MCI4 Meditation course, introduction: formless meditation

MCI4 Meditation course, introduction: formless meditation by Suvannavira

Looked at the body breath metta
Can call them active practices
Active means something we try to do
Concentrate on the body the breath
Develop metta

Now we will do receptive practices
We aren’t trying to do anything
We are trying to be receptive

To practice meditation
To continue practicing
To get real benefits from practice
We need to balance active and receptive practices

In the early days of the order people did active practices
Emphasis on getting concentrated
On breaking through / overcoming hindrances

Some started to get more dissatisfied
Started to experiment with receptive practices
Tried just sitting
Remember sleeping thinking dry concentration
Danger just sitting = drifting
(Sinking and drifting)

Meditation without form
Arrive at question
What are we trying to do in receptive practices?

We are still trying to do something
Only we don’t decide what
That’s why it is formless
It doesn’t have a form or structure
No stages
No object

Rather no specific object
Or everything is our object
We try to be as aware as possible
Aware of everything
Aware of anything that happens
Aware of thoughts sensations images
Aware of smells and sounds

Two ways we can do this practice
Try to be aware of everything all at once
Or just let our attention / awareness go where it wants.
Our awareness / attention is always changing its object of awareness

So if we start thinking, try to be as aware as possible of our thought
Start feeling, try to be as aware as possible
Of sounds, as aware as possible

Like watching internal tv
So we are being active
Just not doing anything
Or rather our doing is watching
Watching without control
Being receptive to everything that is happening

DO IT

What did we focus on?
Thoughts sensations images sounds

Try to bring this receptive quality into other practices
Into life
How to do that? Ask them what they think

We can just sit as well. When?
1/ before starting meditating, when we feel restless
2/ after meditation, called sitting on when we are already concentrated
3/ on retreat when already concentrated

TRY JUST SITTING NOW OR AT END OF CLASS - 2 minutes

One more thing. Doing nothing
Helps us develop receptivity too
Spend some time each day doing nothing
Not reading thinking watching your phone etc ….
10-20. Get a cup of tea. Comfortable chair. Do nothing.
Waste time
Don’t get too strict, don’t make doing nothing into something!

Bring receptive quality into all meditations
And everyday life
A good balance to always being directed by thoughts
Of always having something to do

End of course
Now four more
Four weeks on each of these practices
To go deeper into them
To respond to your experience as you start to practice them regularly

Философия правильной речи I

Общение людей на глубоком, духовном уровне требует определенных качеств языка общения. Любовь наиболее вероятна между людьми, которые следуют единым принципам честности, открытости и гармонии. Сегодня мы говорим о том, каким должен быть совершенный язык согласно буддизму. Этот аспект рассмотрен в Дхаммападе Будды. Мы начнем с одной из строф:

«Одно совершенное, осмысленное слово,
которое несет покой, лучше тысячи речей,
составленных из бессмысленных слов».

Это строфа выражает философию правильной речи Будды. Философия содержит противопоставление качества и количества. Некоторые люди в качестве ценности ставят масштаб – например, прочитать за месяц 20 книг. Его будут уважать больше, чем человека, который прочитал одну книгу. Даже, если эта книга – священная сутра Буддизма или диалоги Платона. А 20 книг – это любовные романы. Будда убеждает, что качество важнее количества. Осмысленное, глубокое слово проникает глубоко в наше сознание, остается надолго в его глубине и дает человеку покой. Осмысленная, осознанная речь и правильная речь – синонимы.

Воздержанность ото лжи является обратной стороной данного тезиса. На западе человек условно разделен на две части – тело и ум. Однако в буддизме – тело, речь и ум. Почему это так важно? Почему коммуникация так важна? Без речи нет цивилизации, литературы, философии, развития. Речь позволяет нам перейти на следующий духовный уровень по сравнению с животными. В духовной жизни человека следует думать о речи с той же тщательностью, с какой мы думаем о действиях. В чем состоит осмысленная речь? Она обладает четырьмя качествами. Правдивость, доброта, полезность и гармония. Гармония – это единство и согласие, как будто два музыканта играют в такт. Неправильная речь полна лжи и вносит раздор. В лучшем случае она поверхностна и такую речь трудно назвать речью в истинном смысле слова. Неправильная речь содержит 4 противоположных качества: ложь, грубость, поверхностность и вред. Правильная речь несет особенный дар, так как проникает в духовную и этическую глубину человека. Представим, что у нас есть 4 последовательных уровня, 4 уровня прогресса - правдивость, доброта, полезность, гармоничность.

How to meditate? A guided meditation.

How to meditate? What is meditation? Find out for yourself and learn to meditate, even if you have never tried before, with this Guided Meditation. Everything is explained for you to immediately start a full length Mindfulness of the Body, or Body Scan. Included is an introduction to good posture, how to be upright and comfortable, during meditation.

