Moral Discipline.
"Greetings and hello to all.
We shall start the session off by saying the Liberating prayer, which you all have copies of. Although it is a prayer, it is also a poem and it is in praise of Buddha Shakyamuni. We say this prayer to bring our minds down and bring ourselves to the here and now, to this moment here. So we can make the most of the meditation time that we are going to experience here tonight. After the Liberating prayer I will guide you all through the meditation, all you need to do is just follow. You will not be doing anything weird and wonderful. If anyone is struggling to keep their meditation going just still quietly and try to maintain focus. Then I shall do a brief teaching on moral discipline and it covers the 6 perfections of Buddhism. Then I shall guide you through another meditation, which will be a mantra. This meditation may be hard to follow but I will help you and if you try to visualize and see the words I speak then you will be lead down the correct path. So, we shall begin the meditating prayer now.
“O Blessed One, Shakyamuni Buddha,
Precious treasury of compassion,
Bestower of supreme inner peace,
You, who love all beings without exception,
Are the source of happiness and goodness;
And you guide us to the liberating path.
Your body is a wishful filling jewel,
Your speech is supreme, purifying nectar,
And your mind is refuge for all living beings.
With folded hands I turn to you,
Supreme unchanging friend,
I request from the depths of my heart:
Please give me the light of your wisdom
To dispel the darkness of my mind
And to heal my mental continuum.
Please nourish me with your goodness,
That I in turn may nourish all beings
With an unceasing banquet of delight.
Through your compassionate intention,
Your blessings and virtuous deeds,
And my strong wish to rely upon you,
May all suffering quickly cease
And all happiness and joy be fulfilled;
And may holy Dharma flourish for evermore”.
Right, so now I will guide you through the first meditation. The aim of this mediation is a relaxation meditation, the sort of warm up or formal meditation you would do before a mantra.
Now, begin by finding a meditation posture where you can feel relaxed and calm. Keep you back straight but not tense. Place your hands in your lap. Keep both your feet on the ground. Close your eyes. Now let all your stress and tension fall away. Breathe naturally through your nose; try not to control your breathing. This is your time that you have put aside to meditate. So relax. Nobody wants anything, nobody needs anything. Just relax. Just let the stress and tension of the day just drain away. Start by focusing your mind on the breath entering and leaving your nose. Focus on this to the exclusion of everything else.
Initially you feel that the meditation is making your mind busy. What you’re actually noticing is how busy your mind is. Just focus on your breath entering and leaving your nose. So to start the relaxation, concentrate your mind on the muscles on the top of your head. Fell those muscles and let the tension drain away. Now think about the muscles in your face. Just let the tension drain away. All those muscles relax. Now relax the muscles in your neck and shoulders. Just let your shoulders really drop. All that tension drain away. No relax the tension in your arms and hands. Let the tension go. Now focus your attention on your chest and back. Just let all those muscles relax. Your beginning to feel more and more relaxed. As you work your way down your body. Now start to relax the muscles in your legs, your knees, then and your calves and down to your feet. Let all the stress and tension of the day drain away. Your beginning to feel as light as a bird. Your body is asleep. But your mind is awake. Listening to me speak. Just focus on this relaxed feeling and continue focusing entering and leaving your nose to the exclusion of everything else.
If you notice your mind is following a wandering thought, then just patiently bring it back to your breath and focus on nothing else.
Now we are going to bring some attention to the negative emotions that you have felt today. Negative words you may have said. Anything that made you feel uncomfortable, unhappy or fearful. All those negative states of mind, whether they are fear, anger, envy, overly attached to somebody or something. We are going to visualize those negative feels as if they were black smoke. As we breathe out, were going to breathe out the black smoke, to rid our bodies of all our negative emotions. So now breathe normally. But as you breath out imagine all your negative feelings as black smoke and let it float away. Never to return.
Just keep visualizing all your negative emotions leaving your body as black smoke as you breathe out. See it all floating away never to return.
So now the last of the black smoke is leaving your body. Just breathe the lasts few whiffs away never to return. All the black smoke is now gone. To maintain this as you breathe in, you are going to breathe in white light, which is pure and warm. It is the light of love. As you breathe in, just visualize beautiful white light is entering your body. Cleansing and purifying. Keeping this meditation feeling going for you. Keep breathing normally as the light enters you. Keep visualizing the white light and breathe it all in. Keep focused. Try to keep the meditation going for the last few moments. Start to relax your concentration. Hear all the natural noises around you. In your own time finish the meditation. Bring yourself back.
