Is meditation the only way to reach englightenment?

[hermitwin]

The suttas is full of accounts of people who attained Enlightenment while listening to Buddha. Enlightenment is like a fruit, when the conditions are right it ripens, it drops ...

[Santi253]

If you practice good deeds and ethical conduct, this will create the karmic conditions in which it will be easier for you to attain enlightenment in the future, either in this life or the next. I think it all starts with improving your karma, especially if you aren't able to devote yourself full-time to things like meditation.

[jrl]

You might want to add some paragraph breaks to make your post easier to follow.

Meditation is an essential part of the Noble Eightfold Path to Enlightenment. Right thought, right view, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration are all factors of the path. Right action right speech, right livelihood, form the moral foundation to develop mental purity.

In the Buddha's time, many individuals who met him had previously practised meditation to a high degree. Venerable Kondaññā, for example, had been striving as an ascetic along with the Bodhisatta for six years, and was present at the Bodhisatta's birth, when he was an astrologer who predicted his Enlightenment.

Others, like Anāthapiṇḍika or King Bimbisāra, who realised the truth on merely listening to the teachings, had developed mindfulness and wisdom to a high degree in previous lives.

In this current era, long after the Buddha passed away, it is believed that there are no such individuals remaining. If we had such good past kamma like Anāthapindika, we would have met the Buddha at that time. If we did meet him, we obviously failed to “get the message” properly, as we have been reborn again in this human existence — we are not in the celestial realms with Anāthapindika and Visākhā.

So, everyone born these days need to practise meditation. Not just occasionally, and half-heartedly, but regularly, intensively, and with an ardent desire to gain insight leading to enlightenment. The kind of meditation practised today by most Buddhist is mere imitation of the real thing. Sitting for fifteen minutes, then changing your position, or just falling asleep on the meditation cushion will never reach the higher stages of insight in a million years.

Even to attain the lower stages of insight such as knowledge by comprehension, requires ardent, and continuous meditation without a break for several days. A really gifted individual might gain enlightenment within seven months or even seven days (as promised in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta). Most will not reach it even in seven years or seventy years — they just don't practise hard enough, or they have some moral defects or they may hold wrong views, or they may not have a skilled meditation teacher.

As to practising meditation being of no benefit, that depends on how you measure profit. For one with worldly aims, meditation is largely a waste of time, except that it helps them to concentrate or to remove stress, so that they can do better work and so earn more money, gain awards, etc.

One who wants to gain enlightenment is not interested in worldly aims. If they accrue as a side-effect, then they can help others by using their wealth or fame, but that is not their aim. Renunciation of worldly aims is an aspect of right thought. Worldly aims are to be understood as a distraction from the path.

From what I gather do you think it is even useful for lay people to practice 15 minutes a day if that's all they can do with work, family, etc?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

From what I gather do you think it is even useful for lay people to practice 15 minutes a day if that's all they can do with work, family, etc?

The Buddha said that to practice loving-kindness meditation even for a pull of cow's udder is beneficial, so what can we say regarding fifteen minutes?

However, don't deceive yourself that this level of practice will lead to deep insights or to attaining the Path.

We can make comparisons with doing exercises to get fit. If one jogs for fifteen minutes a day it will surely be beneficial. However, if one intends to run a marathon, it won't be sufficient training. If one's intention is to win an Olympic medal, or at least participate in the Olympic games one will need to train much harder.

Most lay people spend at least an hour a day travelling to work and another travelling back again. Often, that is an opportunity to practice meditation for at least half of the journey. It's not an ideal environment, but at least on the London Underground or mainline trains, it is perfectly feasible. Sitting in your own car in a traffic jam is a perfect opportunity to watch your mind, and keep your focus on the breathing, or on sensations within the body. This is also meditation practice.

Then there are daily chores that may be done mindfully or in a rush. If you do them mindfully, that is also meditation. A woman instructed by the Buddha to be mindful while doing her household chores gained the Path in this way.

It is said in his Biography that Sunlun Sayādaw became a Non-returner after training in mindfulness as a farmer. He then ordained and became an Arahant.

[WindDancer]

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences, insights and wisdom.

I get great benefit from engaging in the different facets of practice. I wonder about how much to hold up the goal of enlightenment as a motivator. It doesn't work well for me to get too attached to or fixated on gaining the end goal of enlightenment. When I do, I feel an unhealthy addictive straining toward a distant future. I tend to become discontented, ungrateful and have a hard time living in the present.

I find the Path works much better if I live in a gentle way, contented and flowing along at a healthy pace in the direction of enlightenment. I make the best progress I can while living a reasonably balanced, happy, contented and useful life. Though I would be delighted if I reached enlightenment in this lifetime, I feel that I am not likely to achieve that goal in this lifetime. I feel quite inspired to make the progress that is a natural result of making a persistent wholehearted effort within all the causes and conditions that have been, are and will be.

