Meditation (Samartha and Vipassana)

Meditation

Meditation is the key religious practice in Buddhism. The experience at the heart of Buddhism, the experience of Bodhi, was achieved as a result of meditation practice. Meditation is the systematic attempt to bring about every more positive states of mind; states of relaxed concentration, integration, awareness, emotional positivist and love. One can make a distinction between meditation practice, and the meditative states that these practices are trying to achieve.

Samatha

There are two aspects to meditation, Samatha, and Vipassana. Samatha literally means "calm". This is the idea of calming down all our restlessness and conflicts, and pulling together and focusing all of our scattered thoughts and energies. This concentration bringing together all our energies and focusing them on one object of attention, Buddhists call "mindfulness" - the mind is "full" of one object, it is concentrated on only one thing. Any object can be used for concentrating upon, but in Buddhist tradition the basic meditation that is used to develop mindfulness uses the breath as its object. The meditation is called Anapanasati or "the mindfulness of breathing".

The aim with Samatha is to become "healthy, happy and human"-experience a state of positivity and integration, a state in which one has "pulled one's self together" - the literal implication of the word "Yoga"; "Yoke" or "Union".

Vipassana

The word "Vipassana" (Vipasyana in Sanskrit) literally means "realise", but is often translated as "Insight". Vipassana meditations are techniques which aim at a direct realisation of Reality or Truth. These meditations aim at the arising of insight into the nature of conditioned, and unconditioned existence. Vipassana meditation is trying to "re-structure" our states of consciousness, rather than refine or harmonise them, as with Samatha meditation.

Samatha Before Vipassana

In Buddhism the requirement is that a mediation student will spend years practising Samatha meditation before being taught Vipassana practices, so that when they then start to practice Vipassana meditation, they will be able to "deal with" and absorb the experiences that these types of techniques can bring about.

For example, one of the meditations is on the different stages of decomposition of a corpse, aiming to give the experience of Anatta. If one has a positive state of mind, is happy with oneself and is emotionally quite bright and content, then one will be able to practice such a technique without undue trauma. However, for many of us, following such a meditation practice, may feel a little depressed, or it may bring on sense of "fear and loathing" or even some sort of psychic breakdown! It is for this reason that any good meditation teacher will not instruct a student in techniques of Vipassana meditation until they have practised Samatha meditation successfully for some time.

Vipassana meditations can be on the nature of Anicca/Impermanence), and this involve meditating on and repeating certain phrases or formulas expressive of the nature of impermanence. For example the phrase:

"Nothing is permanent, Everything must pass away",

or the following formula may be used;

"This being, that becomes, This ceasing to be, that ceases to be"