Meditation
is a method for making your mind calm and peaceful. When your mind
is peaceful you are free from worries and mental discomfort, and
you are able to experience true happiness. If you train your mind
to become peaceful you shall be happy all the time, even in the
most difficult circumstances. If your mind is not peaceful, even
if you have the most pleasant external conditions you will find
it difficult to be really happy.
What are the Benefits of Meditation?
More and more people are using meditation to change their lives.
With a daily meditation of as little as 10-15 minutes you will soon
experience many benefits. You will feel more peaceful, and loving,
more patient and less likely to experience anger, your concentration
and effectiveness will improve, and your relationships with partners,
colleagues, children, and others, will improve.
You can use meditation to deal more effectively with life's ups
and downs. When life is busy, meditation creates an inner calm.
When you are feeling stressed, meditation helps relax your mind
and body. When you are confronted with difficulties, meditation
helps you deal with them in a positive way. When relationships turn
sour, meditation gives you the wisdom to heal them. When you are
focused on your own problems, meditation gives you the compassion
to care for others.
Meditation is also the means of developing your inner being. By training
and familiarizing your mind with Love and Affection, Compassion and
Wisdom, using methods now available to us in the west, you will progress
on the same paths followed by great Yogis for the last 2500 years.
Eventually you too will realise your full potential and discover the
unchanging inner peace and happiness of enlightenment, and permanent
freedom from all suffering. Then you will have the power to help all
living beings.
What Meditations Can I do at Kosala?
Many different meditations are taught in Kosala Center, from simple
breathing meditations, through the twenty-one meditations of Lamrim,
up to the most advanced Tantric visualisation methods of the Vajrayana.
The twenty-one Lamrim meditations presented in The
Meditation Handbook are the essential practices of all
the stages of the path to enlightenment taught by Buddha Shakyamuni.
You can learn and do these meditations throughout the year from
September to June in our normal program and then again from June
until late August during our Summer Program. at each
Meditation 101 For Everyone class on Tuesdays at 7pm in the
Meditation room of Kosala Center at 9 Walnut Street, Asheville,
NC. 28801.
The accompanying text for the Meditation
101 For Everyone class is
The Meditation Handbook by Geshe
Kelsang Gyatso.
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