I naturally live the Precepts, and I eagerly make corrections if I get off course. I actively practice mindfulness in daily life, doing my best to be in the present moment with a thankful heart. In addition, I mindfully look for opportunities to show up in love and service in the world which helps me keep an open, loving and compassionate heart.

I eagerly listen to Dharma Talks. Sometimes I listen for five to six hours while washing dishes and doing light house work, letting the words flow over me and nourish my spirit. Other times I engage more thoughtfully and participate with others in on-line discussions or join in with the group during guided meditations. Reading and studying the Dharma is another vital part of my practice.

While I gain greatly from all this daily life practice, I still need formal meditation time. I do longer sitting and walking meditations everyday, and sometimes I do longer meditations while lying down. Though my main practice is mindfulness meditation, I also benefit from concentration meditations, loving kindness meditation, visualization meditations and times of meditative reflection.

In regard to the original post, I sometimes have needed more active forms of meditation, especially when I was younger or when my mind is overly active. Walking meditation, meditation while throwing pots on my potter's wheel or meditation while watering and tending to my trees, flowers and plants have helped me to calm down and get concentrated when there was not much chance of me just sitting there and focusing on my breath.

Namaste,

WindDancer

[BasementBuddhist]

How are we defining meditation? So many define mediation as sitting with eyes open or closed and focused on the breath for a period of time. This is important. Sitting is essential. But what is the POINT of meditation? The point of meditation is contemplation and concentration. We meditate because we need to learn about our habits and tendencies, so we can get rid of them, stop the clinging, and achieve enlightenment. But we can do this ALL the time. Not only when sitting. Meditation is mindfulness. Meditation is focus. Looking at it like this, we need working meditation, playing meditation, brushing our teeth meditation, almost sleeping meditation, using the bathroom meditation, reading meditation, eating meditation, if we aren't celibate we need to be meditating when we are having sex. Through constant and continuous effort we see our defilements and the answers to them. Ajahn Chah used to say that "only the posture changes". Sitting. Walking. Standing. Lying down. Always meditate. Meditation and mindfulness are one and the same. When we are practicing sitting meditation we are mindful of the breath/and object. When we are walking meditation we are mindful of the foot steps. Constant effort. You must couple this with Wisdom; knowing about Dependent Origination, Impermanence, and the four noble truths. This is the way to achieve enlightenment.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

if we aren't celibate we need to be meditating when we are having sex.

Work when you work; play when you play.

Having sex and meditation are incompatible. While striving to enjoy sensual pleasures you cannot also be striving to abandon them.

[BasementBuddhist]

if we aren't celibate we need to be meditating when we are having sex.

Work when you work; play when you play.

Having sex and meditation are incompatible. While striving to enjoy sensual pleasures you cannot also be striving to abandon them.

Alright, I'll give you that one. Still, my point remains the same.

[pegembara]

Perhaps the idea is to consistently be aware repeatedly of the 3 universal characteristics of all phenomena as anicca/impermanent, dukkha/unsatisfactory and anatta/not self until this becomes the default mode of seeing. One doesn't have to be in a state of "formal meditation" then.

“I remember when I was living as a monk in England and I would sometimes go visit Ajahn Sumedho in his room and on the wall he had a picture of an old man sitting inside his little brick cottage on a rainy day, and he was sitting just inside the window, looking out, and in his hand he held a cup of coffee. And I remember Ajahn Sumedho saying, for him this was the essence of meditation. It was really nothing more than just relaxing, and watching the happening of existence. Nothing needed to be explained. Nothing needed to be worked out. There’s just the event of existence presenting itself. Everything we are is simply presented. Whatever words come out, come out, but they’re not important; they’re simply the movement or the non-movement of whatever this happening is and it’s happening all by itself.”
— Darryl Bailey

[pegembara]

One way perhaps is to constantly be aware again and again of the 3 universal characteristics of all things as anicca/inconstant, dukkha/unsatisfactory and anatta/not self. This eventually becomes the default mode of seeing.
One doesn't have to be sitting down with eyes closed to do this.


“I remember when I was living as a monk in England and I would sometimes go visit Ajahn Sumedho in his room and on the wall he had a picture of an old man sitting inside his little brick cottage on a rainy day, and he was sitting just inside the window, looking out, and in his hand he held a cup of coffee. And I remember Ajahn Sumedho saying, for him this was the essence of meditation. It was really nothing more than just relaxing, and watching the happening of existence. Nothing needed to be explained. Nothing needed to be worked out. There’s just the event of existence presenting itself. Everything we are is simply presented. Whatever words come out, come out, but they’re not important; they’re simply the movement or the non-movement of whatever this happening is and it’s happening all by itself.”
— Darryl Bailey

[CedarTree]

I think that meditation and in particular right practices of meditation are very important if not a crucial part of the path.

