In this article, we will cover what's wrong with western meditation, how to fix your practice, and why it's so important to attaining Awakening and Enlightenment.
"I’ve been meditating for years, but if I'm being honest, I don’t really enjoy doing it. I meditate because I think I’m supposed to, but I mostly find it boring and it is not something that I like to do.
Will I ever enjoy doing it, or is that not the point?" - Anonymous
If you can relate with the question above, then I have good news, I can tell you why: it's because you've been taught how to meditate incorrectly. Boredom (or even having a restless mind) is a guaranteed sign that you aren't actually meditating, it's a sure sign that you're just sitting still...and yes, that's boring. I understand that some practitioners aren't going to like reading the rest of this, because they have developed their own views and notions, but allow me to explain as this goes against the rote teaching in the West and there is a lot to gain from keeping an open mind on this subject; so let's dive right in!
(Warning: the text that follows may be considered seditious and incendiary. That is not the intent; the intent is to highlight and correct in no uncertain terms.) COMMENT: Huh, so, I was taught to meditate wrong?
2 Comments
 I have problems trying to understand Emptiness. I even struggle at finding a better way of putting the idea of Emptiness or No-self as it is explained in dharma books and dharma talks into my own words. I suspect the causes will be in no small part because I am not fully understanding the subject in enough depth and therefore struggle in putting it into my own words, like the bowl with the holes in it, I discover it has all seeped away and just isn’t happening yet! I also don’t want to just parrot back words, I want to understand it enough to understand it with confidence and some insight. - G.R. Hi G.R.,
Emptiness (Sanskrit: śūnyatā) is an challenging topic for the uninitiated and it presents an almost impossible learning curve to beginners who are just starting to explore the Buddhist path... Why is thinking about Death is so important to Buddhists (and can it help you)? - Buddhism Explained5/13/2020  Ask a Buddhist what's the number one cause of death, and the Buddhist will say: "birth."
While it's true that Buddhism has a deep interest in the subject of Death, it is just a true to say that Buddhism has a deep interest in a great number of the things that seem to plague the human experience. However, the comfort with which Buddhists can talk about Death seems to make a lot of people uncomfortable and, as a result, it gets over-played in our media and culture. So why does Buddhism have such a focus on Death?  Hi Michael, it's nice to see you again too. Thank you so much for the help. Let me see if I understand it clearly: what I usually end up doing is re-wording the meaning of the text, mainly so I can work with it in my head using my native language. So should I also meditate on the words longer in order to burn the meaning into my core? Would that would be the right thing to do if I don't need to know the exact words? - N.V. Hi N.,
Thank you for your question to clarify your understanding. We want to move away from recitations and start down the path of analytical meditation to help you get around your short-term memory issues; and rote memorisation does little for our understanding and insight, memory issues or not. So how do you meditate analytically? While there is a reason entire books and courses are written on this single topic, here is a simple process that you can use to start doing it today. First of all, what is "analytical meditation" and how is it used?  I have a problem with my ability to meditate, in 2015 something happened to me and my short-term memory has been affected ever since, so now I have a really hard time memorising the texts. So, I decided to just keep the texts with me (in-hand) and read them, but it feels so artificial. I had the exact same problem during a recent retreat and I don’t know how to handle it. Should I just make an extra effort until I memorize it all, allowing myself to just "be peaceful" and read, or should I skip the recitation part entirely? - N. V. Hi N.,
So nice to see you again. I can understand how it can be frustrating or feel limiting to have your short-term memory affect your ability to meditate or memorise the buddhadharma. I have good news: it doesn't have to be! May I offer an alternative to "artificially reading" the texts or skipping the recitation part entirely? The purpose of the Dharma is neither memorisation nor recitation; at least not in its true sense. However, we can use |
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Michael Turner is a pre-monastic Buddhist Ariya-puggala and a deeply accomplished enlightenment trainer and dharma life coach. He emphasises and teaches the practical application of Buddhism in our everyday lives to make real progress toward enlightenment and is particularly adept at explaining them in ways that can be easily understood and practiced by Western Buddhists. He has been meditating and cultivating the techniques to generate indestructible resilience and inner-strength for more than 25 years and has helped countless numbers of people enhance their practice to make clear progress along the Path.
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