You can also continue to practise along with this video long after your first attempt, or if you have learnt the basics of meditation and would like the support of meditating 'with others' or in a more structured way.

This meditation can be used as a preparation for other Buddhist meditations, and Buddhist spiritual practice in general; or simply as a way to relax more deeply and reduce stress for those of any religious or political persuasion.

The meditation is led by Suvannavira, member of the Triratna Buddhist Order, who has been meditating for over 20 years, and teaching meditation and Buddhism in Paris and Moscow for 10. You can also watch this video in French or Russian.

For details of Meditation Classes near you click here:
http://thebuddhistcentre.com/text/triratna-around-world

Video by Patryk Lange. Filmed at Sopatowiec, Poland.

Life of Suvannavira

Where the story starts ...  

Suvannavira was born in Russia in 1967. At the age of four, after his mother had re-married to an American, he left the Soviet Union with them in 1971 for England.

His mothers new husband was a Communist and both parents were atheists whilst he was in studying in a conservative English Public school. At the age of nine he paid his last childhood visit to Russia and his family there.

In school he specialised in maths and the sciences, before going on to study Politics, Philosophy and History, first in Northern Ireland, and then Birmingham. He specialised in the relationship between the mind and the brain. Some neural connections between the two hemispheres of the brain had been severed as a treatment for the spread of Epilepsy. It was discovered that this caused a slight emergence of two centres of consciousness, one half of the brain did not always know what the other half was doing! So how could they be said to have just one mind?

After the end of his studies he went travelling for 16 months to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and India. This was a very significant time in his life.

"When I arrived in Thailand, the serene beauty and calm of some of the places I was in had a very profound effect on me, on my mind. I found I was able to think much more clearly, feel much more deeply, I could absorb myself much more in contemplation, in thought, and in being in the natural world. It was also a time when I was left very much alone, also, to fend for myself. For the first time it really felt that my life was very much in only my own hands".

At the end of the trip whilst in India, first in Calcutta, and the in Darjeeling and Sikkhim, he met and travelled with an Englishman who called himself Arthadarshan. He was a member of the Western Buddhist Order. It was then that he was taught, for the first time, to meditate.

"I had always wanted to learn to meditate, I always felt that the mind had greater capacities, and that meditation was a way to reach and unlock them. Buddhism also seemed to correlate with internal thoughts and experiences, to which I had not found correlation's before. As it turned out the practice of meditation also gave my mind a discipline and vigour which in turn gave my mind a much greater degree of clarity and intelligence."

Within a year of his return to the UK he had asked for Ordination into the spiritual community which is in the West is called the Western Buddhist Order, and in India the Triloka Buddha Mahasangha. He also started working for a giftware wholesaler and retailer run and staffed solely by Buddhists, as a way of living their spiritual lives together. At this time he also started the study of the ancient Indian language of Pali so he could read the oldest texts about the Buddha in their original language, and studied other Buddhist texts in English, many of which were the works of Sangharakshita, the founder of the Order.

In 1994 he was Ordained into the Western Buddhist Order/Triloka Buddha Mahasangha during a 16 week retreat in a seduced valley in the south of Spain. He was given name in Pali of Suvannavira; Suvanna meaning golden or beautiful, and Vira meaning a strong or heroic man.

Towards the end of the nineties he started to have more contact with Russia again, he found members of his family on the internet after not having contact for nearly 30 years. He started to read Russian history of the late 19th and early 20th century, and especially Solzhenitsyn's epic on the revolution 'the Red Wheel'. He returned to native soil for a week long retreat led by Kamalashila, another member of the Western Buddhist Order, at Oranienbaum (near St Petersburg). At this time he also changed his non-Buddhist name back to the Russian, and started to re-learn Russian again.

After 11 years in the gift business he decided also that it was time to devote more time to teaching meditation and Buddhism, and to change countries! So in 2002 he arrived in Paris to work and teach at the 'Centre Bouddhiste Triratna de Paris'.

Just before his arrival in Paris he paid a 6 week visit to Russia, passing through Helsinki and Tallinn. He visited St Petersburg, Moscow, seeing childhood residents and family again. He also travelled to Siberia, to the Chita region, to visit Buddhist monasteries and datsans there of the Buryat people at Aginsk and Tsygolski. The Buriyat people were practitioners in the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. He did a two week solitary retreat in the forests near the sacred Mount Alhanai, which was considered considered a natural mandala. He travelled back to European Russia from Chita, Buryatia, past lake Baikal on the Trans-Siberian Express.

He visited again in 2003 leading his first retreat on Russian soil, near St Petersburg.