Well-being from Buddhist Meditation
You don't have to be a Buddhist to gain benefit from Buddha’s teachings. That's because they can work for us without us having to believe in any deity figure in the way other religions require you to. There is similarity here to Yoga teachings and practices that derive from Hindu traditions; these too can be adopted beneficially without commitment to belief in deity figures even though deities abound in Hindu systems.
It's as simple as this: anyone is free to listen to buddhist teachings and weigh them up against their own experience. Those of us who find the teachings make sense in this way naturally want to apply them and use them as aids in our lives.
We all vary in terms of what we want from spiritual teachings. Some seek greater understanding while others simply want to learn ways to find a greater peace and contentment in their lives, which is fine.
Meditation, as practised not just in Buddhism but in other systems, helps us to find greater peace of mind. What the buddhist teachings do is to help us extend and apply what we gain from meditation into our lives as a whole.
Meditation practiced in the buddhist way brings a greater sense of ease not just within ourselves but in relation to those around us. What better reason could there be to keep on practising it? If one’s meditation seemed to be isolating and cutting one off from others, one would sensibly ask whether one is doing it right!
What does practising meditation in the buddhist way involve? Firstly, we listen to some simple explanations of how Buddhists are taught to see the world. It is open to anyone to do this without actually becoming a Buddhist themselves. For those of us with an open and inquiring mind any such refreshing of our vision of the world will feed naturally into whatever spiritual path we find ourselves on.
A key Buddhist teaching asks us to adopt and examine the idea that there is a natural, deep-rooted interconnectedness between ourselves and others. The closer we get towards a genuine sense of the truth of that through meditation and experience in life, the greater our sense of wellbeing and happiness will be.
One of the main methods used by Buddhists is to practice systems of cultivating loving kindness and compassion that have evolved over many centuries.
We introduce some of these methods in our classes at Bhuti. You don't need to be a Buddhist to be able to practise them and, most importantly, to gain benefit from them. For kindness and compassion are innate qualities that we all possess. The meditation techniques we introduce are simply skilful means to bring them to the surface of our experience; means of tapping that inner resource we all have.
Anyone who wants to is welcome to drop into one of our classes and see for themselves what they could get from this Buddhist approach to meditation. We know that many have done just that and been able to feed what they have learned into their own spiritual journey. You are most welcome to come and do the same. No need to sign up to anything.