Why should we practise meditation? In fact, meditation is important for our life. The more technological progress in terms of material wealth that is made, the more mental development in terms of spiritual wealth is required. Again, the more we ignore training our mind, the more we face conflicts in the busy world such as stress, anxiety and lack of safety. This is because our minds are confused and cannot manage well enough in many situations in society. Therefore, one who trains one’s mind will have more of an advantage than others who do not. S/He can live more happily in today’s society.Meditation practise not only benefits our spiritual health and mental development, but it also has a good affect on physical health. That is to say, meditation practise may help cure and heal diseases. The University of Winconsin’s research revealed that longtime practitioners of Buddhist meditation practise showed higher levels of brain activation. It means that the brain of a meditator is continuously developing and strengthens in its memory function. Human beings may not have to fear that age will have a negative affect on the memory. Dr. O. Carl Simonton, of the Simon Cancer Care Centre in California, U.S.A., an expert in the use of traditional therapy for the treatment of cancer, has researched for 10 years on the relationship between mind and body in treating and caring cancer. He pointed out that “the benefits of learning meditation practise will help create a place of resistance in the body which is able to manufacture the white blood cells which fight against cancer and HIV/AIDS”. Also, Dr. Benson of the Havard Medical School has researched and tested the effects of meditation practise on health and the body. In the book called “The Relaxation Response”, he stated that meditation can treat diseases such as cancer because it helps the patient to released tension, boosts the will power to fight and increases the consciousness of being in control of your life . The research results show that the mind can look after itself and has an affect on the treatment of physical disease; it is not simply depending on medicine. One who has mental well-being will have a good effect on physical well-being. This is a little benefit of mental training. If we train our mind until the mind reaches calmness, we will be happier.
Not only Buddhist meditation practise has a good effect on our health, but also meditation techniques of other religions are included. For example yoga in Hinduism helps cure mental and physical ailing. Swami Remdev , a widely popular Indian yoga guru, said, “If you do pranayana for half an hour daily, you will never fall sick”. Yoga can lower blood pressure and cure diabetes, asthma, cancer, slipped discs, cervical and arthritis pain, kidney failure and poor eyesight. He reasons, “Deceases are nothing but imbalances of the body, and yoga corrects those imbalances”. The yoga technique process of deeply inhaling and exhaling in many postures improves health in general.
Yoga looks like Anapanasati in Buddhism from the point of view of using the breath, but Anapanasati uses the breath as a meditation object for mindfulness that is more about spirituality. However, we can apply the art of yoga breathing for developing spirituality. That is to say, we mindfully inhale and exhale when practicing yoga. Observe the breath: short breath or long breath, refined breath or unrefined breath. While we are changing one posture to another posture, we are aware of bodily movement. This is an example of the explanation of Vipassana practice in relationship to yoga. The next four chapters will help you understand more about how to practice Buddhist meditation practise. If you are yoga practitioners, you can apply it to your yoga practice.
Translated by: Ven. Thanissaro
Pinayo Prommuang
