Four ways of thinking about meditation

Author: Taiqiao Dan Zeng Khenpo

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People often ask me: Can I meditate at home? What are the specific methods?

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I have published some articles about meditation before that can be used as a reference. What is the main practice of meditating at home? It is the meditation of thinking about the four additional actions, and we cannot practice other things yet, so we must first lay a good foundation for meditation. The foundation, progress, and prerequisites of meditation are more important than meditation itself. Nowadays, many people do not pay attention to the basics, prerequisites, and methods of meditation, and do not lay a good foundation, and directly enter meditation, so some people give up halfway and eventually fail in the process of meditation, and some people go astray, and in serious cases, they go crazy. Due to the lack of guidance and blind practice, many Buddhists are mentally abnormal, and Buddhists are the group with the highest rate of mental abnormality. There are very few people among our Buddhist disciples who are mentally abnormal, because I never allow beginner disciples to meditate, so everyone is down-to-earth and feels more normal. Some Buddhist disciples do not rely on their masters after learning Buddhism, but look at what they want to see, and practice blindly on their own. Not only among lay disciples, but also among monks, some monks became disciples of Tibetan Buddhism, but they did not rely on a guru they had faith in, and they wandered uncertainly. He was very demanding and unwilling to rely on ordinary gurus, feeling that they were all like himself, wanting a top-notch guru, but he couldn't. He often meditated on his own, became his own master, followed his own feelings, and guided himself with his hearsay theoretical knowledge, and finally failed in meditation.

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Why don't I teach meditation for beginners? Because the foundation of meditation has not yet been laid. What is the best foundation for meditation? First of all, we truly understand how rare the human body is, how impermanence life is, this is called the view of impermanence, and then the thinking cycle is full of pain, this is the reincarnation of suffering, thinking about cause and effect is good rewarded with good, evil is rewarded with evil, firmly believing in cause and effect, using these four types of thinking to lay a good foundation for meditation and generate a strong motivation for meditation, and it is very easy to succeed when it comes to real meditation.

Many ancient practitioners contemplated impermanence throughout their lives, and finally achieved it. If they don't practice the view of impermanence and meditate directly, not only will they not be able to achieve it, but they may also go crazy. You have a lot of responsibility, including your husband, wife, children, and family, and they don't want you to become mentally abnormal, right? Mental abnormalities also occur in Tibet individually. Some people are very devout and work very hard, such as getting up at three o'clock in the morning to do their homework, but lacking methods and without the guidance of their master, such people are prone to problems. In any Tibetan retreat center, one or two will go crazy. And people who usually play in the mountains and waters, dance and drink will not go crazy. Therefore, most of the mentally abnormal people appear among Buddhists, especially those who are very self-righteous and stubborn in their practice. However, no one has ever gone crazy because of the impermanence of meditation and the rarity of the human body. Therefore, I have repeatedly emphasized that we should think more and be impermanent, and the human body is rare, which is also a kind of meditation. For example, many people do all kinds of evil when they are young, and retribution appears in their later years. We also need to think about reincarnation: no matter how much money you have, how much your family loves you, how much you have a personal doctor, etc., there is no guarantee that you will always be happy and healthy in the future. No matter which country we are in, or which country we emigrate to, we cannot guarantee that this place will not be a disaster. This shows that the entire cycle of reincarnation is a transgression. We can often think about these four things: the rare human body, the impermanence of death, the true cause and effect, and the suffering of reincarnation. Some people keep thinking, thinking, repeatedly thinking about all kinds of pain in reincarnation, and finally really don't dare to sleep at night, and keep doing homework, repenting, and chanting Buddha. But we don't have such training, we don't have the four additional practices of thinking, if we go directly into meditation, there is no foundation for meditation at all, in fact, it is more effective than going out for a massage. Some people meditate cross-legged without any foundation, thinking they are meditating, and if I were him, I would choose to go out for a pedicure massage, and the effect would be better. Because such meditation without foundation is not very helpful and very dangerous, and pedicure massage will not be in great danger.

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Beginners should not meditate too much at home except for the meditation of the four communal precepts. We can be aware and self-aware in our lives. When you think about something, don't let the thought last too long, find yourself thinking about something, blink immediately, don't let the thought develop deeply, don't let it continue. Observe your mind and maintain mindfulness.

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(Taiqiao Dan Zeng Khenpo Lecture, welcome to reprint and share, please indicate the author and source for reprinting.) )