Guidelines on

Meditation

Vicente Hao Chin Jr.

Philippine Theosophical Institute

2019

This booklet was prepared to guide individuals and groups in the
practice of meditation. This publication may be freely reproduced
and distributed.
Copyright 2019 © Vicente Hao Chin Jr.
Published by the Philippine Theosophical Institute
A Division of the Theosophical Society in the Philippines
1 Iba Street, Quezon City, Philippines
theosophy.ph
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http://theosophy.ph or its headquarters.
Guidelines on Meditation
I. Basic Principles of Meditation
1. Meditation has two purposes: to attain daily equanim-
ity and to attain the transcendent life.
2. Its practice is characterized by the growing presence of
one fundamental factor: non-judgmental awareness.
3. Its success depends on (a) the regularity of practice,
(b) the sustenance of awareness in daily life, and (c) the con-
gruence of one’s daily behavior with the meditative life.
II. Basic Needed Knowledge in the
Practice of Meditation
1. Human Nature. Human beings have levels of con-
sciousness as well as outer and inner bodies. Life effective-
ness, equanimity and spirituality depend upon the harmoni-
ous integration of these levels of consciousness and bodies.
The basic levels and bodies are as follows:
• Physical body
• Energy body (also called astral body and etheric
double)
• Desire body (also called Kamarupa and astral body in
certain books)
• Lower mind (concrete thinking)
• Higher mind (abstract thinking)
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 • Spiritual consciousness (buddhi, prajna, contempla-
tive consciousness)
• Universal consciousness (Atma or Spirit)
2. Fragmentation. These facets or levels can
(a) have unwholesome habits or conditionings (such as
anger, fear, resentment, etc.)
(b) be undeveloped (such as higher mental and spiritual)
(c) be in conflict with each other (such as wanting to love
and at the same tendency to be angry with a loved one, or
wanting to be healthy but have harmful dietary habits)
3. Higher and Lower Selves. The seven layers are divis-
ible into two major groupings:
Individuality or Higher Self: consists of the highest three
levels: higher mind, spiritual consciousness and universal
consciousness. It is impersonal and objective.
Personality or lower self: consists of the lower mind, desire
body, energy body, and physical body. Its behavior is mainly
a product of upbringing and conditioning.
These two are often in conflict with one another. The
personality must eventually give way to the individuality.
4. Stages of Meditation. There are three stages of medi-
tation with different purposes:
(a) The taming stage: this is to re-train the lower mind to
follow the dictates of the higher. The lower mind produces
thoughts out of habit and is often uncontrolled. The medita-
tion practice below (III-5) aims to tame the mind until it can
remain attentive on a chosen object or word and not stray
uncontrollably.
(b) Meditation proper: After the lower mind is tamed and
re-trained, then the awareness can now dwell continuously
on any subtle thought, object or theme by the inner will
even without the repetition of any mantra.
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(c) Awareness of the ego: This is the highest stage where
the sense of ego or self is able to dissipate and be transcend-
ed.
5. Congruence with Daily Life. Meditation cannot suc-
ceed when the consciousness and activities of daily life are
incongruent with the quiet mind. Hence the meditator must
live a way of life that minimizes thoughts, feelings and ac-
tions that create guilt, distress, aggressiveness or unethical
actions.
6. Time-tested Methods in Meditation. There are nu-
merous meditational techniques being offered around the
world. It is important to distinguish between the time-tested
approaches that can attain goals of meditation: equanimity
and then later, the spiritual life.
Valid methods of meditation are essentially identical
whether they are under different religious or non-religious
traditions.
III. A Recommended Classic
Meditation Method
Below is a meditation approach that is not linked to any
religion or culture, but which contains the essentials of time-
tested methods in major spiritual traditions.
1. Posture and Sitting Position. Meditation can be
practiced either sitting on a chair, in a lotus posture (half or
full), or in a kneeling position. When using lotus or kneeling
it is best to have a small cushion to sit on to elevate the
body in relation to the legs. The back should be straight and
aligned.
2. Eyes. The eyes can closed or half open. If half-open,
then better to face a wall to avoid distracting sights. If medi-
tating with eyes half open is found to be difficult, then do so
with eyes closed.
 3. Relaxation. It is essential for the body to be relaxed
first. At the start, check first whether there is any tension
in parts of the body from the head downwards: eyes, neck,
shoulders, arms, front body, back, hips and legs. If there is
any tension, then feel the tension as you breathe in, then feel
the rest of the body, arms and legs, as you breathe out. Let
the body and limbs be loose. Let go.
When the body has become relaxed, it will be noticed
that the emotions also become calm.
Devote about 3 minutes or longer to this relaxation or
calming phase.
4. Awareness of Contents of the Mind. After the body is
