Kadampa Meditation Paper

He spoke of nature overloads the room and how they become whole with each other’s bodies and minds when silencing themselves. He talked about how diseases rise in the head. He spoke of walking and sitting meditation. He spoke of how walking meditation links sitting meditation and daily life. He says it allows people to stay focus. Reverend Lee says there is no need to rush and that there is a direction of walking meditation, which is to come back to present time. It is not a mean to an end and it is practiced only for the sake to bring one to their present moments, unlike sitting meditation. Walking meditation allows one not to lose their present moment. He was speaking of Dharma, I was told. Reverend Lee spoke of one being fully present in all of their current moments and how people aspire so much that they forget to be present in their moments happening currently, but walking meditation prevents that. People drift in thought often and with walking meditation things that often go unnoticed in the present moment are

Hope, J. and van Loon, B. (1995) Buddha for Beginners, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin.

The Dhammapada is a Pali version of one of the most popular text of the Buddhist canon. The Dhammapada, or “sayings of the Buddha”, is a collection of 423 verses that tell about the ideals and teachings of the Buddha. When taken together, these verses provide a structured form of teaching within the Buddhist religion. These verses are a kind of guiding voice to the path of true enlightenment.

Meditation is very difficult to describe and can only truly be explained once experienced. It is the practice of mental concentration leading ultimately through a sequence of stages to the final goal of spiritual freedom, nirvana. The purpose of Buddhist meditation is to free ourselves from the delusion and thereby put an end to both ignorance and craving. The Buddhists describe the culminating trance-like state as transient; final Nirvana requires the insight of wisdom. The exercises that are meant to develop wisdom involve meditation on the true nature of reality or the conditioned and unconditioned elements that make up all phenomena. The goal of meditation is to develop a concept in the mind.

This paper is about my experience with mindfulness based meditation and scientific inquiry of these experiences. Mindfulness based meditation is describes as technique used to cultivate nonreactive, non-judgmental and stable awareness of the present moment (Garland and Gaylord, 2009). The end goal is to sustain this meta-cognitive state for a long period of time. I practiced non-denominational form of mindfulness based meditation for the first time in my psychology class, which was devoted towards intellectual and experiential examination of meditation. The practice was conducted in a group it was instructed by our own professor and it begun at the end of class. There was one sessions per week and each session was structured meaning it was

This paper is a book report on “Living Buddha, Living Christ,” written by, Thich Nhat Hanh. In this paper I will discuss the four themes; Mindfulness, Understanding, Interbeing, and Wisdom. I will define the themes, and explain how each theme listed is a part of my life and whether this theme, can be co-related along with my faith.

As I looked to my right and left, I noticed the veterans of meditating could easily be spotted by their perfect posture and quiet, content, stiffness. To see each person in their own position was amusing. Most had their legs in front of themselves, crossed and slightly below their hips. Their gaze was typically a few feet in front of their eyes. Some had their eyes closed and some were simply staring. One woman to my right was sitting with her arms resting on her bent legs, a unique approach. Her old age and heavy weight prevented her from sitting any other way. Another middle aged man was sitting on his heels with a tiny wooden bench under him. Each person, based upon their size and flexibility, found their own position to stay in.

Coming into the class I was interested in learning more about how the class was going to be structured. Even while reading the book and doing the assignments I did not think much of what we were going to do. Once the schedule was passed out I was excited, but a little nervous. Meditation was a bigger part of my life during my teenage years, and yoga was something that was enjoyable, but not something I actively participated in because I have never heard of a yoga studio that worked with individuals with different abilities. Mindfulness was a word that I had heard, but only associated it with a previous Professor that I took during my associates. Unfortunately, there were many negative experiences that turned

Descartes talked about the true and the false, and how we make mistakes in Meditation Four. Descartes believed that error as such is not something real that depends upon God, but rather is merely a defect. And thus there is no need to account for my errors by positing a faculty given to me by God for this purpose(546). He thought that the reason why we make mistakes is that the faculty of judging the truth, which we got from God, is not infinite(546). When Descartes focused more closely on more closely on himself and inquired into the nature of his errors, he noted that errors depend on the simultaneous concurrence of two causes:

"The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt."

come to the conclusion that there is a limit to what they can do. A conscious

However, kapaphatic does a bit more, when Buddhist monks mediate doing their form of kataphatic meditation it does something different then in western kataphatic meditation when monks and nuns do theirs. In the Buddhist brain you see more of an activation in the anterior cingulate cortex in the limbic system specifically the amygdala causing a visual activation to happen in the cortex of the Buddhist while in the monks and nuns your see an activation in the left temporal lobe. The reason is when Buddhist mediate they focus more on images and picture. Rather than the monks and nuns who focus more on words causing more of an activation in the left temporal lobe then the Buddhist. This causes the increase of language and comprehension and emotion

Together with all of what the video was guiding me to do, I can honestly say I enjoy the activity, found it relaxing for the duration of it, but felt that it lacked something for me personally. Furthermore, I didn’t feel the flow between my personal being with the video or the imagery that were being used. As of matter of fact, in the few activities I have participated in which guided meditation has been used I notice, lack of flow between me, and the activity. Which can be due to the fact that I have never been taught or gotten used to doing this sort of activity. Personally, I would not change anything I believe the activity was fully rewarding and engaging if that’s something you can flow and enjoy, you can definitely ripped benefits, which I did, but I do not think I got that full plethora of rewards. This was an interesting experience to say the least, I have never ever lead something like this in my life. Therefore, they were many mishap and funny circumstances. Nonetheless, it was an enlighten experience I will not easily

“The more you meditate, the more helpful you can be to others, and the more deeply you will be in tune with God.” This quote was said by Paramahansa Yogananda and is a wonderful quote that spoke to me because I do have a close relationship to God and being helpful to other people is really important to me. I attended the Brahma Kumaris meditation center to learn more about what meditation consists of and expand my knowledge on why this is a big part in the Hindu religion. In class we I learned about the different types of yoga that is practiced in Hinduism. Jhana yoga, Bhakti yoga, Karma yoga, and Raja yoga are the different types of yoga practiced and I had some sort of understanding on what I would possibly see in the meditation session. I did some research on what the Brahma Kumaris meditation center was about and their main goal. In the Brahma Kumaris meditation center they focus on specifically raja yoga and focusing on self reflection and positivity. My first session at the meditation center was enlightening and very interesting because of the new things I learned and what they focus on to help people overcome obstacles in their lives.

Before taking the class, and before really understanding the benefits of mindfulness, I must admit, I did not really take mindfulness exercises seriously. I tried a few exercises, led by a phone application, but I constantly wondered what these exercises were supposed to achieve. I always thought to myself, “I know what happens around me, being mindful is great, but specific exercises for this seemed exaggerated.”