BUDDHIST PRACTICE: MEDITATION 1

My Attitude

When I first took up Yoga seriously, back in January of 2007, the friend who had stimulated my sleeping interest in Yoga also encouraged me to take up meditation. This was a few months prior to my interests in Buddhism developing into a personal practice. My initial reaction to meditation was one of reluctance, based on the fact that the principal direction of meditation involved the use of the think-mind level. This level was one I was not impressed by and therefore not interested in working with.

In Western terminology, the word MIND generally refers to all the brain functions. Memories are a part of MIND; dreams, thoughts, emotions, sensations such as taste and smell all come from the mind. The MIND is the term for what the brain does, other than physically. This was not my own personal terminology, though. I had been involved in exploring spiritual philosophy within the realm of 'love and life' for some time, and had found my own mind to have four major levels. The majority of people appear to live from their think and heart minds, whereas I had developed a preference for dwelling from my heart and sense minds, instead. It simply felt more natural and right to me.

My THINK-MIND thinks. It contains such as logic, imagination, ideas, plans, etc.
My HEART-MIND feels. This level deals with daydreams, desires, and a multitude of negative and positive emotions.
My SENSE-MIND senses. Alternatively, I may call it my spirit. It empathizes, sympathizes, deals with the area common terminology refers to as the sixth sense - the intuitive, telepathic and psychic level.
My KNOW-MIND knows. It contains wisdom, knowledge, insight. This can commonly be called the soul, although this term is not compatible with the Buddhist view, where it is preferentially termed clear light, Buddha nature, Buddha mind, inner divinity, etc. It is the ever-changing combination of wisdom and karmic residue that becomes the only part to continue into the next life, and the next, and the next… as the body and outer minds die off, each life.

In Buddhist literature, most Western texts tend to assume that Westerners are starting from a point where they use their think-mind and heart-mind levels, can sometimes see their sense-mind level, but do not know very much about their inner know-mind level. In Eastern works, written for general or Western readers, it often explains the difference of meaning in the word MIND within the two opposing cultural views. Eastern literature written predominantly for the Eastern world or general Buddhists comes closest to my own findings, recognizing the CITTA as a multi leveled structure.

Coming from my attitude, although not having then learned of the Buddhist no-self, no soul belief, meddling about with my think-mind was of little interest to me initially. However, as I progressed with both Yoga and my interest in reading Buddhist literature, meditation was mentioned almost everywhere. My friend mentioned it again, too. I joined a couple of online groups, and found it right there under my nose again! In the end, I decided to give it a go, just to see…