relaxed, observe the contents of the mind: thoughts, images,
sounds, including the sensations of the body. Devote half a
minute or a minute to this. Notice that the thoughts come
and go. Do not entertain incoming thoughts. If they are
important, then take a mental note that you will attend to
it later after meditation. Keep this promise, because if you
don’t, your mind in future meditation sessions will continue
to be anxious about your concerns since it does not believe
that you will attend to it later.
When watching the thoughts and sensations, be aware
of the space of the consciousness that contains all these
experiences and perceptions. This space has no boundary. It
extends beyond all its contents.
Dwell in this state of awareness for half a minute or a
minute.
5. Stage 1: Meditation to Tame the Mind
This is the meditation method itself.
Be aware of the cycle of your breathing.
As you breathe in, mentally say “one.” As you breathe
out, mentally say “two.” As you breathe in, say “one.” As
you breathe out, say “two.” Do this repeatedly.
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While doing this, you will notice that the mind strays
away from the counting and the breath. When it goes away,
just notice that it is thinking of something else, then gently
go back to the breathing and the counting. If it goes away a
hundred times, just notice it a hundred times and come back
to the breathing and counting a hundred times.
Do this for at least twenty minutes each day. It is best to
do it in the morning upon waking up. During days when
you are really short of time, then you may do this for ten
minutes.
Through days and weeks of daily practice, you will no-
tice that the mind tends to stay longer on the breathing and
counting, and will not stray out anymore.
When the mind becomes quiet, not thinking of anything,
and the counting disappears by itself, then just sustain this
empty awareness during the whole duration of your prac-
tice. Once this happens then you are in meditation proper
— no longer trying to control the thoughts. The thoughts are
naturally quiet, and yet you retain awareness.
After twenty minutes (or longer if you wish), then grad-
ually end the meditation by first being aware of the sounds
around the room. Then be aware of the sensations of your
body touching the chair or bed or garments. In doing so,
continue to be aware of the inner space of the consciousness.
This may take half a minute or so. Then open your eyes and
be conscious of the surroundings, but still being aware of
the inner space. Stay with this inner and outer awareness for
some moments. Then as you begin to move your limbs or
body, be aware that you are moving it.
Try to sustain this quality of awareness for a few min-
utes after you start moving around.
6. Stage 2: Meditation Proper
After successfully practicing the first stage of meditation, then
the practitioner can now sustain a state of quiet awareness with-
out the need for counting or following the breath. In this state, one
can be aware of the subtler levels of consciousness, such as arising
of thoughts, subtle reactions to memories, and a state of awareness
without images, memories or reactions.
After allowing the body, emotions and thoughts to be
calm and quiet, sustain a state of awareness of the space of
one’s consciousness. If there are passing thoughts, just be
aware of them and let them come and go.
IV. Notes on the Practice of Meditation
1. Frequency and Location. It is best that meditation
be practiced at least once a day. Twice when you are able
to. Early morning upon waking up would be best. Do it for
twenty minutes. Make it longer during weekends or when
you have longer time available.
Try to fix the location where you meditate. Avoid chang-
ing from one place to another day after day because your
body and mind tend to adjust to the new location.
2. Phenomena during Meditation. During the prac-
tice, it is common that different people experience different
things that may alarm them, such as the following:
(a) Tingling and similar sensations. This may be felt on
the crown of the head, like a hundred ants crawling all
over. This will pass away after some time. They are surges
of energy in certain parts of the body that occur when one
becomes inwardly serene.
It may also be felt like moving sensations at the back.
Again they will fade away later.
(b) Heat and cold. Sometimes one may feel hotness in
some part of the body, or coldness in another part. Again
these are the movements of the qi energy and they will fade
away.
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(c) Swaying of the body. Some may find that their body
sways forward and backward, or sidewards, or in a rotating
manner. When it happens, then just be aware of the portion
around the hip or waist area where there is involuntary con-
tractions of the muscles that cause such movements. Allow
the body to move, but with awareness. Then the swaying or
rotating will diminish and stop.
(d) Pressure or pain on the head. When there is headache,
then it means that one is not relaxed while meditating.
Pause the meditation practice, open the eyes, and then go
through the relaxation exercise through breathing. Breathe
in and be aware of the specific pain, pressure or discomfort,
being conscious of its exact location, size, shape and inten-
sity. Breathe out and be aware of the rest of the body, par-
