The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
‘Please take a moment to enjoy the simple practice of mindful breathing: “Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in; breathing out, I know that I am breathing out.” If you do that with a little concentration, then you’ll be able to really be there. The moment you begin to practice mindful breathing, your body and your mind begin to come back together. It takes only ten to twenty seconds to accomplish this miracle, the oneness of body and mind in the present moment. And every one of us can do it, even a child.
As the Buddha said, “The past no longer is, the future is not yet here; there is only one moment in which life is available, and that is the present moment.” To meditate with mindful breathing is to bring body and mind back to the present moment so that you do not miss your appointment with life.’
- Thich Nhat Hanh, Fear, Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm.
The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd — The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.
One aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Concentration. Jhana is a meditative state, serene and focused. This state is focused and the mind, the attention, becomes fully immersed and absorbed in the chosen object of attention.
The First Jhana
The first Jhana is a kind of rapture which comes from withdrawal from the senses. Thought is focused and directed. The body fills with pleasure and contentment.
The Second Jhana
The second Jhana is rapture which comes with the stilling of thought. It is a kind of deep serenity and joining with stillness. There is a filling of a great upwelling as a deep spring upwells with pure water. It is pure joy which comes from the deepest composure.
The Third Jhana
The third jhana is now devoid of rapture as the practitioner moves beyond rapture. The body is filled with pleasure divested from rapture. The practitioner is filled and pervaded with this pleasure. Like a lotus blossom in the lotus pond which stays submerged in the cool water without standing up thrusting into the air.
The Fourth Jhana
The is the state where the practitioner abandons pleasure, abandons stress. There is no pain, no pleasure just a pure equanimity. And furthermore, with the abandoning of pleasure and stress. The practitioner sits permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness. It is as if the practitioner was wrapped from head to foot with a white cloth covered completely The practitioner sits, permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness.
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