How can meditation help with the big problems of the mind today?
Anger,
Anxiety,
Hopelessness,
Loneliness.
Meditation does help,
But even a bigger help is realizing the underlying causes of why anger is generated.
All people have different ideas,
Different thoughts.
But since we judge and view everything else around us with us as a reference standard,
We sometimes think that I'm right and everybody else is wrong.
So this framework of viewing the world and others with a right or wrong perspective will generate tension and anger.
However,
If you acknowledge and recognize that people are different,
That that person thinks that way,
Believes that way,
Feels that way,
Then there's no underlying cause to anger.
So it's a way for you to escape from your own suffering,
From your own anger by understanding the underlying assumption and framework that drives you.
However,
We tend to react automatically to a stimulus by bringing interpretation through our assumptions and framework of right or wrong.
And that leads to anger.
So to recognize that immersing anger really quickly and try to dissipate it,
That's meditation.
So three paths needs to run concurrently in order for us to escape from suffering.
So if we are always mindful or awake to the way reality really is,
Then there's no cause for anger or negative mind to emerge.
We call this wisdom.
But we are not always so mindful all the time.
That's because there's an old ingrained cognitive and emotional habit of judging everything by right or wrong framework.
So meditation is a practice that we develop our skill to recognize those signals really early on so we allow it to dissipate.
But there are times that we don't catch those ones and subtle emotions and allow anger to amplify.
And so if I know that if I allow my anger to express itself,
Then I receive loss in return.
I suffer.
Then in that case I need to be able to control my anger,
Suppress it,
And not express it.
So in case there is anger or there are desires that I need to control and suppress,
The method that we use to do so are the precepts,
The ethical precepts.
So that is really the last backdrop for us to adhere to.
And in case we actually fail in keeping to our precepts,
Then we have to realize quickly that we have failed,
Repent,
And go back to it.
But you have to realize that anger is not intrinsic to who you are.
It's a reaction that happens when there is a collision between an external stimulus and your old ingrained cognitive habit of emotions or thinking.
So if you can maintain a kind of a clean and clear mindfulness in midst of the stimulus,
Then you are able to sense when subtle nuances,
Subtle disturbances come.
And meditation is a way to do that.
So instead of suppressing it,
You are dissipating it.
And if you go on further,
More advanced,
If you are mindful of the underlying kind of fundamental laws of how these things happen,
Then you don't even need to dissipate it because it won't emerge in the first place.
So gye jung he are the three steps by which you engage in spiritual practice.
Adhere to your ethical precepts is the first step.
Then remember that you clean your mind to make sure you are able to in a clean mindfulness detect the subtle signals of disturbances.
Then at the ultimate stage of wisdom,
Realize the underlying framework by which your mind moves so that you get rid of any cause for the suffering.
And pali is silya,
Samadhi,
And banya,
Which is wisdom.
So in conclusion,
Meditation really helps greatly to dissipate the negative emotions you encounter.
So meditation is not to help you suppress anger or negative emotions,
But to dissipate it,
To nip it in the bud.
And meditation also helps you evaporate a lot of the negative emotions that have built up from the past.
