Buddhist Meditation

by Conze, Edward

• ISBN13: 9780486427164
• ISBN10: 0486427161
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-02-03
• Publisher: Dover Publications

Summary

As prayer is to the Christian life, so meditation is the very heart of Buddhist life. With enlightenment, or the state of Nirvana, as its goal, meditation also serves to foster spiritual development, alleviate pain, soothe the mind, and reveal the truth of existence. This introduction explains the meaning and purpose of meditation. Its series of devotional exercises include instructions on maintaining mental and physical awareness during meditation, with advice on postures, breathing, repudiation of the sensory world, remembrance of mortality, disdain for corporal existence, attaining a trance state, and recollecting the goal: Nirvana. Written by a distinguished Western scholar, it offers informative and direct explanations of Buddhist wisdom.

Table of Contents

General Introduction	7	(4)
Introduction
The meaning and purpose of Buddhist Meditation	11	(2)
Its range and principal divisions	13	(11)
The literary sources	24	(3)
The arrangement of the selections	27	(10)
Buddhist Meditation and Modern Psychotherapy	37	(8)
SELECTIONS
Devotional Exercises	45	(17)
The Three Treasures	45	(7)
The Recollection of the Buddha	45	(4)
The Recollection of the Dharma	49	(2)
The Recollection of the Samgha	51	(1)
The Bodhisattva's example	52	(4)
Worship	56	(3)
A Note on Visions	59	(3)
Mindfulness	62	(48)
The mindful awareness of the body	62	(8)
Bodily Postures, Attitudes and Behaviour	62	(3)
Breathing Mindfulness	65	(5)
The mindful awareness of mental processes	70	(8)
Feelings	70	(2)
The five hindrances	72	(6)
The repudiation of the sensory world	78	(8)
Guarding the senses	78	(5)
The control of the mind	83	(2)
Similes for the evils of sense-desires	85	(1)
The recollection of death	86	(9)
Distaste for the body, and its functions	95	(12)
The Thirty-two parts of the Body	95	(5)
The Repulsiveness of food	100	(3)
The Foul. The Corpses on the charnel field	103	(4)
The Goal (Nirvana). The recollection of Peace	107	(3)
Trance	110	(30)
The practice of introversion	110	(8)
Withdrawal from the world	110	(3)
The eight stages of trance	113	(5)
The cultivation of the social emotions	118	(15)
Nine preliminary reflections on hate	118	(8)
Unlimited Friendliness	126	(5)
Unlimited Compassion	131	(1)
Unlimited Sympathetic Joy	132	(1)
Unlimited Evenmindedness	132	(1)
The evocation of deities	133	(7)
Wisdom	140	(34)
The four holy truths	140	(6)
The truth of ill	140	(2)
The sixteen aspects	142	(4)
The three marks of conditioned things	146	(3)
The 165 Considerations	146	(2)
The three marks defined	148	(1)
Survey of conditions	149	(9)
The range of conditioning	149	(2)
The automatic nature of conditioning	151	(1)
Conditioned co-production	152	(6)
Withdrawal from the world (the eight cognitions)	158	(11)
Emptiness	169	(5)
Numerical Lists	174	(3)
Sources	177	(2)
Editions Used	179	(1)
Glossary of Technical Terms	180