"ชีวิตดีขึ้น เมื่อได้นั่งสมาธิ"

How meditation practice has improved my life


Sunday, March 20, 2016

I had never learnt to practice meditation before I attended Wat Phra Dhammakaya. On every Sunday, the Abbot of Wat Phra Dhammakaya would teach every temple goer to practice meditation according to Vijja Dhammakaya. He would tell us how important meditation practice was to our personal peace and happiness. During meditation, we are instructed to keep our mind quiet and still and our body relaxed and comfortable. He taught us about the center of our body and how important it was. Initially, I suffered from exerting too much effort during meditation practice. Therefore, my eyes felt strained and my body ached. It had taken me a long while to be able to adjust my body to the point of feeling relaxed and comfortable and to adjust my mind so that it was light and quiet for seconds at a time. The Abbot told us to feel happy with whatever we were able to accomplish during meditation, and to know that the practice had a cumulative effect. He told us that it was much more important that we practiced meditation regularly and as often as possible. I have been devoted to meditation practice since I started to attend the temple. Admittedly, my initial progress was very slow but my hope of attaining the Dhamma was always very high. I told myself how many years it had taken me before I could obtain a Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering and how much effort had been put into my secular education. Therefore, I must put in the same if not much greater effort in  obtaining my Dhamma education which is to benefit me not only in the current lifetime but also in future lifetimes. It is unlike my secular education which becomes completely useless the moment I die but my Dhamma knowledge can follow me across lifetimes. I wish most of all to learn about the reality of life the way the Lord Buddha learnt it through His achievement of elevated meditative attainments. After all, countless beings have been able to achieve elevated meditative attainments as a result of the Lord Buddha's Teachings. Meditation practice for the achievement of elevated meditative attainments is the most important work of a practicing Buddhist. It had taken me a few years before I started to have any inner experience during meditation practice. It was due to my love for making good progress in my meditation practice that I began to observe the Eight Precepts instead of just the Five Precepts. And I have been observing the Eight Precepts daily for about nine years now.