Hidden Buddha Within Us
In today in America we live in a fast pace society where people take on a lot of responsibilities. Taking on too much can lead to stress and physical illnesses. There are a number of things people can do to reduce stress like exercise and eating healthy. Practicing meditation can be influential on both a person’s physical and mental health.
Meditation is… a systematic technique for taking hold of and concentrating to the utmost degree our latent mental power” (Eknath 9). Meditation originated in Southeast Asia over 2,500 years ago from the Buddha’s teachings. Interestingly enough, the Buddha was not what most artists depict him as today. He was not really some obese man, and the “fat Buddha” actually represents a Buddhist monk who lived long after the Buddha. The Buddha’s were originally given orally, which is why many of his teachings are in list, to be easier to remember. The Buddha’s teachings are followed as a way of life. There are no rules in Buddhism- there are simply steps.
The four noble truths are the main teachings of Buddhism, along with the eightfold path. The four noble truths are meant to be the steps to end suffering. The first noble truth is life means suffering. Suffering is going to happen in life and many believe there is nothing you can do about it. Second, the origin of suffering is attachment. This means suffering is caused when people cling to things, ideas, or even other people. Thirdly, the cessation of suffering is attainable. Which can be translated to mean there is a way to end suffering. And finally, there is a path to the cessation, which means the path to end suffering, is meditation and the eightfold path.
The eightfold path is the way people should live to end suffer...
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..., but when in fact it does not. Many people make the excuse for not meditating because they believe it will interfere with their belief in God, when in most cases that’s not true. For example, depending on the person’s faith, prayer is a personal thing along with meditation. When people pray they often talk to God or think quietly about a prayer. These can also be forms of meditation. Although meditation has its differences. For example, prayer is mostly a type of communication between a “believer” and a God. When in some sorts of meditation, like Transcendental meditation, there is the belief in many Gods. Though its assumed that meditation creates a disadvantage for a “believer” it actually strengthens that relationship between the two. “The purpose for Christian meditation will be to realize the unity of all personality with the personality of Christ” (Swani 96).
However, meditation is not as common within Buddhism as most believe. There is a large assumption “that Buddhism and meditation go hand in hand”, but the majority of Buddhists have focused on “cultivating moral behavior, preserving the Buddha’s teachings (dharma), and acquiring good karma”(Braun 2014, p.1). Meditation and Buddhism are often assumed to be one and same, but this is also not true. As Buddhism has gained popularity among lay people it’s practices have changed Buddha’s teaching of the middle path has adapted to meditation being “possible in the city” rather than with monks in jungles and caves (p.4). As seen in Burma, in less than 75 years Buddhism and meditation were able to grow “from a pursuit of the barest sliver of the population to a duty of the ideal citizen” (p.5). While meditation is not the core of Buddhism it has encouraged the growth of Buddhism as it’s practice of mindfulness has been inspiring an approachable model (p.6). Meditation and mindfulness are easily manipulated to secularization, but still have significance in Buddhism and following the patterns of your
Meditation is an important psychological practice that protects the brain against aging as well as enhancing an individual’s ability to learn new things. This practice achieves this through sharpening focus, lessening stress, lowering blood pressure, and relieving chronic pain. Generally, it helps a person to experience greater calm, connect with deepest feelings, and challenges tendencies of self-judgment. Consequently, meditation leads to open doors for actual and accessible happiness for an individual. According to Salzberg (2011), meditation is basically training an individual’s attention in order to become more aware of inner workings and external incidents (p.7). After becoming more aware of inner workings and external incidents, a person can choose his/her actions towards things that are visible. While each global religion incorporates some kind of thoughtful exercise, meditation in today’s world is usually practiced separately from any belief system.
Meditation allows for you to relax, slow down, and become more aware of yourself and your environment. By meditating in a quiet place with no distraction, you are able to greatly limit the information that is constantly entering into our brains. This information gives us a train of thought that is very difficult to be halted, because it is in the nature of our brains to analyze any information that we have coming in from our senses like what things we are seeing with our eyes and what we are hearing with our ears. By limiting the amount of information that is entering into the brain, we are able to separate ourselves from the mind that is analyzing all of that information and to become aware of it.
Although meditation has been used for spiritual growth, recently it has become a way of finding a peaceful bridge between stress and the fast paced world around us. It has become a way of taking time out of all the distractions and stress that occurs in our lives and relaxing and finding ourselves. Some other uses of meditation include healing, emotional cleansing and balancing, deepening concentration and insight, manifesting change, developing intuition, unlocking creativity, exploring higher realities, and finding inner guidance.
