Q32. What role do meditation and mindfulness practices play in making Jain values/principles more accessible, practical and meaningful in the context of our current world?
The first article in the series of making Jainism more accessible focused on Mindset. We explored how being clear on our purpose for practicing Jainism can provide direction and become the driving force for our choices. We also investigated the importance of being open, curious and using our own logic, reasoning and learning from our own experiences and not follow blindly by faith alone. When we build trust in knowledge through our own experience then we develop unwavering confidence and gain valuable insights to transform our life. And finally, we reflected that gaining knowledge is not enough, we must also be diligent and mindful in our practices.
To continue this journey, in this article we will focus on the importance of meditation practices and how living mindfully is so fundamental and foundational in our spiritual journey. We will share some simple ideas to start or continue our practices. These practices enables us to live with more awareness, so we can more consistently embody and integrate Jain values and principles in our everyday life.
Jainism and Meditation
Meditation has been a core spiritual practice in Jainism since the time of Lord Rishabha. All the twenty-four Tirthankaras practiced meditation for deeper introspection and to gain insights.
When we look at Lord Mahavir’s life, we can categorize his life into three major phases. He lived as a householder for 30 years. As a householder, we know that he lived his life aligned with core Jain values such as non-violence, compassion, service, gratitude, honesty.
Then he renounced his worldly life and meditated for 12.5 years. He realized kevalgyan at the age of 42. For practical purposes, it appears that what Mahavir Swami attained after 12.5 years of meditation was the ability to be fully present in the current moment and attain the state where no negative mental afflictions such as anger, ego, greed, jealousy, attachment, aversion, craving arose within him. His thoughts, words and actions were always in alignment with the soul's natural qualities such as peace, compassion, joy, love, and equanimity, no matter what the external situations or stimulants were.
After that, he formed a fourfold sangha with monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen to build a community. The remaining 30 years of Lord Mahavir’s life were in service to humanity. He shared the insights he gained not only with his community but also traveled across India delivering sermons. His direct teachings are documented in our sacred scriptures.
His teachings are essential for us. They are focused on Jain philosophy, meditation practices, values/principles, ethics, conduct, and rituals to live a simple spiritual life. It is unfortunate that overtime the meditation practices didn’t remain as prevalent as outward facing rites and rituals. Without meditation practices, we can’t truly build the capacity within to understand, integrate, and deeply experience Mahavir’s insights and consistently live in alignment with Jain values and principles.
One can see from Mahavir Swami’s journey that those 12.5 years
were the most transformative years of his life.
Meditation Practices
Like Mahavir Swami, we have to go through our own transformative journey through our meditation practices to generate the energy of mindfulness. The energy of mindfulness enables us to be more aware and look deeply. Like other skills, meditation is a skill that we can learn, practice and grow.
Interest in meditation and mindfulness has grown significantly worldwide. This increased interest might reflect our need for improving quality of life through spirituality in our current times.
In this article, we’d like to share some simple practices to start or continue our meditation journey to live more mindfully. For more thorough information on meditation, yoga and various meditation practices in Jainism, please refer to our detailed article on meditation.
We can think of meditation as essentially a set of practices to help us:
- Become more aware
- Know ourselves
- Clear our mind of mental affliction (kashayas)
- Silence the mind
- Cultivate Stillness
- Experience inner happiness
This might sound like a lot, but it starts with training our attention and generating the energy that allows us to be more aware of what’s going on in the here and now. Be more aware of:
- What's going on in our body
- What's going on in our feelings
- What's going on in our mind with our thoughts and perceptions
- What's going on around us
The practice can be in the form of concentrating on a sound, particular object or our breath and trying to keep our attention on that anchor, recognizing if the attention shifts then bringing it back to that anchor to build the attention muscle. Keeping our attention where we want requires training and practice.
A study by the National Science Foundation suggests that we humans have 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. With these many thoughts, our mind could feel like a shaken snow globe with dust particles floating around. And only when we rest the snow globe, the dust settles, it gradually becomes calm and clear, and we can see what’s inside better.
Similarly, by collecting our attention and letting it rest on an anchor, we can experience calmness and stability in the mind which enables us to see more clearly within, gain insights and inevitably experience a natural sense of happiness.
We can also practice building the capacity to notice and become more aware of what’s going on in our body, especially when navigating painful feelings to recognize them and care for them with compassion.
To strengthen the Jain values within us and build our capacity to use them in everyday life situations, we can practice in the form of contemplation of our soul’s natural qualities and visualize that our thoughts, words and behavior are in alignment with them. We can also meditate on 12 Bhavanas as outlined in the meditation article. These contemplation are so powerful and help us in forming and shifting to more supportive perspectives. They empowers us to let go of things that obstruct our peace, happiness, joy, freedom.
Meditation is a cornerstone of Jain practice. The Jain rituals article provides information on key daily essential meditative practices including Samayik, Chauvisattho, Vandana, Pratikraman, Kayotsarga and Pratyakhyana.
In Summary
While we can set aside time each day for dedicated practice, it is also important that we identify ways to integrate small mindfulness practices as we move through our daily routine so we can touch peace and stillness throughout our day. We live in a world where we are always over-stimulated and each one of us has to determine what stillness and peace would look like for us in the day. We benefit from making time for little points of stillness throughout our day.
These practices may sound simple, but they are so profound in establishing the right foundation. They give us the path to take spiritual knowledge beyond intellectual exercise and bring knowledge into our experience and way of being, making it our wisdom. Wisdom positions us to respond mindfully in alignment with our values.
We also need to be mindful that we are not meditating to attain something, though we might see benefits or fruits in our life as we practice. We may achieve fruits such as the ability to create happiness, handle and calm our difficult emotions, enjoy the present moment, and be in touch with life as it is. However, there is more as mentioned in a previous article, meditation practices lead to numerous benefits in all aspects of our life, spiritual, mental, emotional and physical.
At the core, these practices provide us with much needed mindful pauses. Too often, when we face undesirable external situations or stimulants, we react/respond without pausing.
It was Victor Frankl who said – “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
If we are more aware, then we are able to find the space between stimulus and response. With practice we can increase that space to respond more mindfully in our everyday life situations and not feel compelled to react based on our emotions that lead to suffering in self and others. In the next article we will focus on some real-life situations where being aware can guide us in navigating challenging life situations more skillfully.