So, that was a 25-minute meditation. This session covers one of the six perfections of Buddhism. If we know about those 6 perfections it will improve our lives remarkably. Buddha Shakyamuni was a very wise human being. Who reached enlightenment and passed on these wonderful teachings. But Buddhism has been around much longer than that. He is the fourth Buddha. The fourth deliverer of this Eon, this moment in time. However, there were four Buddha’s before him who were equally powerful. But he was the one who was requested to write down all of his teachings. We follow a very pure lineage back to Buddha Shakyamuni so the teachings remain very pure and clear.
So we began to look at compassion; what the six perfections were built on. Why it is important to have compassion in your mind. If we can look at lives in a compassionate way. As ancient Buddhist teachings have taught us, we have had tens of hundreds of thousands of lives. Then it stands reason that we have had tens of hundreds of thousands of mothers and fathers. Sister’s, brother’s, cousin’s etc. So if you have had that many mothers, then where are they now? Well all of my mother’s are sitting in front of me here and now. If we start viewing every living thing we find even the smallest being, has having been our mother then you start viewing people in a different way. Instead of thinking negatively about a person, realize that it is good because it gives me something to work on in my Buddhist way. I can say thank you to you for making me think about being patient, or compassionate, or any virtuous way of thinking. We need to think about other people, their needs and obstacles that they may face. How can we help them? Happiness is temporary. But we can help others by being compassionate.
If you can think of everyone as someone that you think highly of, someone you want to protect, then you will find your compassion will improve. Also there are different types of giving. We can give love. We can give material things but regardless of what we are giving away, what we are over coming by giving and why it is called perfection is because we are giving away our negative mind of laziness, greed, attachment. When you are too attached to, (for example a partner) who you really loved to death. That attachment to that person, it can become obsessively dominating and twist who you are naturally. Then it becomes an unhappiness. It is the same with possessions.
But with a mind of compassion, with love and thoughtfulness, you can help others and help yourself by practice giving. You will find night and day, with this practice of Buddhism your mind will become calm and disciplined. All of the teachings that Buddha gave and all the teachers that have come along after him have given us pathways to help us. So we look at giving, as a mean of giving love, affection to those who need it, being generous, but with attachment for us is not the source of happiness. You will find happiness comes from your mind and heart. If you break down everything in life you will find that it is impermanent. The only thing that is permanent is peace of mind. That is something that you have to train for.
So this week we are reminded that the six perfections are; giving, moral discipline, effort, patience, concentration and wisdom. If you learn Dharma’s and practice those six paths with a compassionate mind then you will be a very changed person.
So now moral discipline, what gives our life direction? It is like everything in life, when your young you have boundaries and rules to follow. Such like directions. There are 3 types of discipline, such as restraint, which is obvious. The negative karma that we can accumulate to ourselves can be dangerous. If we collect enough negative karma then it can in your next life, force you back into one of our realms. Moral discipline gives us a line to follow, what to aim for. Which should be to cause no harm to anything. You need to be mindful.
So you need to remind yourself of negative actions, which is also known as Karma. Most people have heard about Karma, which is the natural law of cause and affect. If we do something negative, in body speech or mind, then in this life or in our future lives it will revisit us. Therefore is you only worry for yourself then it stands to reason to be none virtuous because what you do to others will come back to haunt you. The older you get the more you realize you have poisoned yourself. Being self-centered will only bring you more bad Karma. Including any bad Karma you may have gained in your past lives. If you are following a certain path, a spiritual path then there are certain points in a pathway where there are vows you can take. These are the Pratimoksa vows and the Bodhisattva vows. As another example to cleanse ourselves of our Karma there are offerings we can make to shrines. On our shrine tonight we have seven bowls of water that we give as offerings.
The third moral discipline is to help benefit others. War is terrible and it hurts everyone. It is hard to benefit others and very overwhelming. But what you can do when feeling like this is to help cleanse yourself and pass this gift onto others. Though all of this may not change anything, you have to start somewhere. As a Buddhist you have to keep a level mind, a peaceful mind. It is the key to being a Buddha. You need to develop faith. Hear this wisdom, use what you feel is personal and useful to you. Just by being here this evening you have accumulated a lot of good positive Karma. Moral discipline is what strengthens everything we do. Bad Karma can accumulate from anywhere. But if you keep a peaceful mind, then the good Karma will reach you and help you.
Now, we shall finish with a nice Buddhist story. The Bodhisattva vow. This is the second lot of vows you take along your pathway to achieve wisdom. This story will give you an idea of to achieve such wisdom.