ticularly the back, the legs and the arms.
(e) Images or visions. When images, colors or visions
appear, just be aware of it until it fades away. We need
to remember that meditation means transcending the
sensations or perceptions of the body, emotions and mind.
When such phenomena happen, just be aware of them
but not entertaining or rejecting them. The spiritual life is
beyond shapes, sounds, images or words.
3. Sleepiness. Meditation is a very relaxing practice that
if the body lacks sleep, then one tends to want to go to sleep.
If the sleepiness is strong, then it may be better to go to sleep
rather than continue meditating.
When the body does not lack sleep, then meditation will
not induce sleepiness. On the contrary, one becomes highly
alert and awake.
4. Daily Awareness. The awareness of meditation
should flow over to daily life. In the same way that aware-
ness during meditation will calm down thoughts and feel-
ings, so awareness in daily life will lessen agitation, anxiety,
reactiveness, anger and other forms of distress. Awareness is
non-judgmental.
5. Ethical Life. An ethical life goes hand in hand with
equanimity. When we do actions that injure other people or
do injustice towards others, it is hard to have inner peace. In
addition to guilt and being bothered, karma will also bring
to our lives the sorrowful consequences of our actions. it is
therefore essential that our daily life, livelihood and interac-
tions with people should be governed by ethical principles.
V. The Fruits of Meditation
The increase in daily awareness through meditation will
have crucial and highly beneficial effect in one’s life.
1. Calmness. One’s tendency to quickly react to situa-
tions will simmer down. This is specially true with distress-
ful reactions, such as anger, hurt, resentment or fear. A calm
and thoughtful disposition will prevail more and more. One
gets less stressed in daily life.
2. Better relationships. As a result of such calmness and
the diminishing of the automaticity of reactions, one’s rela-
tionship with people will improve. There will be a greater
tendency to be positive in one’s communication.
3. Cheerfulness. The meditative person will tend to be
more positive in life and thus increasing one’s capacity for
general happiness and well-being. Depressiveness or pessi-
mism will tend to disappear in life.
4. Awareness of one’s deeper values. Meditation makes
one become more in touch with one’s deepest values in life.
This helps clarify the deeper purpose of life. It may lead to
shifts in one’s career, preoccupations and activities. This
gives deeper meaning to life.
5. Awakening of intuition. Intuition is one of the most
important faculties that individuals can awaken. It is su-
perior to rational decision-making. It is not the same as
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extra-sensory perception or gut feel. Animals also have ESP.
Intuition is the capacity to see the larger and deeper picture
of an issue or a complex web of issues. Its perception is an
integration of core values, personal values, and rational,
emotional, social, and financial factors.
6. Spirituality. Meditation, accompanied by an ethical
life, intuition, selflessness and compassion, is the gateway
to the spiritual and transcendent life. It is quietness that
enables a person to become sensitive to the higher levels of
one’s consciousness.
7. Self-Actualization. Meditation enables an individual
to integrate one’s life into a harmonious whole, enabling a
person to rise up to one’s higher potential.
VI. Notes on Group Meditation
1. In group meditations for the public, it is best that the
session be held for one or one and a half hours, led by a
facilitator.
2. The first part should be a simple but clear explanation
on the principles and methods to be used, especially when
there are new participants. The second part will be the silent
period itself, which can last for 20-30 minutes. The third
part is optional, which can be for questions and answers,
or for brief commentaries on other helpful aspects of the
meditative life.
3. Avoid playing music during the session. Meditation
seeks to have a quiet mind, and music produces thoughts
when it is being listened to.
4. During the silent period, the facilitator of the session
can inform the group that he or she will make a very soft but
audible humming sound every two minutes or so. If they
hear it, it is to remind them to go back into counting in case
their minds are already lost in memories or other thoughts.
 The Practice of Meditation

• Meditation has two purposes: to attain daily equa-

nimity and to attain the transcendent life.
• Its practice is characterized by the growing presence
of one fundamental factor: non-judgmental aware-
ness.
• Its success depends on (a) the regularity of practice,
(b) the sustenance of awareness in daily life, and
(c) the congruence of one’s daily behavior with the
meditative life.

This booklet can be used as a guideline for meditation

practice, whether for individuals or groups. In a concise
form, it spells out:
• The basic principles of meditation
• The basic needed knowledge in the practice of medi-
tation
• A recommended classic meditation method
• Notes on the practice of meditation
• The fruits of meditational practice
• Guidelines for group meditation

Philippine Theosophical Institute

Theosophical Society in the Philippines
1 Iba Street, Quezon City, Philippines