Meditation Guide

Intro

Why is it important to meditate?

If you wish to bring about lasting happiness for yourself and others, you must be able to focus with laser-like precision on the components that make up your mind and the most subtle aspects of the body. Your ordinary mind is so dominated by sense information, thoughts, desires and emotions that there is no way to achieve this kind of one-pointed focus. Instead, we're left with constant sensory overload, feelings of attraction or repulsion, and non-stop dialogue.

Meditation is designed to quiet the mind by eliminating mental and sensory distractions, thereby freeing it to engage, one-pointedly, in the practices needed to achieve our spiritual goals.

The following Guide is based upon both the written and oral instructions of various Buddhist practice lineages, and is designed to help the student reach a state in which the student's mind can achieve the proper degree of quiescence needed to begin.