There is a Secret Key to Meditation

There is a Secret-Sauce for a Solid Meditation Foundation. Well, it’s not really secret, but it’s not directly discussed. At least not in the West.

My meditation journey has been a little bit odd, especially for a Westerner. I talk about this a lot, but if you’re new, I’ll explain.

Though I tried to study meditation through books and self study, I wasn’t successful until I went to study in Thailand. Learning to meditate was a beneficial byproduct as far as I was concerned because I’d traveled there to study Traditional Thai Massage.

For those who don’t know, Thai Massage is a Buddhist practice. It was typically taught in temples, or in the home. I learned from a traditional healer in her home in Northern Thailand. She converted her largest room into a treatment room with one large platform where learning and treatments all happened at the same time. The only other thing in that room was her Buddhist altar, which was also where you paid your tuition.

Because it’s a Buddhist practice, Buddhist principles and rituals are part of studying and offering Thai Massage. This includes a prayer that you do before you work on anyone. The purpose for the prayer is to thank the teachers who handed down the tradition through your lineage, and to make sure you’re in the right mindset before you go touching anyone.

This prayer was my first experience with Mantra Meditation, and it was the key that unlocked meditation for me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was also being taught the secret to a strong meditation foundation. Even though there’s the intention to teach this in a lot of Buddhist environments here in the West, I think it often gets lost in translation.

I’m lucky, having studied in Asia and under Asian teachers. It was most directly covered when I went through my Lay Buddhist Teacher training. So I’m going to be very clear about the missing ingredients, because they’re so important. 

The secret for a strong meditation foundation consists of two parts. One comes before the other. The first is morality. Morality in Buddhism isn’t as simple as it’s often framed in the West. Everything you do plays into whether you’re a moral person. The impact you have on others, regardless of your intention, is part of this as well.

What does this mean, you may ask. It means that there’s no situation where you can engage in questionable ethics and claim “it’s just business”. In Buddhism, that’s not a thing. What is a thing is “right livelihood”. This means that you need to choose a vocation and conduct yourself in your work in a way that’s ethical. This can get really complicated, so we’re not going to go down that rabbit hole today.

Another aspect of this morality is that you can do harm when you have good intentions, so you’re responsible for that harm, even if you didn’t mean to hurt anyone. This piece of the morality is really important for the next part of the foundation for meditation.

This next piece is generosity. The deal is, without proper morality, you can’t have generosity. You need to be skillful, have good boundaries, and take responsibility for your impact to truly have generosity.

So that’s it. Morality and generosity. That’s the foundation, and in the West it’s often missing from meditation studies. People want to strengthen their mind, they want to change their mindset, some people want to achieve mystical powers, but without a foundation, your meditation practice rests on shaky ground.

Once you have a proper understanding of morality, and an embrace of generosity, you can begin to develop a strong meditation practice. The stronger your morality and generosity, the deeper your practice can go. So don’t be seduced by marketing telling you that you can deepen your practice through a gadget or smooth-talking teacher. The key is within you. 

In the meditation courses I’ve taught, the secret-sauce lesson is always my favorite. It gives the entire experience meaning. It helps you strengthen your mind in all the right ways; I know it’s helped me become a better person. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very flawed, but I’m doing better than I did before. In the future, I’ll be a better person than I am today. It’s all part of the journey.

If you’re not already one of my students, you’re invited to join me. Just make sure you’re on my list to be notified when the next course is open for registration.

*typos and errors provided for your entertainment.