How to Meditate - In Buddhism

The reason of meditation is to make our mind peaceful and calm.

If our mind is calm, we will be free from worries and mental distress, and so we will understanding true happiness but if our mind is not peaceful, we will find it very hard to be happy, even if we are living in the most excellent conditions.

If we train in meditation, our mind will slowly become more and more peaceful, and we will experience a purer and purer form of happiness. Finally, we will be able to stay happy all the time, even in the most complex circumstances.

Typically we find it difficult to control our mind. It appears as if our mind is like a balloon in the wind – blown here and there by outside circumstances. If things go well, our mind is happy, but if they go badly, it directly becomes unhappy. For example, if we get what we want, such as a new ownership or a new partner, we become excited and stick to them tightly.

Though, we cannot have everything we want, and since we will certainly be separated from the friends and belongings we currently enjoy, this mental adhesiveness, or attachment, serves only to cause us pain. On the other hand, if we do not get what we want, or if we drop something that we like, we become hopeless or irritated.

For example, if we are enforced to work with a coworker whom we dislike, we will perhaps become irritated and feel distressed, with the result that we will be unable to work with him or her proficiently and our time at work will become stressful and unrewarding.

Such fluctuations of humor arise because we are too closely involved in the external situation. We are like a child making a sand citadel who is excited when it is first made, but who becomes upset when it is cracked by the incoming wave.

By training in meditation, we can create an inner space and clarity that enables us to control our mind regardless of the external circumstances. Steadily we develop mental stability, a balanced mind that is happy all the time, rather than an unstable mind that fluctuates between the extremes of excitement and depression.

If we prepare in meditation systematically, ultimately we will be able to eliminate from our mind the vision that are the causes of all our troubles and suffering. In this way, we will come to experience an eternal inner peace, known as “liberation” or “nirvana”. Then, day and night in life after life, we will experience only calm and happiness.