There was once a woman who gave birth to a baby girl. The woman had already lost one baby and was frightened that her baby girl would also die. The woman told her mother how worried she was and her mother told her that children given to Geshe Langri Tangpa to be looked after would not die.
Later, when the little girl fell ill, the woman took her to see Geshe Langri Tangpa, but when she arrived she found him sitting on a throne giving a teaching to a thousand disciples. The woman began to worry that her child would die before the end of the teaching. She knew that Geshe Langri Tangpa was a Bodhisattva and would show patience, and so she walked up to the throne and in a loud, rude voice she said; 'Here, take your baby. Now you look after her!' She turned to the audience and said; 'This is the father of my child', and then turned back to Geshe Langri Tangpa and pleaded softly; 'Please don't let her die.'
Geshe Langri Tangpa just nodded his head. As if he really were the father of the child, he wrapped it tenderly in his robes and continued his teaching.
His disciples were very surprised and asked him; 'Are you really the father of that child?' Knowing that if he were to say no, the woman would have been thought crazy and the people would have laughed at her, Geshe Langri Tangpa said that he was.
Although he was a monk, Geshe Langri Tangpa acted like a real father for the child, delighting in her and caring for her.
After some time the mother returned to see if her daughter was well. When she saw how healthy the child was she asked Geshe Langri Tangpa if she could have her back again. The Geshe then kindly returned the girl to her mother.
When his disciples understood what had happened they said; 'So you are not really the father after all!' and Geshe Langri Tangpa simply said; 'No, I am not.'
Life is precious. As Buddhists we are to care for each other with compassion, kindness and thoughtfulness. This is what we are aiming for.
So, are there any questions anyone has to ask before we go into the next meditation?
This last mantra for tonight is a Mantra meditation. Buddhist Mantra’s are used to block negative things coming into your mind. It is “OM AH HUM”. Which means Buddha’s body, speech and mind. With this meditation you do not have to do anything special, although it is difficult to master. I will talk you through it but if you visualize a circle motion, it may help.
Now, find a position where you can feel relaxed and aware. Keep your back straight, to keep yourself from falling either asleep or of your seat. So, begin by finding a meditation posture where you can feel relaxed and calm. Keep you back straight but not tense. Place your hands in your lap. Keep both your feet on the ground. Close your eyes. Now let all your stress and tension fall away.
Begin by generating a wish to use within the meditation to develop good qualities to benefit both yourself and others. Now hold and focus on this wish to start. Turn your attention inwards and become aware of your breathing. Keep yourself relaxed. Resist the temptation to follow any thoughts that may arise and keep focused on your breathing. Just stay calm and relaxed. Now gradually adjust your breathing so that you hold the inhalation at your heart’s center, in your chest. Then breathe out after a short pause. Hold any breath without straining and settle into a new rhythm. Breath in, hold at your hearts center and breathe out. Breath in, hold at your hearts center and breathe out. Stay with this new rhythm until it feels comfortable and relaxed. Continue this way until your mind becomes free and all your focus is on your breathing. Now as you breath in, mentally recite the Mantra, “OM” and imagine the energy of the Mantra, which is the nature of, an enlightened body mixes with your breath.
Carry on with this focus. Imagine the most pure Mantra energy, until your body becomes completely pure. Now as you hold your breath, mentally recite the Mantra “AH” and imagine the energy of the Mantra, which is the nature of, an enlightened body mixes with your breath. Just keep your mind focused on breathing in the purest of light and let it cleanse and relax your body. Finally, as you breath out, mentally recite the Mantra “HUM” and imagine the energy of the Mantra, which is the nature of, an enlightened body mixes with your breath. Keep on mentally reciting this Mantra, let it help you find peace and purity. Let your mind mix and become one with this Mantra. Now you can start to emerge from the meditation, the qualities you have gained here tonight will be of use to you in your life and your future lives. In these last moments of meditation you can focus on the good in your life and slowly bring yourself back. Hear the noises all around you and finish the meditation in your own time.
Mantra’s can evoke enormous feelings in us at times, which is why it can be hard for those of you who are new to Buddhism and meditation to focus on and keep the meditation going. But with patience and practice you will find your own rhythm. Meditation is very powerful, it reduces your heart rate and the energy waves that flow through the brain dramatically slow down.
I would just like to dedicate a quick prayer to all living beginnings and hope that they find peace and enlightenment. Thank you".
Emerging from the meditation I feel refreshed and more aware of my surroundings. Having learnt and experienced meditation and a Buddhist Mantra for myself I now think I am starting to understand the amount of dedication that true Buddhists put themselves through. The patience they practice everyday, they say is the key to enlightenment and a ‘Zen’ mind.
