Download Italian Newspaper article interview on meditation

"What is meditation and what are the Jhanas?"
Meditation is exercise for our consciousness. Just as we exercise the body, we need to exercise
our consciousness for it to be strong, flexible and fit. Brain research shows that meditation
actually changes and enhances the grey matter of the brain.
Meditation purifies our mind-stream, and allows us to be in more contact with our deeper nature,
beyond our thoughts and emotions. When we meditate, we return to the object of meditation
(which for many types of meditation is the breath) every time that we notice that our attention
has wandered away. By doing this in a gentle way, without self-judgement, we de-condition our
habitual thought patterns and build our capacity for “calm abiding’ with the breath. Just as we
build muscle through physical exercise, we build the capacity for concentration and mindful
awareness through meditation.
The jhanas are meditative states of deep concentration. As our meditation practice deepens over
time, and especially on longer meditation retreats, there is the potential for our mind-stream to
become so unified and one-pointed, that our awareness is absorbed into this special state which
can be accompanied by profound joy and even bliss. The jhanas are found in both the Buddhist
tradition (in books such as the suttas and the Visuddhimagga) as well as the yogic tradition (as
found in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.)
"Is this practice suitable for anyone?"
Concentration meditation, also known as samatha meditation, is a practice suitable for anyone. It
is the first practice that the Buddha instructed people to undertake when they came to him for
teaching. The instructions are simple—although anyone who has tried to meditate knows that it
is not always easy! In its most basic form, what one does is to breathe (which we are already
doing, so that’s not too difficult), and know that we are breathing (rather than being distracted by
thoughts and emotions.) In the practice that we teach, the breath is noticed specifically in the area
between the nostrils and the upper lip. This facilitates deepening of one’s concentration more
quickly.
"How did you learn this practice?"
We both started meditating in 1976, but were doing other types of meditation at that time. We
learned concentration meditation (the practice we now teach) in 2005, from the Venerable Pa
Auk Sayadaw of Burma, who is considered the most accomplished living master of the jhanas on
the planet today. We attended a 2-month retreat he taught in California. We were two of the first
Western lay people to complete the entire samatha path of practice in his lineage. He encouraged
us to “build bridges” to make these traditional practices more accessible to modern Western
people, and he authorized us to teach in 2007. We also wrote our book, Practicing the Jhanas,
which was endorsed by the Sayadaw and has been translated into both Italian and Korean. We
have also done other practices such as Theravadan Vipassana, Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, yoga, and
qi gong—so we understand the spiritual lives of modern people who have many practices
available to them and aren’t going to become monastics.
"What benefits may one expect from meditation?”
Meditation has many practical benefits, as described above. The word “samatha” means both
concentration and serenity, which are both important capacities to cultivate in modern life.
Serenity is sorely needed in today’s chaotic world, and meditation can give us a special time of
day when we sit quietly without having to do anything except rest our awareness on our breath,
which is very calming. Concentration helps us stay with one task to completion—which is
needed for success in almost any endeavor—and counteracts the effects of our cellphone / media
driven society and shorter attention spans.
On a spiritual level, the samatha practice is also known as “purification of mind.” What this
means is that, as we deepen our mediation practice, we not only see our habitual ways of
thinking that cause us to suffer, but these habits can also start changing. Through the meditation,
we learn to recognize and turn away from these “habits of mind”—to not be so at the effect of
them. Ultimately, we can have glimpses of what we are, that is beyond the conditioned ways that
we know ourselves. What are we, beyond our body, our personality, our work and our
relationships? There is a deeper nature within all of us—our true nature, that is free from
suffering. And, we can know this directly, through meditation. Then, as the Buddha said, we
don’t have to take anyone’s word for it, because we know it directly, for ourselves. And that can
become a very meaningful part of our lives.