Morris County NJ Meditation Center Shows you the essence of the Eight Fold Path

8 ways to meditate USING traditional Buddhism

When Shakiamuni or Buddha achieve enlightement he had already conceived the essence of one of his most famous teachings. The Eigthfold Path. With more time he was able to develop this wisdom into practice that he told teach to others . For a year he continue to deepen this idea and devoted himself to developing a teaching that couldn’t be learned from other teachers, and to finding a way to reach people’s heart to this enlightment.

So let’s explore the eightfold path as an integration to your meditation and take it to the next level

Self Reflection: We have an overall overview of self reflection. Applying it properly can save us a lot of time during meditation, as it can help us return heavenly light to the inner self. Self reflection is necessary to your development while meditating. Addressing your concerns with a clean mind as your meditation begins is vital to your development. You can expect to clean your kitchen with a dirty mop, and likewise your mind, you must come clean with a changing attitude. Self refection while meditating is crucial to your development. Clean your mind through self reflection to restore to its original brilliance.

Right view: The swelling desires and emotions that we feel are, more often than not, elicited by the sights that surround us . The key to reflecting with a right view, then is to sieve throught the perceptions that have swept into the mind through the eyes .

A relaxed mind is essential to this type of deep introspection. If you feel tension in your mind or body at the end of the day, begin by calming your breathing and allowing your mind to follow. Allow your consciousness to descend far down to the inner world. The moment will come when you begin to feel the light pouring in from above and feeling you with sublime energy. In this moment. You have become connected to and are at one with Eternal Buddha (God)

Right Thought: The next step of the eightfold path is right thought, the goal of this step is to examine whether your thoughts are aligned with the truths. By truths. The same thing as eternal Buddha’s way of thinking. Needless to say it is a challenge to put ourselves in his position to asses eachof our thoughts. Objectively but thoughts are the most predominant part of the mind- so much tha 80 to 70 percent of self reflection will be completed by mastering our thoughts alone.

Right Speech: The next step to the eightfold path is right speech. As you probably notice right view is vital to our mind, because poisons are formed by the wrong perspectives. In the same way right speech prevents poisons from seeping into the mind, as well as traveling and spreading to others.

Spoken words are so potent that majority of the problems of life find their roots in them. Someone’s words can make us feel unhappy, while it’s just as likely for something we say to cause someone else pain. Thus, words and happiness have an inseparable relationship. It isn’t an exageration to say that if everyone in the world could speak well turned words, this world will transform into heaven on earth.

So let us examine right speech while meditating and become candid about the words we spoke while at daily life.

Right Action: Traditionally Buddhism has explained right action as the prohibition of criminal acts, such as killing, stealing and committing adultery but now these goals may be too basic for modern life. Nowadays the scale of our economic activity has grown vast and continues to expand, making everyday life much more complex than it used to be. Thus, I believe that right action these days includes the actions associated with work. To me right action is a way to consider the ideal way of doing one’s job.

If we think of right action as right work there are two important pointers to consider. First your work should be a job that your pure conscience can be happy with. there should also be a feeling in your bones that there is the right work for you. It is my believe that each of us was born with a pre chosen calling, in the life above before our journey to the womb, we desired for a plan on this life and resolved to devote ourselves to fulfilling a certain lifework. A job that strays too far from the type of work we choose will make us feel miserable, no matter how well it pays or how much we rely ourselves for a livelihood. Thus, is essential to reflect if your current job is aligned with your calling.

The other pint of right action is to consider whether the purpose of your job will promote your harmony with others and bring happiness to society. As we spent a large part of our days working and troubleshooting how to support ourselves and our family Right action is having the right job, and acting harmoniously within that environment to avoid feeling down afterwards or in a depression mode.

Right Livelihood: The truth step of the eightfold path is right livelihood. The essence to this step is to consider whether we can be proud of the way we have been leading our life. Being human; we normally don’t have trouble finding some aspect of our life that we would like to improve.

This step begins with an appreciation of time. Every person, no matter who it is is equally granted 24 hours in a day and 365 days a year. Not only that but everyone is also promised to definite conclusion to this life. Even our lifespans don’t very greatly; many of us will be setting off from this world before we reach the age of one hundred. We devoted a substantial portion of each day to sleep a nd spend additional precious hors on meals and other essential activities. The reminder of the day is the precious hours and minutes that remain for our work and free time.

Therefore, right livelihood for modern people is about how valuably we treat each day and each hour. If we take it one step further. We can reflect on longer spans of months and years. But here I should emphasize an important point. The essence of practice right livelihood is to apprecciate time as so fleeting an irretrievable that is each day is a precious as a lifetime. We rarely question whether there will be tomorrow just as there was a yesterday and there is a today. We expect tomorrow to come again. We must stop taking each day for granted and reminding there is not guarantee for tomorrow. So consider what would you do if you knew that your life would come to a conclusion tonight, let’s say a midnight? how would you live the reminder of the day? would you have any regrets? Like many of us, you would probably have more regrets than you would like.

