You and Beginning Meditation

Post Written by James Chen Ball

Are your interested in Buddhism or Meditation and don't know where to start? If you ARE then you are probably in the same boat many are in, and have been (including myself)...
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Confused by all the different styles of meditation along with all the various schools, traditions and sects heaped with ancient jargon that leaves your head spinning?

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The problem with starting out in meditation is that you often need guidance and instruction. Starting out by oneself could be easy, but our minds tend to complicate things and convinces itself its not doing the ‘right’ meditation practise, or its doing something wrong somehow. From my point of view, meditation is a simple process of following the in and out breaths. 
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Concentrate on the breath going in - and concentrate on the breath going out of your body - observing the body and its internal movements but remaining focused on the breath.

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The Five Roots

By Master Cheng Yen
The Thirty-Seven Principles of Enlightenment

I have always believed that faith is indispensable in studying Buddhism. As the saying goes, "Faith is the mother of all merits; it nurtures all goodness." Faith can create the strength with which we can reach buddhahood. Therefore, faith is necessary for us to enter the door of Buddhism.

However, we must have the right faith, because even a little deviation will lead us down the wrong path. If we go down the path of evil, we will have evil thoughts which will cause us to commit evil actions. In order to avoid that, we have to guard carefully against the invasion of evil thoughts.

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