Modern Religious Experience: Reflection #4: Buddhist Meditation

Modern Religious Experience: Reflection #4: Buddhist Meditation: "Spend 20 mintues in a silent meditation; a place you won't be disturbed, your own 'fig tree' as was Buddha's inspiration. In those 20 mintue..."

Today I tried meditating, only to find out that I had been doing it for years without knowing exactly what it was. When I want to think, or daydream, or plan for the future, I pace around the room. Many people pace when they are worried about something or are anxious, but I am different. Pacing is just a way for me to organize my thoughts without any distractions. I think that it is possible to attain "right thoughts", "right mindfulness", and "right concentration" from meditation, but I think that to do that you have to train yourself to stay focused, which is hard for me to do. I do not believe that you can acheive these components of the Eight-fold Path overnight, it takes dedication and a willingness to undergo self-examination. When I tried today, I quickly became distracted, so I am unsure whether I could ever truly follow the Eight-fold path even if I tried my very best. Though I am pretty confident that I did not manage to reach "right thoughts", "right mindfulness", and "right concentration", today, I think that this excercise succeeded in increasing my own self-awareness. Usually when I pace I think about the things that I desire and how I will get or acheive them. This time, I meditated on the Buddhist Noble Truth "suffering ends when desire ends." This idea led to many questions: 1) Why do I desire so many things? 2) Do these things really make me happy? and 3) Would it be possible to give up all that I desire? The answer to the first question was easy. I desire the things that I believe will make me happy. Some of these things are material goods, like icecream, new clothes, and popcorn. Other things are less tangible, like my desire to excel, to be loved, to take risks, to be happy, and to help others. I honestly do think that these things make me happy, even if my happiness is only short term. Buddhists stress that nothing is permanent, but I think that it is important to live in the moment and enjoy yourself. Desiring things may not lead me to nirvana, but if no one had any desires, they would not do anything at all. At the same time, I do agree that desire can lead to suffering. Conflicts often start because people always want what they don't have. As for the third question, I think that I could give up icecream, and popcorn, and new clothes, but my intangible desires would be harder to get rid of. In some cases, however, I would want to keep my desires because I believe that they make me a better person. My desire to excel inspires me to put 100% effort into everything that I do, while my desire to help others encourages me to donate my resources and time to those in need. In some ways, I think that the thoughts that came to me through meditation have made me more confused than ever, but I appreciate that we were given an assignment that forced us to try something new and unusual, and to look at the world through a different perspective.