As I have grown older, I have particularly enjoyed the following excerpt by Lewis Richmond. It asks, and answers, the question: “Why do we meditate?”
“I had come to a small Buddhist temple on a busy San Francisco street to hear a lecture by Shunryu Suzuki.
At the time, Suzuki was in his sixties, and most of the people in the room were in their twenties and thirties.
During the question-and-answer period, someone asked, “Why do we meditate?”
Suzuki answered with a laugh, “So you can enjoy your old age.”
We laughed with him. We thought he was joking.
Now I realize that he was being honest. He had been ill the whole previous winter and was still coughing and wheezing months later. Physically he hadn’t been feeling well, and yet his whole demeanor radiated contentment. He was clearly enjoying his old age.
I now think that Suzuki was actually letting us in on a great secret, one that the young cannot truly understand: It is possible to find enjoyment in the gift of each moment and each breath, even in the midst of difficulty.
Suzuki died not long after that. It was only then, as details of his life came out, that we discovered how full of tragedy that life had been. And yet he did not show it or let it defeat him. He met what life handed him with kindness and a ready smile.
His example has been a lifelong inspiration for me, and a touchstone for the writing of this book. Many of the contemplative practices described here are ones he taught me. Even the teachings I have drawn from Christianity and Judaism come, I believe, from the same universal wisdom source that Suzuki embodied.” (Taken from Aging as a Spiritual Practice: A Contemplative Guide to Growing Older and Wiser by Lewis Richmond. Gotham Books, 2012.)
The Value of Meditation
Some people question this emphasis on meditation. They see it as self-indulgent, even selfish, asking: If you just sit and enjoy peace and joy in your own mind, what are you doing for society? How can you claim to care about others?
It’s too bad that some people misunderstand meditation in this way. But maybe it shouldn’t be surprising, for the benefits of meditation are not readily perceptible to most of us.
In reality, everything we think and feel generates a corresponding positive or negative imprint in our consciousness.
As long as our minds are filled with negative emotions, if we try to help others even at a physical level, we might accidentally infect them with our ills.
Meditation is a way to (1) purify our impurities, (2) strengthen our virtuous qualities, and (3) awaken our true nature.
It may be an experience of virtuous qualities, such as devotion, peace, love, and strength generated by heartfelt thoughts and feelings. This is conceptual meditation.
Or it may be an experience of the awakened state of the mind. That is non-conceptual meditation.
Both are an experience, an attainment, that cleanses and fills us with the inexhaustible treasures of love, peace, joy, and devotion, thus enhancing our life and, in turn, our ability to serve others.
When our mind is filled with these qualities, whatever we say and do will spontaneously express and reflect these qualities. We become a source of love, peace, and joy for all associated with us. Our mere presence brings solace to others.
So, just as we cannot neglect the roots of a tree if we want to share in its fruits and flowers, so too we cannot neglect our mind if we want to benefit others.
Many of us know, at least at the intellectual level, the importance of meditation; yet we put it off or don’t do it wholeheartedly.
The reason is usually that we haven’t brought our intellectual understanding to the level of feeling.
If we could involve our feelings, nothing would be able to stop us from practicing. So how do we get there?
There are two basic sources of motivation to practice: one is inspiration; the other, shock or fear. Life is a rich source of both.
Meeting an amazing teacher, for instance, can be a pivotal event to inspire us. Or perhaps it will take an event like our own illness, the sudden passing of a loved one, or a large-scale tragedy, such as the tsunami disaster in South and Southeast Asia, to awaken us from the slumber of our daily lives.
Buddhism urges us to think deeply about five aspects of life that serve both to inspire and to shock or scare us:
(1) Having a virtuous life is very rare and precious.
(2) Life is impermanent and changeable.
(3) All life’s happenings are the consequences of karmic causes.
(4) Life is full of misery.
(5) Life has the potential to reach the highest goals.
These points are not artificially fabricated for the purpose of getting us to practice. They are the naked truth about our lives.
It is just that our attention needs to be deliberately drawn to them because we otherwise take them for granted, or feel too uncomfortable to even think about them.
In my monastery in Tibet, every morning we would start our mediation by contemplating these five points.
However, it is not necessary to sit in one-pointed concentration to ponder them. We can think about them anywhere, anytime.
As we do, we will see how they teach us what life really is, set us on the right spiritual path, and spark in us the enthusiasm and commitment to follow it through.
Source: Based on the following book. Thondup, Tulku. Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth: A Tibetan Buddhist Guidebook. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 2005.
by car from the Renaissance Retirement Village.