Meditation in Buddhism

For Buddhists, meditation is more than just a means of relaxation. It is an integral part of
life both mind and body as a single entity. Generally, meditation is defined as “taking control of
the mind so that it becomes peaceful and focused” thereby preventing the mind from wandering
and promoting the achievement of heightened awareness (Kislenko). There are different
Buddhist traditions, and for the purpose of this paper, discussion on meditation will be limited to
the Theravada tradition.

Theravada Meditation

There are three major traditions in Buddhism. the Southern school or the Theravada; the
Northern school or the Mahayana; and, the Tantric school or Vajrayana (Kislenko) Theravada
Buddhism is based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, better known as Buddha. This
tradition uses a collection of writings known as the Pali Canon which is the earliest surviving
collection of Buddhist teachings (Kislenko) Theravada establishes Buddhism as being founded
on three jewels, namely, the Buddha, the monastic community or the sangha and the dhamma or
dharma, which are its sacred texts. The main difference between the Theravada with other
Buddhist traditions is that Theravada only recognizes Gautama as the one Buddha. This tradition
recognizes Buddha not as a god, but a human being. The focus of Theravada is on meditation and
concentration.

Theravada meditation is recognized as the roots of mindfulness, or satipatthana (Fenner).

Under this form of meditation, the meditator uses discrimination to generate a simple and
uncluttered appreciation of immediate experiences. Instead of fighting the pervasiveness and
domination of certain thoughts, the Theravada tradition uses a person’s need to interpret and
understand thoughts as a means for spiritual inquiry. In short, the purpose of mediation here is to
achieve balance so that these thoughts may be used to reveal rather than conceal the deepest
spiritual truths. This is also referred to as centering. A technique that is used in centering is to
imagine a flower. The center of the flower where the petals grow from is the primary object in
mediation and the petals are all the different thoughts that spring from the center. Related to
centering is the use of breath-related practices aside from the basic breathing meditations. The
purpose of breathing practices is to cultivate a broad range of high states of concentration and
absorption. Usually, the use of breath is combined with other practices such as mantras and
chanting.

A popular form of meditiation in the United States is the Theravada vipassana technique.
Vipassana meditation means “seeing things as they really are” and is one of the most ancient
forms of meditatation and considered to be very therapeutic (Vipassana Research Institute 2010).
It is a popular method taught among terminally ill patients in hospice care as this technique aims
for the elimination of mental impurities and, while not designed to cure diseases, is recognized as
providing healing for the mental suffering caused by the disease.

Conclusion
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The Theravada tradition of Buddhism centers around Buddha as the single enlightened
one, while the Mahayana tradition believes that there are several god-like Buddhas. The
Theravada tradition has taught the world many practices related to meditation. The ultimate
purpose of meditation is to still the mind, so that thoughts are filtered in such a way that spiritual
truth are revealed. Chants and mantras are essential parts of meditation in the Theravada
tradition. The repetition of the words or mantras as well as the chanting of scriptural texts
seemingly enables people to attain higher levels of awareness and open-heartedness.

References

Kislenko, Arne. Culture and Customs of Thailand. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group;
2004.

Fenner P. Spiritual inquiry in Buddhism. Revision [serial online]. Fall94 1994;17(2):13.

Available from: MasterFILE Premier, Ipswich, MA. Accessed December 4, 2012.

Vipassana Research Institute. (2010) Vipassana meditation – as taught in the Tradition of

Sayagyi U Ba Khin. Retreived from http://www.vridhamma.org/VRI-Introduction