The Role Of Meditation In Buddhism...

Meditation, either as formal practice or indirectly through prayer, form an important part of nearly every religion. While religion may need meditation, meditation can be done without any religious aspects and purely as a philosophical concept and practice.

Meditating involves both, the mind and the body and this makes it particularly important to Buddhism as it views the human being as a single entity, made up of the mind and body and meditation is the best way to unify them. Since meditation is a way of controlling the mind and increasing awareness, the awareness of the body is also increased.

The purpose of meditation is to prevent the mind from wandering and focus it tightly on a single thought or concept so that it maybe better understood in all its dimensions. Buddhism offers a number of ways in which to meditate and everyone is free to choose whichever method he or she finds most suitable.

Buddhism considers meditation as a mental and physical action that a person undertakes to separate themselves from their thoughts and feelings, in order to become completely aware. A common question that is raised is, if one is separate from one’s thoughts and feelings, what is there left, to be aware with. The answer to that is that Buddhism believes that feelings and thoughts (as conditioned by our environment) interfere with a true level of pure awareness and understanding which comes from within the being. Think of it as a radio signal and the normal thoughts and emotions are other channels on the same wavelength. Obvious the overlapping of sounds will lead to a loss of clarity in all.

But, if the other two are turned off for a while, the main channel, that of the being, becomes crystal clear and with the clarity comes awareness and heightened perception. This allows us to increase of understanding of what is out life and what we are doing with it. We can be objective and truly understand what we are doing and where we are going. Once this understanding comes, we can, if we so choose, use some of the other tenets of the faith to help us change the direction of our lives to refocus on the issues we now understand are important.

An example of what meditation can achieve could be found in the example of a top sportsman who was world renowned. His secret was that he was using banned substances to enhance his performance. His success, wealth and fame, along with the idea that he was not hurting anyone else, allowed him to continue with this practice. It was only when he took up Buddhism and began to meditate that he understood the true implications of what he was doing. The removal of emotions and environmentally crated thoughts allowed him to understand that none of what he had achieved was worth the price he was paying.

Meditation is so important in Buddhism because the religion focuses on understanding what you are. And the only way you will be able to achieve this is by meditating.

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