An introductory programme to vipassana meditation

people really want to learn some way to get rid of their sufferings... meditation - the ultimate way!!

Vipassana sadhana sansthan organized a "Vipassana meditation introductory programme" on Jan 26th at logicstat farms, Delhi, India. I reached the center on prior evening to help manage few things. There was not much to work in the early night so we did a 1 hour group sitting. People informed that it was a good experience to mefiatate together in the Pagoda. At dinner table we decided few things and planned a 5-7 meditation sitting in morning. When some good experienced meditators shared their meditation wisdom then again I realised that I need to go a long way and need to work alot...

I woke up exactly at 5, rushed to the pagoda and was able to meditate till 7 :) We had to go out to get keys as some stuff was locked in store, so no breakfast :) does not matter... it was too foggy outside...we missed the 8-9 planned sitting...

we got ready for the day and started to make some last moment arrangement... I was supposed put TV and VCR in small hall....the TV was at ground floor..before bringing it down to the basement it did make it sure that it was working, but, it did not work in the hall...ouch!!! at the very last moment, it took us 30Mins to get the TV working...:)

we started to gather and by 11Am there were around 500 people, around 150 among them were new people who were interested in Vipassana Meditation. I got the responsibility of playing cassette in small hall, which we decided to use a female hall at the last moment. Mr. S.N.Goenka's discourse was played to provide basic information about meditation and Vipassana meditation. Ladies did show a great interest...

After discourse came the Quesiton Answer session, the most overwhelming part... people(ladies) were so curios to learn that somehow they just wanted to do the 10 day course...some were unable to do because they had small babies... teacher informed that centres with creche facilities are coming up!! now, more than them they were worried that how can they put their children on the path of mediation...? this was their biggest concern... they were inquiring about all the available courses for children. There are 2 day courses for the age group between 8-12Yrs and a seven day course from 13-17Yrs age group. Thacher's do go to the schools to take the courses...they can visit any one's place if there are around 15 children. Children are the best candidates for meditation...they adapt it so fast....subsequently it helps them in all fields...:) one lady asked how can infants, below age 6, be filled with good sanskars!!! this is not possible externally, but if the mother does right meditation when the child is in womb then it really helps....:)

during the session and after the session I was feeling a different kind of joy!! I do not know why but it was there...

later on, it was time to serve the lunch and the 'snake shaped' queue was a scene to watch.... :) it was good to be on the serving side of the table... it was fun...as always!!

Tackling hatred

less hatered...

Slowly slowly, I have been developing the faculty of 'not being hateful'....
I do't feel that much hatred towards the people called terrorists as I used to feel in past. It is not because I have become more selfish/self centered, but, because I am getting a better understanding of the law - the law of nature.(u know wat dat is :))

now, what motivates me more to meditate, two things:
1. I may feel hatred when someone very close to me dies because of terrorists. This may happen, I am not Buddha yet. So, to save myself from being trapped in the emotional circle. I have to be more and more close to the truth. How that will happen? meditation :) .......keep meditating... :)

2. How can I help those people who r not on right path, not got the right ditti, does not have right sankalpa??? Buddha nature can help in this. Remember the magic of Buddha nature on Angulimaal, the same magic can/should work here also. So, first become a Buddha and then help others, how....... meditation.... :)

keep meditating........

(plz do not take 'magic' as literary)

THIS IS HOW WE MISS OUT SOMETHING CALLED "LIFE"

A boy was born to a couple after eleven years of marriage. They were a loving couple and the boy was the gem of their eyes. When the boy was around two years old, one morning the husband saw a medicine bottle open. He was late for office so he asked his wife to cap the bottle and keep it in the cupboard. His wife, preoccupied in the kitchen totally forgot the matter. The boy saw the bottle and playfully went to the

bottle fascinated by its color and drank it all. It happened to be a poisonous medicine meant for adults in small dosages. When the child
collapsed the mother hurried him to the hospital, where he died. The mother was stunned. She was terrified how to face her husband. When the distraught father came to the hospital and saw the dead child, he looked at his wife and uttered just five words.

QUESTIONS :

1. What were the five words ?

2. What is the implication of this story?

ANSWER :

The husband just said "I am with you Darling"
The husband's totally unexpected reaction is a proactive behavior. The child is dead. He can never be brought back to life. There is no point
in finding fault with the mother. Besides, if only he had taken time to keep the bottle away, this would not have happened.. No one is to be blamed. She had also lost her only child. What she needed at that moment was consolation and sympathy from the husband. That is what he gave her.

