Meditation is the second element of the Threefold Way of ethics, meditation and wisdom, and it means moving from the realm of action – how we behave – to our minds. In touch with our body and breath, in meditation we use the capacity of our mind to pay attention, be aware and cultivate positive emotion.
The Meditation section of this site offers help in establishing a meditation practice, including easy-to-use guided meditations to get you started.
Buddhist meditation is a vast field that includes many meditation practices and traditions. It seems there are many ways to become aware and develop helpful mental qualities! We can also develop faculties like Mindfulness both within meditation and in our daily lives.
Numerous maps help us to navigate the terrain of meditation, though the general principles are that we should start with methods that address our present needs, rather than jumping into something very ‘advanced’. But we should also recognise that meditation is a path that can take us beyond our current struggles, if we take it seriously.
According to one of these maps, the first level of meditation involves learning to focus our attention and become absorbed, and integrating our waking awareness.
A second level involves tapping our subconscious energies, which allows us to become much more deeply absorbed. This is sometimes called the stage of ‘meditation proper’.
The third level is that of Insight or Wisdom in which we reflect on the nature of reality as the Buddhist teachings describe it, and absorb these truths deeply into our consciousness.
There are many kinds of practice directed to working at each of these levels, and an individual practice may well be effective at all of them. Within Triratna we draw on a range of Buddhist meditation traditions and bring coherence to them through the System of Dharma Life.
The Mindfulness of Breathing meditation practice is a means to focus attention, develop awareness and become more deeply absorbed
Loving Kindness Meditation, or Metta Bhavana, is a means to cultivate strongly positive emotion.
These are the two meditation practices we teach at Triratna centres. Order members also practise insight meditation practice and meditation on a Buddha or bodhisattva figure, along with other practices.