Insight Meditation Sessions
Developing equanimity for insight...
Lots of research has been carried out over the last few decades in the field of neuroscience using state of the art sophisticated technology to verify the positive effects that meditation has to the health and well-being of human beings. Meditation has been scientifically proven to change the physical structure of the brain, and the way in which it functions. By practicing meditation every day we are able to change the way we perceive and respond to things, which has a positive affect on the way we interact with ourselves, and everyone and everything around us. This changes the way we in which we approach and apply ourselves to the wide variety of situations we will most definitely experience throughout duration of our lifetimes. This can results in a fundamental change to our well-being, manifesting itself in a profoundly positive way.
Imagine you have to take a regular route through an extremely dense jungle that is very dangerous, but it’s the only way you know, so you keep on using it. Things have got so bad using this route every day that you can no longer bare it. Despite the commitment that is necessary, you decide to start work on a new pathway through the dense jungle. The more you walk the new and safe path through the jungle, the more established and easier it becomes to use. While you are focusing on walking along the new path every day, the old path begins to grow over, and slowly fades away over time. Eventually, if you keep maintaining this new path every day and refrain from going back to the old one, the old path will cease to exist permanently, with out trace, as if it was never there in the first place. This is exactly what happens when you commit to practicing meditation every day. It actually re-routes the neural pathways in the brain, altering how signals are produced, sent, and received, allowing you to break old habitual thinking patterns and reflex reactions, so you can think clearly, and respond more appropriately to any kind of situation that may arise; providing you with a more calm and peaceful journey through the jungle of life.
Mindfulness is the development of momentary awareness by paying attention to one's perceptive and cognitive experiences. In the development of equilibrium - by paying attention to ones mental and physical internal processes - if one is able to step back so to speak, and in a sense remotely view such phenomena as it continues to unfold, one will be able to observe and choose how to respond, instead of participating by impulse which tends to perpetuate the un-beneficial habitual cycles.
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The current understanding came about via a misinterpretation of the word that Mindfulness was
originally translated from. But never the less, the cultivation of the above skills play a significant roll in one's spiritual development.
The word that Mindfulness was mistranslated from is Sati (Pali) and Smriti (Sanskrit). Pali is an ancient Indian language the spoken words of Gotama (Buddha) were recorded in. Many of the mindfulness meditation courses around today were conceived via the misinterpretation of the Pali word Satipatthana; the title of a sermon given by Gotama during his era.
Sati or Smriti means: to recollect, to recall, or in this case, to remember who and what we really are. And that there are better places for our Spirit's to abide. Satipatthana correctly translates as, The Establishment of Anamneses, meaning to recollect prior states. Blesses is He Who Is - before everything comes into being. [42.40 Christ Sutras]
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What arises at one moment in time must cease to be in another, causing us a great deal of suffering.
Everything that is born will perish...Everything that has a beginning has an end. [42.43 Christ Sutras]
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The ultimate spiritual quest is to transcend the temporal worlds of birth and death, and loss and gain. He Who Is, is immortal and eternal, having never been born. [42.43 Christ Sutras]
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The mistake is taking the physical body to be one's-Self and identifying with the psychological and emotional states that accompany it. They are beguiled by the beauty of their body, as if it would not perish, and they are frenetic. Their thought is occupied with their deeds, and thought is the fire that burns them. [42.10 Christ Sutras]
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By developing the skills to prevent our minds from becoming prey to the turbulence of existence, one may realise there is so much more to life than the physical or material one previously believed to be the All.
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If we are unable to manage ourselves throughout the difficult times or unable to overcome our impulses in petty situations, we will never become the masters of our own Will and actualise our best intentions.
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Although the objective of Mindfulness is based on the observation of our empirical nature and training it to behave in more beneficial ways, this very nature is in fact - to be transcended, not inevitably fixed upon, but to be used as a medium for ascension. Just as you would not continue to carry the raft on your back once you had crossed the river.
In the Pali Satipatthana Sutta (the recordings of a sermon by Gotama Buddha) the initiate is to become recollective of previous and other worldly states. So satova assasati, sato passasati. - He is anamnestic as he breathes in, just so, he is anamnestic as he breathes out. (M.J.Armstrong)
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Just because he is anamnestic as he breathes in and out, it doesn't mean the aim of the game is to be attached to the breathing process throughout the duration of the meditation. Focusing in certain ways can become the medium or vehicle in which one needs to temporarily escape the burdens of the material body and all that arises along with it.
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I am a qualified Mindfulness Instructor with qualifications recognised by the UK Mindfulness Network, and I also received a government recognised qualification with Distinction in Meditation Teaching. This is not important as qualifications are generally not based on facts, but the reason I mention it is because of a quote I came across in the training that stayed with me. Breath is life. You can think of the breath as being like a thread or a chain that links and connects all the events of your life from birth, the beginning, to death, the end. Except birth is not the beginning and death is not the end.
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