Buddhists believe that the cause of human suffering is caused by their attachment to objects and ideas. Humans strive and attach themselves to things that don’t give them lasting happiness because everything that they attach themselves will change, disappear, break, or leave. The purpose in the belief of impermanence to a Buddhists is to end suffering. With the belief and acceptance of impermanence one can free themselves from attachment thus free themselves from the suffering that is attached to the attachment. The Four Nobel Truths of Buddhism, which is about impermanence, is one of its defining aspects of the main concepts. The Four Nobel Truths are as follows. One, “All of life is marked by suffering,” two, “Suffering can be stopped,” three, “Suffering is caused by desire and attachment,” and four, “The way to end suffering is to follow the Noble Eightfold Path.” (Anonymous) The end results of The Four Nobel Truths is the end of suffering and the rebirth into a better realm. The hope of a Buddhist is to be enlightened and escape the cycle of rebirth in the realms and to be born into the Buddha Fields. However, this is a lucky rebirth and does not happen to all Buddhist. The next highly desired rebirth is the hope to be reborn into the human realm as it is in this realm that one has the best chance to reach enlightenment, the ultimate goal. The purpose of a Buddhists life is to be enlightened and that is
Meditation is a way to open up all areas of the body and release anything that may be toxic to the spirit. Channeling the spirit through meditation is another familiar practice due to the fact that is believed that the spirit is never dead, only the shell. Through meditation, people believe that they are able to channel their minds so that they might have a more intimate experience with God. People who practice the religion believe that there are more ways to reach God than through Jesus alone. Yes, Jesus is the central avenue but when a soul sees God in all things then they are able to experience the euphoria that comes with being one with
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. Today, Buddhism has an estimated seven hundred million followers, known as Buddhists. Most practicing Buddhists believe in ideas such as karma, dharma, samsara and nirvana. In addition to these, Buddhists base their lives and actions on the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. Taught by Gautama, the Noble Eightfold path is a theory, that when put into action, serves as a way to end suffering (The Noble Eightfold Path). In Buddhism, the belief is that life is suffering. Through out his life, Gautama, searched endlessly for a means of liberation from this suffering. The Noble Eightfold Path is a series of principles that serve as guidelines to ethical and mental development which ideally lead to understanding the truth about all things. These principles are also intended to teach discipline and proper ways to interact in relationships with others (Bodhi).
Modern life is full of hassle, stress and frustrations. Stress is so common that is has become a way of life of many people. Stress isn’t always negative. In small measures, it can help you cope well under pressure and encourage you to do your best. Stress has known to be a common factor for students these days due to work overload. Stress can cause some lifestyle problems, for example, headaches, loss of appetite, heart attacks, obesity, aging, depression, nervous breakdown and loss of focus. There are many ways in which stress could be overcome, such as yoga and meditation. Studies have found that stress has both positive and negative effect on everyone. Even though meditation is conventional, people still practice it in hopes of stave off stress. Meditations have been used for centuries by everyone as one of the cures to help reduce stress in their daily life.
Though Buddhism has long been a disciplined and strict religion since its’ beginning in the 3rd Century, it has recently gained positive utilitarian use within the psychological and neurological fields of science. Programs dedicated to improving and helping the lives of those who suffer from mental illness have started to incorporate the use of meditation as a form of treatment. Meditation is enforced in many schools of Buddhism as a method, or a way of life, to becoming enlightened. With growing qualitative and quantitative research on meditation, it becomes more evidential of the positive and life changing impact meditation serves in improving overall health of the mentally ill. Additionally, meditation can be implemented as a preventative
Meditation is an age-old practice that has renewed itself in many different cultures and times. Despite its age, however, there remains a mystery and some ambiguity as to what it is, or even how one performs it. The practice and tradition of meditation dates back thousands of years having appeared in many eastern traditions. Meditation’s ancient roots cloud its origins from being attributed to a sole inventor or religion, though Bon, Hindu, Shinto, Dao, and later, Buddhism are responsible for its development. Its practice has permeated almost all major world religions, but under different names. It has become a practice without borders, influencing millions with its tranquil and healing effects.
Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years, so there are countless variations and definitions of the practice. Most forms of meditation offer relaxation -- primarily through a quieting of the mind -- and create a "pause" from the rapid pace of our lives to let our mind and body "catch up," re-balance, and re-center.
The first grant proposal addressed the effects of meditation on life-span cognitional developmental processes. From my understanding, there is a strong connection to the mindset and self-awareness, as one chooses to mediate for their own reason. Based on the informed information, meditation is used to decrease stress and maintain a healthy lifestyle. The provided background information and predicted research study will help determine the pros and cons of the process, using the meditation techniques.
In the past two decades, many philosophers, spiritual leaders, and psychological transitions have accentuated the importance of the quality of consciousness for the maintenance and enhancement of well-being. One of the characteristics of consciousness that has been discussed in relation to well-being is mindfulness. In concentration with the psychology discipline, mindfulness meditation practices have been increasingly used to treat a majority of pain, stress and anxiety-related conditions and also, increasing well-being. The ideology of mindfulness meditation has core roots in Buddhist philosophy and other pensive traditions where awareness and conscious attention are actively cultured (Brown, Kirk Warren,2003).
Meditation is not a time devoted to thinking or reflecting about oneself, but a time to redirect one’s thoughts and emotions away from the outside world and onto something simple, such as the wind or one’s own breathe. By learning how to meditate, an individual can learn how to react appropriately to “the circumstances one finds oneself in, i...
First, I will present the research of the physical effects that meditation has on our body’s major internal systems and other common physical chronic conditions. Secondly, I will discuss how meditation practices can impact one 's mental and emotional health. Lastly, I will offer a definition of spirituality and how meditation can bring positive spiritual results.