I mean it is part of the noble 8

[WindDancer]

Based on my limited experience and on listening to hundreds of hours of Dharma talks, I feel it may be beneficial for beginners in the West to not worry so much about forcing themselves to engage in longer meditations right from the start. If someone is truly struggling with meditating for longer periods of time, they may feel like giving up on Buddhism all together. If people are able to meditate, great. If not, there may be another way.

Several teachers have stated that we all have our differences. It may be wise to enter the Path from different starting points. For example, I have heard people practicing acts of loving kindness and compassion for twenty years before being ready for serious meditation.

Others enter the Path through practicing the Precepts: not killing, not taking what is not given, not lying, not causing sexual harm and not using alcohol or other intoxicants. I have witnessed many people in Alcoholics Anonymous who have entered into Buddhist practice through this door and through the door of showing up in love and service. Over time, members stop harming themselves and others; their hearts open and soften, and they tend to be more settled and at peace. Then they can make greater progress in meditation. It just happens as a natural result of right effort, action and speech based on right view and intention.

I encourage new comers to do what they can in meditation and to allow themselves to grow without holding on to shame or trying to fight and force their way to peace.

[Santi253]

The main impediments to attaining enlightenment are the three poisons of passion (greed, lust), aversion (anger, hate), and ignorance. Silent, seated meditation is just one way among many that one can abate the three poisons within themselves and cultivate more wholesome qualities instead.

[Eko Care]

It doesn't work well for me to get too attached to or fixated on gaining the end goal of enlightenment. When I do, I feel an unhealthy addictive straining toward a distant future. I tend to become discontented, ungrateful and have a hard time living in the present.

I find the Path works much better if I live in a gentle way, contented and flowing along at a healthy pace in the direction of enlightenment. I make the best progress I can while living a reasonably balanced, happy, contented and useful life. Though I would be delighted if I reached enlightenment in this lifetime, I feel that I am not likely to achieve that goal in this lifetime. I feel quite inspired to make the progress that is a natural result of making a persistent wholehearted effort within all the causes and conditions that have been, are and will be.

Namaste,

WindDancer

Live Gently..

Seems like experienced ..


WindDancer..
Live Gently..
Act Normal..

seem like synonyms ..

[Rahula]

You might want to add some paragraph breaks to make your post easier to follow.

Meditation is an essential part of the Noble Eightfold Path to Enlightenment. Right thought, right view, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration are all factors of the path. Right action right speech, right livelihood, form the moral foundation to develop mental purity.

In the Buddha's time, many individuals who met him had previously practised meditation to a high degree. Venerable Kondaññā, for example, had been striving as an ascetic along with the Bodhisatta for six years, and was present at the Bodhisatta's birth, when he was an astrologer who predicted his Enlightenment.

Others, like Anāthapiṇḍika or King Bimbisāra, who realised the truth on merely listening to the teachings, had developed mindfulness and wisdom to a high degree in previous lives.

In this current era, long after the Buddha passed away, it is believed that there are no such individuals remaining. If we had such good past kamma like Anāthapindika, we would have met the Buddha at that time. If we did meet him, we obviously failed to “get the message” properly, as we have been reborn again in this human existence — we are not in the celestial realms with Anāthapindika and Visākhā.

So, everyone born these days need to practise meditation. Not just occasionally, and half-heartedly, but regularly, intensively, and with an ardent desire to gain insight leading to enlightenment. The kind of meditation practised today by most Buddhist is mere imitation of the real thing. Sitting for fifteen minutes, then changing your position, or just falling asleep on the meditation cushion will never reach the higher stages of insight in a million years.

Even to attain the lower stages of insight such as knowledge by comprehension, requires ardent, and continuous meditation without a break for several days. A really gifted individual might gain enlightenment within seven months or even seven days (as promised in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta). Most will not reach it even in seven years or seventy years — they just don't practise hard enough, or they have some moral defects or they may hold wrong views, or they may not have a skilled meditation teacher.

As to practising meditation being of no benefit, that depends on how you measure profit. For one with worldly aims, meditation is largely a waste of time, except that it helps them to concentrate or to remove stress, so that they can do better work and so earn more money, gain awards, etc.

One who wants to gain enlightenment is not interested in worldly aims. If they accrue as a side-effect, then they can help others by using their wealth or fame, but that is not their aim. Renunciation of worldly aims is an aspect of right thought. Worldly aims are to be understood as a distraction from the path.

I'm reading this after many years of posted date, but thank you for providing such insight.
May you be healthy, happy and attain Nibbana very soon (if not already)!