theas meditation uh is an important aspect in the Buddhist Meditation uh practice the Buddha taught two main forms of meditation one is called uh the calming meditation or samata meditation and the second is called the the inside meditation or or vipasana so the word vipasana means seeing reality as it is it's a technique of training the mind to observe the body and the mind from moment to moment in order to uh kind of see how the body and mind functions from moment to moment and gain insights into the reality of impermanence and change that's always
going on within the body the teachings of theas come from the Buddha's original teachings original teachings on the four foundations of mindfulness which are his main teachings on the development of of insight and the purpose of the meditation is to see into the uh realities of the body and mind and to be able to uh change the negative influences of of our mind that bring us suffering uh so if we pass meditation is a basically a process of uh training the mind to to go inside to be pass is also called inside meditation because most
people have outside that means their their attention is focused outside of themselves so we pass to the meditation we train the mind to uh look inside and these days there's two main uh popular techniques of repasa meditation one developed by uh and popularized by teacher Nam Kinka and the other method is a technique that was taught by bur meditation Master Mah so these two techniques of vasana are the ones that are most uh commonly taught in the Western countries but both of these techniques uh of theas were were taken from the general larger body of
the four foundations of mindfulness uh in order to uh direct the attention uh of the mind inside first one has to uh become uh calm and focused in the present moment so the practice of vasana uh basically is a practice of uh training the mind to stay in the present moment with the the body and breathing and then to develop concentration and once uh as you begin uh the Mind stays in the body longer and longer uh and developing concentration you'll be able to to see the impermanence of the sensations of the body and also
to be able to uh observe your mind now the the main purpose of the meditation again is to uh overcome suffering Buddha made this very clearly in his teachings uh the whole purpose of the system of training and by the Buddha was to overcome suffering and suffering has its Origins uh in the mind and we create suffering through our actions of the body and speech and the body and the speech gets us all involved in the in the law of K and the cause and effects of the our speech and actions that bring painful results
and the the essence of this uh training and the purpose of theas is is summed up in these two verses of the dhama part by the Buddha which he said all actions are led by the Mind mind mind is their Master mind is their maker if one acts or speaks with an impure state of mind then suffering will follow if the part real follows the foot of the op in the same way if one acts or speaks with the pure state of mine then happiness will follow as your Shadow follows you without the party so
it's true that all suffering arises within our mind but uh we can't reach our mind where most people are not able to control their impulses and thoughts and reactions and so they remain caught up in this repetitive cycle of uh repetitive actions of body speech and mind that uh bring them conflicts and suffering so the only way to reach the mind is by uh going through the body the body is considered to be the the Gateway of the Mind body is considered to be the house of the Mind the Mind operates uh within this body
with its brain and nervous system and so if we want to be able to change our negative uh uh thoughts and impulses we have to uh go to their Source we have to uh be able to go into where these thoughts and impulses are originating and make the changes there so that is the the technique of apost meditation is learning to train our mind to go through the body and through the deeper levels of the mental process to arrive at the the source of thought uh and there's five levels that uh the Mind goes through
or five layers of our body mind that uh we go through in the in the practice of the theas meditation and the first stage is we we bring the mind to the body the mind is normally wandering in the outside and so we have to train the mind to first to get to the body and become grounded and focused uh in the present moment the first stage of uh theas meditation or mindfulness meditation is bringing the Mind back to the body so that uh they are functioning in coordination and the minds are resting in the
present moment and in the training is we we train ourself to remember you know what the body is doing in the present moment or the breath the breath is also a major factor used training in uh POS meditation we uh we have to develop concentration as well there's three the three main things that are developed uh during uh theas meditation the three uh main qualities of the mind we develop in the vasana and the first is the pl out sound uh the mindfulness uh which is uh learning to observe uh the body in the present
moment and observe the breathing so you uh you tune in to feel the breathing uh either at the in the in the nostrils as the breath is coming into the nostrils or you feel the expanding and Contracting of the breathing and the abdomen stomach or the chest area and to remember remind oneself that one is breathing in and breathing out and in between the breaths you can feel the the posture sitting and reminding yourself that the body is sitting so the initial stages of of mindfulness is just remembering the present moment in fact the uh
