Meditation : The Way of Awakening
According to Buddhist teaching, the mental defilements of ignorance, greed and hatred are the roots of our endless suffering. Living a moral life by replacing unwholesome deeds with good ones is not enough. In order to fully remove these defilements from our minds, we must not only follow the Five Precepts but also learn to understand and transform our minds in order to purify them and experience our Buddha nature. This is the role of meditation. Without this inner practice, we will be endlessly caught in the web of our suffering.
Mental discipline is a dynamic practice that expands our awareness by touching the present moment, which is the only place where we can experience life as it is, truly. Meditation is the tool to release ourselves from the controls of our habitual thought patterns of attachment and aversion; it is the active means to free ourselves from endless dukkha and develop wisdom. There are many ways to practice meditation, from practicing mindfulness of breathing, mindfulness of the body, mind, objects of mind, to chanting and visualization. All types of meditation are based on mindfulness, which is awareness of the present moment.
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