The World Has Never Had a Standard Science of Meditation

THE WORLD HAS NEVER HAD A STANDARD SCIENCE OF MEDITATION

Many stories about meditation, poetry about meditation, scriptures about meditation, and results in meditation appearing all over the world make people want to learn and practice meditation. Nowadays, meditation is a fashion. A person, regardless of religion, is considered backward if he does not know anything about meditation. Many philosophers and religious people find joy from their pure minds.

There are many meditation centers in the world, especially in Buddhist countries like Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, and many western countries, but how many people have succeeded in practicing meditation? The rate is very low. Why? Because there is no standard method of meditation in the world. Most people practiced meditation and got results due to luck, so the way a person practices meditation and has a pure mind shouldn't apply to others. Millions of years have passed but man has never had a standard science of meditation, except in the time of Buddha.

In Buddha's time, people had little scientific knowledge, so Buddha could not talk much about meditation, He only said enough for people in that era to understand and practice. But because people's capacities were high at that time, many people achieved results. After Buddha's time, humans' capacities were low and their blessings were reduced, so Buddha's teachings on meditation were not enough for people to achieve results, and thus the number of those who attained results gradually decreased until today. Today, there's a growing movement toward meditation, but the number of those who attained results is also very small. Why? Because meditation is a science that combines all the difficulties of other sciences.

For example, in a class, some are good at English but not at Math; some are good at Math but afraid of Literature; some are good at Biology but bad at Physics. We are good at one science and find other sciences difficult. And meditation is the synthesis of all difficulties of all sciences. To practice meditation, we must first prepare ourselves to work in the most difficult field of all and work as seriously as true scientists do, then we can practice meditation and achieve results.

For a farmer, growing trees is easy, it's about burying seeds in the ground, watering them, and after a few days, the seeds germinate. Tend the trees for a few years, and then harvest fruits. But for an agricultural engineer, growing trees is not easy. We must know its process. The first is to choose seeds and see if they are F1, F2, or F3. Before burying the seeds in the ground, we need to know the composition of the soil and if it has enough nutrients or has any substances that destroy the seeds, or if it has ants or insects that will eat the seeds.

People who have a limited understanding of something always take risks and find it easy; Those who know it well will find it difficult. But the way of people without knowledge can't guarantee the results, if lucky, their trees will give fruit, if not, they will gain nothing. As for the agricultural engineer, because he fully understands the problem, his tree will definitely bear fruit.

There is one thing that everyone risks their lives to do without knowing anything about it: getting married. During someone's puberty, besides being governed by his karma, he is stimulated by his endocrine glands, so when he falls in love with someone, he wishes to marry that person even though they don't have a house or a career. They think love will get them through everything, but they're wrong. The conflict of personality and the burden of many responsibilities (responsibility to parents on both sides, responsibility to their own family, food, clothing, shelter) make their married life suffocating.

Many people also risk their lives to practice meditation when they hear good teachings about it (such as understanding the nature of enlightenment or the whole universe in the blink of an eye) from those who claim to be meditation masters. However, these meditation practitioners didn't succeed, even got sick or went mad. Their families couldn't stand them because they didn't care about doing business and refused to do anything because they think it was a trivial matter.

It's because we do not understand meditation as a very difficult science, we are easily fascinated by some false reasoning, and thus gain no results, and even become irresponsible.

Written by:
Janna

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