the basic uh definition of mindfulness is remembering the present moment and remembering the present moment of what the body is doing right now so it's uh sitting in breathing and so you try to develop the concentration on remembering sitting and breathing uh for as long as you can and that develops uh concentration so the pl ATT tension or the mindfulness is remembering the present moment and the concentration is keeping the mind focused in the present moment not being distracted by uh a lot of external influences but while you're trying to do this the mind will
be disturbed by various sounds and thoughts and Body Sensations but you keep trying to let go of those distractions and bring the attention back to uh the body the present moment of the body sitting and breathing and so that's the the first kind of stage of of mindfulness is to develop that ability to hold the attention in the present moment for longer periods of time and then another aspect of the Theos means cultivating Insight so the and to see reality as it is actually the meaning of POS is seeing reality as it is but what
is the reality the reality is that uh our body and mind is changing at every moment or what is called the the flow of impermanence and everything is changing so we can observe that first in the body we observe how the breath is always changing it's impermanent the in breath comes and goes the out breath comes and goes there is Pains come and go and so many Sensations uh you know are constantly changing in the body so after the the mind has reached an initial stage of of uh centeredness with the the breathing in the
body then the attention can be more focused in the body itself and to to tune in to the body to feel the various Sensations changing uh from moment to moment is a technique where you can deliberately move the attention throughout the body from the uh the head to the feet or from the feet to the head and uh training the mind to try to feel the the subtler sensations of the body as they're arising and passing away so by keeping the mind and the body you also are able to develop a a subtler awareness so
that actually we're starting to see see under the skin of the body first on the outside you see the outside of a body but in the deposit meditation you allow the awareness uh to get under the skin and you start to feeling the uh you know the the reality of what the body is which means millions and billions of cells and molecules and atoms that are basically just uh arising and passing away changing going through the various processes of keeping the body alive that's the beginning of seeing impermanence is seeing the impermanence uh that's happening
Under the Skin and you can actually feel this as you're keeping the attention focused on the body you you start to feel so many different Sensations so this is the sort of the first stage in developing the P of insight the insight into the the continual changing of the body and of course uh the breathing so the the concentration the factor of concentration allows you to keep the the mind uh focused in the body and the the the mindfulness and the vasana is able to see the changes that are occurring within the body and within
the breathing and as you're observing the breathing you you begin to feel and subtler uh parts of the breathing process an important aspect of it is training tuning in to the uh beginning the middle and the end of the INB breath and the beginning the middle and the end of the out breath uh because each breath you know is not just one breath but it's composed of a many short uh uh movements so the in breath begins end it lasts a couple seconds and it stops the out breath begins last a couple seconds and then
then it stops so you deliberately train your mind to try to feel that beginning the middle and the end of each breath and then that same awareness of arising and passing away or arising and Vanishing is applied to other various Sensations that you may feel in the body and that holds your concent uh because there's uh within the body there's so many Sensations that are going on and while you're uh paying attention to the sensations of the body naturally other thoughts will come but if you notice a thought coming into the mind just try to
make a notice it know that you starting to think let go of the thought and keep bringing the Mind back to the present moment of the breathing body same for distracting sound if you hear some distracting sound that's pulling the attention you be aware or make a a brief mental note of hearing hearing it's just sound and try not to think about the sound but letting go of it and bringing the attention back to the present moment of breathing in sitting breathing out sitting or uh feeling the various Sensations coming and going in the body
and because we we easily get distracted by things coming in from the senses especially sounds thoughts and bodily pains if a pain arises within the body you make that pain a focus of the attention as well uh to see how even that pain is just made up of lots of small sensation and learn to uh detach from that so uh the first stage of your process really is uh centering the mind in the body in the present moment and tuning into the impermanence of the body and learning to deal with the distractions that are coming
in from pains thoughts and sounds to uh in order to let go of them to develop one's uh concentration and mindfulness this is also the the first stage of the wisdom uh which is the wisdom of seeing how everything changes in our body and mind
