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The buddhist term SAMATHI means RIGHT CONCENTRATION...
This means that the culmination of spirituality is purity of heart which can be attained only by purity of conduct on the basis of the practice of the last three buddhist disciplines -- morality, meditation, and wisdom...
1. Morality = right speech, right action, and right livelihood...
Morality has two aspects. First, by bringing attention to the ways in which we speak, act, and live, we create the conditions needed in order to practice. Second, the way we live is the expression of what we understand through practice. Therefore, in Buddhism, morality is not a matter of observing rigid moral principles, but of giving expression to the wisdom of original mind.
Where are you living?
What's your thinking, feeling, living enviroment? Do you think according to your past, projecting into the future? Do you feel according to your fear, your hopes and desires? Have you build your enviroment according to the above out of insecurity? Or you're present, in accordance to the now?
What are you doing?
How do you live your days, is it fear and desire that govern your moods and dictate your actions?
Or you're free from the past and the desire for the future, enjoying your being now-here?
What are your relationships?
Are they people to whom you're depended out of insecurity or real people whom you love?
Are you in right relation? Are you contented in your self and share your being with your beloved, or you're tethered in mutual bondage with your mate?
Where is your spring of life, your very being or the thousand broken mirrors around you, yearning for the reflection of your self-made image?
Do you know your essencial qualities and live according and through them or you feed upon ephemeral satisfactions and mutual exploitations?
Dare to be yourself, drop the empty behaviour, don't just "chat" unconsciously out of habit, regain your responce ability that you had as a child, fearless and innocent. ..."The King is naked!"
Be with like thinking, feeling, living people. Be good to each other. Not goody-goody, not just polite, but really compassionate to eachother. Do not give up your responsibility to anyone, for any reason, in any field of your life. Listen attentively to what the other says, but evaluate it in your heart.
Be available to the Unknown... Let go of the past AND the future - the two shores of the river of life, be aware, conscious, alert and do not be taken by emotions.
Share your joy, dancing with those in the same state. And take nothing personally.
2. Meditation = Right effort, right mindfulness, and right attention..
Right effort, right mindfulness, and right attention constitute the discipline of meditation. In this context, meditation actually means stable attention. We begin with the effort of resting with the breath. We develop mindfulness first, then stable attention. Attention is the heart of Buddhist practice. Although we use formal meditation to cultivate attention, the real practice is to live in attention all the time.
3. Wisdom or understanding = a) Right cognition and b) Right view.
a) Right cognition means that we bring attention to the thinking process. We use cognitive processes to uncover and correct problems in our practice and in our lives.
b) Right view is seeing things as they actually are. By bringing attention to how we see things, we step out of the projected "realities" of conditioning.
I'll begin with the third first, with Oshos words, because for me right understanding is fundamental...
"You're not what you know. Anything that you see, hear, sense. Anything you think, anything you feel, anything that happens, anything.... You are not your body, meaning you are not your looks.
You are not your age. You are not your illness nor are you your health.
You are not your habits. You are not your thinking. You are not your character and the picture you have of your self, good, bad, indifferent.
You do know you are not your fingernail, and yet ALL that that you may presently think is you, amounts to no more than a fingernail.
Who you are is irrelevant to your perceived suffering and your perceived happiness.
Who you are is irrelevant to your success and your failure.
Who you are is irrelevant to your comfort or discomfort.
Who you are is irrelevant to your position in the world, irrelevant to your relationships with your family, irrelevant to your loneliness.
All that transpires is irrelevant next to who you are.
All the world’s plaudits are irrelevant.
All the wealth or all the poverty.
All the understanding or misunderstanding.
All the caring or not caring.
All the ease and all the difficulty.
All the knowledge and all the ignorance.
All the fame as well as being overlooked.
All the A’s and all the E’s. They are all the same. They have nothing to do with you.
What does anything have to do with you? Nothing has anything to do with you. Nothing at all.
The "you" that you may think you are has nothing to do with you.
The You that is you is untouchable, pristine and pure, it is unbounded and timeless spaciousness.
Even if you happen to die, don't take it personally... The you that you really are is never born and never gonna die. You are eternal homeness."
Second about meditation...
One thing has to be remembered about meditation; it is a long journey and there is no shortcut. Anyone who says there is a shortcut is be fooling you.
