Get Up To 30% Discount
SHOP NOWUse left/right arrows to navigate the slideshow or swipe left/right if using a mobile device
Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation
Almost all of the various types of meditation now being propagated to Western students involve a technique of using body, breath and mind to achieve a predetermined goal. That goal of course varies widely among traditions, but the practitioner of any given tradition receives instructions on the methods and outcomes of his or her chosen practice. Seen from the perspective of mindfulness meditation, this goal-orientation gets in the way of the experience of a genuine insight into the mind and therefore must be left behind. The approach of mindfulness meditation as it has been handed down from generation to generation is that the goal of the practice is the practice itself and that meditation benefits will follow naturally. Simply performing the meditation practice without an orientation towards any expected outcome allows space and a genuine sense freedom to be discovered within the mind.
Because the practitioner has learned how to rest the mind in whatever experience occurs as it occurs, she or he experiences an awareness that is indescribable-beyond words. Within the mind that is liberated from fixation and expectation, there is no clinging to any pleasant or painful experience as being good or bad, to be hoped for or feared.
Generally speaking, all people want happiness and do not want unhappiness. When we push away certain types of experience and try to hold others close, we create confusion and we perpetuate the momentum of the mind's habits that inevitably cause us pain and confusion. Advanced practitioners of this path have seen, by the simple act of looking at the mind's process over and over again, that there is no way to manipulate what the world brings. They come to rest continuously in a genuine state of tranquility and insight that does not fluctuate due to whatever condition or environment they find themselves in at any given moment. Intermediate practitioners experience this in a less stable way, but the glimpses of insight that they do experience is the genuine state of relaxation.
The ultimate benefit of the practice of mindfulness meditation is the insight into the actual nature of the mind and of all experience. In the highest state of awareness of the human mind, there certainly is experience, clear and direct, but there is no clinging to that experience as real and solid. Any thought, any sensation is known to be non-existent in reality, nevertheless the clarity, humor, intelligence, brilliance and so on, of all experience is unimpeded, clear, vivid and fully understood. Because all that occurs is occurring within the mind, and the mind is known not to be a thing that one can point to and say, "This is the mind". This is genuine freedom from all grasping and fixation and is said to be indescribable.
Finally, within that experience of ultimate freedom, the practitioner looks at the world full of people and animals and sees the confusion and suffering that does not need to be experienced. There is a feeling of great sympathy for others and a spontaneous action for the benefit of anyone who can be benefited. This compassion does not distinguish between 'friend and enemy' and does not think "I will help" or think of any reward at all. The activity of such an awakened being is totally without ego.
