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No activity is more important in the monastic life than meditation. It is through meditation that a monk achieves serenity, through meditation that he achieves insight-wisdom, and through meditation that he may attain his goal, enlightenment and nirvana.

So that the reader who is unfamiliar with Buddhist teachings may better appreciate the importance of meditation, a very brief exposition is required.

Buddhism is based on The Four Noble Truths:

1) In life there is dukkha, usually translated as suffering, and referring to the suffering caused by the illness, old age, and death, to the suffering caused by the loss of loved ones, to the suffering by failure to get what one seeks, and to the generally unsatisfactory, unfulfilled nature of human existence.
2) The cause of dukkha is craving, desire, unremitting attachment to sensual pleasures, to achievement, to ambitions, to life itself. Cravings are never completely satisfied; they lead to inevitable frustration; they bring on dukkha.
3) Nirvana is attained when craving and desire are eliminated.
4) Craving and desire can be eliminated by following the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Noble Eightfold Path consists of Right Action, Right Speech, Right Livelihood (the three components of Sila, ethical conduct or morality); of Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration (the components of Samadhi, mental cultivation, meditation); and of Right View and Right Thought (the components of Panna, insight-wisdom, through which one can appreciate intellectually and intuitively the “three characteristics of existence”: suffering (dukkha), impermanence (anicca), and noself (anatta). Insight-wisdom is included by meditation.

Morality, meditation, and wisdom — these are the elements of the pathway through which a Buddhist strives to attain enlightenment and nirvana.

Rare is the Buddhist layperson who manage to live thoroughly moral life, who does not violate the five lay precepts in one way or another — through improper sexual conduct, through mendacity, through the use of intoxicants or drugs. Rare is the layperson who meditates regularly and consistently. Rare is the layperson who has the wisdom to break the fetters of greed, anger and delusion and to come to appreciate fully the three characteristics of existence.

The Buddha knew that the path is hard to follow, especially for the lay person, and that it may take many lifetimes before an individual will have achieved the “perfections” to follow the path successfully. He said, in effect, “It is difficult but try! Don’t waste the opportunity you have in this lifetime. Be diligent. Make the effort. Try!”

In establishing the Sangha, the Buddha created conditions under which the monk might follow the path more effectively and more successfully than the layperson.

One of the conditions in the monastery is that a monk observes the disciplines of the Patimokkha — morality, total morality, ethical conduct without the slightest deviation.

Another condition in the monastery is that a monk has the time and the opportunity — free from the distractions of family life or business pursuits — to study Dhamma, to learn the i>Suttas, the discourses of the Buddha, to read the Tripitaka of the Buddhist cannon, to benefit from the teachings of the achaans and of the elders, and to meditate in solitude. (by Gerald Roscoe, The Monastic Life, Orchid Press, Bangkok 2000)


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*Photo taken during an evening services inside Vat That Foun Monastery in Vientiane, Laos.



(To be continued)

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