It is a long journey because the change is very deep and is achieved after many lives - many lives of routine habits, thinking, desiring. And the mind structure; that you have to drop through meditation. In fact it is almost impossible - but it happens.
A man becoming a meditator is the greatest responsibility in the world. It is not easy. It cannot be instant. So from the beginning never start expecting too much and then you will never be frustrated. You will always be happy because things will grow very slowly.
Meditation is not a seasonal flower which within six weeks is there. It is a very very big tree. It needs time to spread its roots.
"Meditation simply means becoming empty of all the contents of the mind: memory, imagination, thoughts, desires, expectations, projections, moods. One has to go on emptying oneself of all these contents. The greatest day in life is when you cannot find anything in you to throw out; all has already been thrown out, and there is only pure emptiness. In that emptiness you will find yourself; in that emptiness you find your pure consciousness.
"That emptiness is empty only as far as mind is concerned. Otherwise it is overflowing, full of being ---empty of mind but full of consciousness. So don't be afraid of the word empty; it is not negative. It negates only the unnecessary luggage, which you are carrying just from old habit, which does not help but only hinders, which is just a weight, a mountainous weight. Once this weight is removed you are free from all boundaries, you become as infinite as the sky. This is the experience of God or Buddhahood or whatever word one likes. Call it dhamma, call it Tao, call it truth, call it nirvana--they all mean the same thing."
Meditation has two parts: the beginning and the end.
The beginning is called dhyana and the end is called samadhi.
Dhyana is the seed, samadhi is the flowering.
Dhyana means becoming aware of all workings of your mind, all the layers of your mind — your memories, your desires, your thoughts, dreams — becoming aware of all that goes on inside you.
Dhyana is awareness, and samadhi is when the awareness has become so deep, so profound, so total that it is like a fire and it consumes the whole mind and all its functionings.
It consumes thoughts, desires, ambitions, hopes, dreams. It consumes the whole stuff the mind is full of.
And the finally THE METHOD...
Sit confortably in a quiet space, that you have prepared for that purpose.
See around and realise that everything you see, hear, smell or sense in any way, is not what you are searching for, because it is an object to your senses, and recognising that as a fact, close your eyes.
Feel your body from the inside... Direct your awareness to your feet, to your toes, and spend some moments feeling them one by one... Move your awareness slowly from your toes to the legs, little by little...and feel them...Move your awareness slowly upwards, feeling minutely every part of your body, ...your genitals, your belly, ...feel the pressure on your ass as you sit on it, feel your hearts beat and stay there a little longer, for it brings calmness to your system...
And then go to your head, part by part, ...your ears, your eyes from the inside, your mouth, your tongue...
And then feel your breath as it goes in and out...in...out...in...out... for it brings deeper calmness... and just "do" that, watching your breath in a certain point, wherever you prefer, in the nose, in the back of the throat, in your chest, in your belly, ...wherever feels preferable to you. If you notice that some thought is distructing you from what you are doing, realise that the thought is just an object like anything else that you are becoming aware of, and return to what you were doing, not paying much attention to the thought.
It needs your intelligence to understand clearly the concept.
"Anything that passes from the screen of my awareness, is an object, it's not what I'm searching for, it's not ME... I'm NOT interested in that" ... so, you just go on discarding whatever object appears, until a moment comes were nothing moves anymore inside you... Suddenly from the sea of the inner silence, an impulse may arise in your belly... In the beggining you may not be able to realise it as another type of object and it may unfold as a thought, -- that's why the Zen people say that we are thinking with our belly! It's true, from there the thought arises, the ignition of the thought is an impulse, ...a desire! Then as your awarenes grows, by and by you'll be able to see it as it arises, and you will not become identified, seeing it as what it is... Then a deeeep silence prevails and You are totally aware...
and...
The moment you realise that YOU are still there, watching, ... that "you" is realised also as an object... turn away.. and ...The Revelation, ...the Apocalypse!
It is called Enlightenment... but it really is what you've always been, but you didn't knew. It's the ultimate freedom from the dreams and nightmares that we were creating, it is the ultimate reality, where harmony is the fruit of understanding beyond reason... And that is the eternal and not changeable! The center of the wheel!
Beloved, banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
Love & Light
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SAMATHI and THE METHOD... [re: vidiya]
