Small Universe

Meditation is an experience. It's an adventure. It's fun. If you ask, "Why meditate?" it's difficult to answer. Just do it, and you'll know. Well then, how to meditate, you may ask.

Instructions are easy to find. A quiet place, a cushion and a mat; a chair. Meditation is a skill, the practice of stilling the mind in order to know Mind. Set aside 5 or 10 minutes a day. Make it a habit. Not a duty; just something you owe yourself. Stretch first (yoga helps.) If sitting in the lotus or half lotus posture, don't get up abruptly. Just let the circulation come back.

As thoughts arise, examine them and let them go.

There may be anxiety. The false self panics as it fades away. Stillness grows. A paradox: The still mind is not unconscious. Silence Bliss, peace. come and go.

There are stages of meditation - called in the literature four jhanas and four trances.

First Jhana: Bliss and thought together

Thought and examination, with rapture and happiness born of seclusion.

Second Jhana: Bliss without thought

Internal confidence and unification of mind, is without thought and examination, and has rapture and happiness born of concentration. (But don't get attached, or you'll get stuck here and miss what follows!)

Third Jhana: fading away of rapture

Passing away of joy and displeasure, dwelling equanimous and mindful and clearly comprehending, happiness with the body.

Fourth Jhana: Abandoning of pleasure and pain

Neither painful nor pleasant, and includes the purification of mindfulness by equanimity.

The four stages of meditation or "trances" that follow the fourth Jhana are where we really get down to business.

First trance: Infinite space

Second Trance: Infinite consciousness

Third Trance: Emptiness

Fourth Trance: Neither perception nor non-perception.

But notice that the third and fourth stages are not the end of practice, just the beginning!