If everyone can look at life with this kind of perspective, there would be much fewer problems in the world. "A journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step". Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears. And you will find things are
actually not as difficult as you think.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

This story is really worth reading. ..... Sometimes we spend time in asking who is responsible or whom to blame, whether in a relationship,
in a job or with the people we know.
By this way we miss out something called L.I.F.E

PS: Taken from a mail.

Before we die!!!

My friend's Grand Father died on 1st September 2008. He was ill for last few months. On his last day he said that he is not going to survive, probably because off frustration of being, or because of pain or whatever - I do not know. He cried a lot, saying that, he wanted to see the marriage of his grand children, my friend is one of the candidates. He died on the same day. He was 84/85 Yrs old.

Three months later, one fine morning my freind's 2nd grand father(above 75Yrs) told his family people that this is going to be his last day. During the day, he met all of his family people, took food from the elder grand-daughter-in-law, had water from his son, went to see his farms etc. In evening he took food and went to sleep. Around 9PM, one of his grand-children found him dead. 

oops!!! how did he(second GF) know that he was going to die?

My friend told me that there is a very famous pundit in their locality, he did recite Garud Purana after his first GF's death, for some nights. The priest told him that few months before the time of final death, a person starts to see all of his life's happenings, backwards, like a film. He said that all these things and a lot about life and death are written in Garuda-Purana?

The priest, on the basis of his calculations depending on the time of his death, was also able to tell that there is a dosha of 3 paav(paav is a weight unit in India that equals to 250Gms) because of some unfulfilled desires. Now, his family could assess that he wanted to eat some kind of sweet, which was denied because of medical restrictions. Second, he wanted to see the marriage of his grand children(two). Third desire they could not think about. Probably there were two desires for two marriages?

Now, what I can relate all this to some other philosophies dealing with life and death. According to one, next birth or whether there is going to be re-birth or not depends upon the final state of chitta(sub-conscious mind), at the time of death. This final state decides that whether there will be any rebirth or not, if it will be then what kind of birth it will be.

Now, how to get to the state where there is no thought at the time of death OR at least there is no ill though? Karma theory can be helpful here, keep doing your deeds with full detachment. if there is not any kind of attachment then there is not going to be any kind of though at the final moment. But, how this detachment theory was itself invented, by some means, it was a knowledge that was inferred by some kind of experiences.

There are some thoughts(sanskaars) which come up very strongly at the time of death. Those one, which have a great impact over your consciousness, like some deep love, some deep hatred. The key here is to get rid of these deeply rooted thoughts while you are very much alive, very much conscious. So, no ill or whatever kind of though decides your fate, randomly, at the time of death. How this can be done, a little bit hard but this can be done by 'very determined' & 'right kind' of meditation.

to the concept of detachment, if there is not any kind of attachment then there is not going to be 

In short, there is a huge difference in the way the two GF's died. One died crying and another died calmly. There 'must' be the after effect, of the way, one dies. In fact, life is all about how one dies. The whole process is the playground/classromm where one keeps preparing for the final examination - the death. Understand that we are here to learn some thing, not to get attached with the pen/pencil/books/thoughs/theories etc.

So, let us prepare for the way we die. What is the best way of dying - being in truth and remain unshakable. How can that be achieved - by meditation only :) OR apply the karma theory in it's 100% purity, if you can.

We have been kept coming here, we have been kept dying......let us break the circle....

For my own knowledge, I would like to know what kind(if any) of dosha does the priest calculate for his second grand father's death, as he died calmly and consciously. Does it mean that he died desire-less? If yes, then how?

(I did take my friend's permission before using his words and family matters)

How do one earn???

Recently I made a post at my another blog regarding internet banking fraud. One of my colleagues became the victim, his bank account was swept for 3500 rupees:

 

http://just-laik-that.blogspot.com/2008/11/internet-banking-fraud.html

 

This was a big amount that the hacker got very easily. In fact, not easily, it does involve hard work actually. But the incident forced me to think about the ways of earning money. Money is a necessity, a hard reality of human life. Everyone has to earn money to live respectable life.

 

But, is it that hard to earn money legally rather not earning by not harming others. This was a big amount, so anyone can get a feeling that the hacker did wrong thing. But, just stop by and try to think how much 'financial wrongs' we do in our daily lives. Generally, we try to save money at every moment, this does become an habit and slowly we tend not to think about the legality of the way we are saving money.