After all is said and done, right livelihood in a nutshell is looking over your life as if today were your very last day and deciding how to spend your hours that have been left to you!.

Right Effort: The sixth step is to reflect on the effort we have made so far to live accordingly to the truths. Unless we make a conscious effort to avoid it, by human nature we are predispose to drifted aimlessly from one day to the next. We seem to forget that, regardless of our awareness or lack thereof, the destination of our life has been fixed. Everyone is meant to reach one place at the end of their journey, beyond the gates of death; HEAVEN. Since the beginning our goal is to return to heaven has been eternal Buddha (God’s) great desire to keep our souls evolving. Understand this plan is essential to comprehending the purpose of right effort. It explains why we are born into this world, called the third dimension, and why it exists, it reveals that ultimately this world is a training school for the soul. By this I mean that this life is where we have the chance to practice and refine our understanding of the thruths . Not only that, but this world is his masterpiece of light-enactments of his glory and prosperity. This perspecive on life is the key to practicing self-reflection on right effort.

There are two essential perspectives that we need to consider in practicing right effort. In the first perspective we must thing of this life as the soul’s opportunity to experience and learn. Have you ever consider live this way? Have you been making a continuous effort to live with this view of life ? If the essence of right livelihood is to reflect in our way of life in daily cycles, the essence of right effort is to consider our way of life in linger spans of one or ,ore years at a time, such reflection will help us to set middle term goals in life. What will you do to develop ourselves over the next year, the next three years, five years and the next ten years? what did you plan to do in the next years for your self-growth.

The second point of view that matters for right effort is a spiritual one. In the final analysis right effort is about checking the progress of our spirituality and the height of our spiritual awareness, it does not serve us at all if we are following a way of life that brings decline to the spiritual side of us. Growing our spiritual awareness means raising our enlightenment? and how do we know we are making progress? there are three points to check:

first point is seen yourself as you are in the most truthful state. When you gain a clear sense f who you are you are very close to enlightenment.

Second point is to perceive others and yourself not as individuals but as one grand harmony. You will recognize others as your friends and comrades in mission, all aiming to create the ideal world of light.

The third point is to perceive deeply the truth purpose of this life and the world around you, to discover the precise meaning of the environment or circumstances that surround you. When these 3 points show that you have made progress your spiritual awareness is growing.

Right mindfulness: The seventh step in the eightfold path is right mindfulness. The universal custom of prayer s a combination of right mindfulness and right concentration-the eight step in the eightfold path, this in prayer the path of right mindfulness that is analogous to prayer is the purposeful energy that we send out to the world. But we must issue this direct thought from inner harmony, and we achieve thois thought right concentration.

In short, to pray is to will for something from a meditative state. Therefore, self reflection and prayer shouldn’t be consider separately; prayer is a component of self reflection and supposing this may be theoretically confusing to some, it is just as possible to think of prayer as a dynamic form of self reflection. But regardless of how it is understood the heart of the matter is that a part of the eightfold path is analogous to prayer.

Direct your thoughts properly by focusing o concentration or collection of thoughts that occur during the day, what do you want to accomplish? what are your plans for the future?

Right concentration: Last but not least, I would like to briefly explain how to reflect on the eight step of the eightfold path: Right concentration is a state in fact deeply associated with the heart of religion. The aim of religion ultimately is to attune the mind to eternal buddha GOD, and divine spirits, we are able to connect his heart with his and capture what he is feeling.

In this sense right concentration is essential for all who want to awaken their spirituality and experience their universe in a true sense. It can be difficult to advance your meditation enough to discover your past or future lives. But I’m certain that when you descend deeply into the mind you will begin to receive the inspiration of divine spirits. You will be amazed by this mystical experience and the power of your mind.

In short the ultimate purpose of right concentration is the liberation of the mind from worldly fetters. Through the practice of this self reflection your mind will amass true wisdom and the power to achieve emancipation. Another purpose of right concentration is the practice of introspection into your inner world. When we keep digging within the mind, we eventually reach a state that can communicate with our guardian and guiding spirits.

Conclusion:

When you complete your practice of the eightfold path: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, Right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. You will attain the mind of an arhat (spiritual enlightenment). Then the next step will be an active one you will be advancing to the state of Bodhisattva (BECOMING A GOD). I hope that now you have a deeper appreciation of the eightfold path as a day to day practice a principle of hope and the basis of your spiritual growth.

Check our last article on meditation for seniors here