6.   STARVING ONESELF WHEN THE LARDER IS FULL

Everyone upon the Dharma Path understands that Meditation or Contemplation is important and yet here is where the greatest weakness lies upon their Dharma Path.

We are a spoiled society in which we are cared for (more or less) from birth to grave. The commercial world has as its theme to make it beautiful, exciting and easy. The poor cannot compete, but they crave.

Every week we see more products that promise more for doing less.

Few remember when clothes were wrung out with a pair of rotating wooden rollers or recall trousers and skirts that could only be of cotton or wool.

Even Theravada Buddhism has its ease. Originally robes were made from scraps of cemetery shrouds that were cleaned, sown and dyed. Now you receive a robe with artificially sown patches. Yes, the world likes things easy.

And that is how people like their meditation.

The meditation brokers sell easy meditation.

We are told "Learning Meditation and various meditation techniques was never so easy!"  There is even an "Easy One-Minute Meditation" advertised. What does one hope to gain if the task is easy?

If these people saw an ad which promised "Build your own Rolls Royce from old washing machines in twenty minutes", would they believe it?

Perhaps the difficulty is with that word "meditation." It is easy to sell.

Now if we call it by its original name, dhyāna, we would perhaps understand that it is characterized by profound stillness and concentration.

Stillness of the mind is not enough, there must be a concentration.

It is that concentration that is difficult, so most settle just for a mundane-provoked stillness. So they starve themselves of the opportunity for liberation.

Of course the difficulty is in really understanding and complying with that true stillness, for sensations, discriminations and thoughts find their way into that mind even in the comparative moments of stillness even the more brave settle for.

You see, the stillness that they achieve is really quite shallow. For concentration upon breathing is the first step which must be mastered. Most do not concentrate at all, they just watch the breathing or ponderously press their attention upon breathing.

Afterward they are content and talk about their meditation. What meditation are they talking about? Certainly not the meditation that must be carried into daily life.

So what is this meditation, this dhyāna that must be carried into daily life? It is the concentration that leads to learning the nature of one's own apparent mind.

It is really quite sad that most, while thinking with a stained mind, want relief from suffering, but the meditation that they really want subconsciously is one that they can leave behind the moment sitting is finished.