 

The way we earn money; how honest we remain while earning our money, do we work with full devotion, don't we use some wrong means to earn our money. Most bad part is 'hunger' for money. People do have sufficient money still they keep looking for ways to earn extra money, in fact some short-cut type of ways, that can give some money. But, for what - this does varie. I know people who do earn handsome money by their jobs, or by their respective work. but, still they strive for more money. Now, the time is limited, so they look for some other means. And, as they have got some talent, so very easily they get some 'short-cut, by hook or crook' type of ways.

 

When 35000 are taken unlawfully, then we get the impact, but this very impact has to be understood at every level, at every move, every moment.

HAVE A BLESSED DAY

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: 'I am blind, please help.' There were only a few coins in the hat.


A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, 'Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?'



.
.
.

The man said, 'I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.'
What he had written was: 'Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.'

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?

Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

Invite others towards good with wisdom. Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.


Great men say, 'Life has to be an incessant process of repair and reconstruction, of discarding evil and developing goodness.... In the journey of life, if you want to travel without fear, you must have the ticket of a good conscience.'

The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling...
And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

Where do one stand

Some people are completely ignorent of their sins.

Some are aware, but ignorent enough to ignore them.

Some of them want to get rid, but ignorent of the path/way.

Some of them, get the path and keep struggling to get rid of them.

Some of them, put their mind-body-soul to walk the path and get through.

To avoid a conflict

For the last two weeks or so my friend's mother is going through some medical treatment and this weekend my friend was supposed to take her to the hospital. But, he went out of the town and poor boy, could not accomplish his task. When he came back, before interacting with his mother, he asked me that whether mom went to hospital or not. I said that I offered her, but she did not go.(one thing)

Generally, he is a straight forward person but reacts according to the situation and at that time he was looking in a jolly mood. He asked me, went out of room and I did not give any serious thought. Then, I realized that he could have asked his mother also as before asking to me he was approaching towards her room, but came back without meeting her. Probably, he did not want to meet her in that jolly mood as it would reflect to the mother that he is not concerned about her. He got out of that atmosphere and met her later on.(second thing)

Now, if I replace my cousin with person XYZ, person XYZ would have not that concerned and met the mother directly because love or relations are not dependent of any formalities and should not become a wall. But, I know that he(friend) understands all this, but probably the mother does not and he knows this.(third thing)

One thing that comes out of this exercise is that if you feel that you understands some point and second person does not understand it then you have to come down to his level and do not expect the second person to understand your point which requires much more understanding. Why, because understanding is also relative and is a resultant of knowledge. Now, in some aspect or field you may be more knowledgeable that others and the same thing applies to other people also. And, as everyone is on a different path and some appear to be farther ahead on their path than others. Neither path is better nor worse than another.

It is just a matter of time that who went to which path and what sort of knowledge one acquired on that particular path. You may have started early and others may yet to start. To make others understand one need to maintain the level and whenever necessary, need to come down also.

The etarnal question - GOD || !GOD

GOD || !GOD

I came around a very good explanations of why we see pain and suffering all around the world?

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed.As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation.
They talked about so many things and various subjects.
When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said:

"I don't believe that God exists."

"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.

"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist.Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people?Would there be abandoned children?If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain.I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things."
The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond
because he didn't want to start an argument.
The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop.Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt.
The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist."
"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber.

"I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!"

"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because
if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."
"Ah, but barbers DO exist! That's what happens when people do not come to me."
"Exactly!" affirmed the customer.

"That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! That's what happens when people do not go to Him and don't look to Him for help. That's! why there's so much pain and suffering in the world."

Serve The Mother

I was watching a music competition on TV and after some emotional scene everyone started to paraise "mother". Ismail said that "the one serves his/her mother never looses in life and keeps flourishing" forced me to think why. One reson could be that child is an extension of mother and mother will always try her best to keep her extension in good shape and gives all her blessings to her extension. Now, when a son or daughter keeps the mother happy or serves her then the mother will be in much good shape to bless her extension. As, healthy mind lives in healthy body and good blessings can only come from a healthy mind.
Actually, again this becomes a matter of personal experience and personal perceptions. I would like to elaborate this in more scientific manner but only after getting some reactions.

What is life

"Jao! jaakar kah do apne khuda se, gar milna hai Majnu se to Laila bankar aa jae"

English translation:
Go! say to your god, if you want to meet 'Majnu' then come as Laila

Majnu was a well known lover of ancient times. He loved Laila so much that he used to call Laila as God. Some people got angry and asked Majnu that god has called you. Then, Majnu said that "ask your God to come as Laila, then only I would like to meet him".

Majnu was concentrated so much on Liala that Laila had become life for Majnu. He used to see only Laila everywhere.

Life is what you see.

Process of life

Life, we start, we live, we end, what - life.
Its a long process, do you want to say something.