What Meditation Practices Train

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In this episode, I explore the fifth of the six paramitas, or transcendent actions of the bodhisattva path: Meditative Absorption—sometimes just called meditation.

But this isn’t your typical “sit on the cushion and follow your breath” kind of conversation. We go deeper into what it means to live meditation—to carry the practice off the cushion and into our everyday experience.

Highlights from this episode:

• Why the Buddhist path is so much more than stress relief
   Meditation isn’t just about calming down or feeling better—though it may help with that. It’s a path of waking up, and of learning to live more fully and meaningfully.
  
  
  
• What meditative absorption really means
   On the cushion, we train our attention by returning again and again to an object—often the breath.

Off the cushion, meditative absorption means being fully present in our lives, moment to moment—absorbed in experience rather than just our thoughts about it.

• A deep inquiry into thought itself
  Where do thoughts come from? Where do they go? Can we remain absorbed in what lies beyond them?
  
  
  
• An exquisite (and challenging) passage from a traditional Buddhist text
  I read a short but powerful teaching on the nature of thought, mind, and perception—and how they are ultimately without a fixed basis.
  
  
  
• What is a Bodhisattva, really?
  Someone who vows to be of benefit to all beings—not because they’re a “good person,” but because, eventually, you realize… what else is there to do?
  
  
  
• My personal story of taking the Bodhisattva Vow
  Including what I gave up (and immediately wanted back), and why that experience still teaches me something today.
  
  
  
• The cloud and sky metaphor for meditation
  Your thoughts are the clouds. You are the sky. That sky-like awareness is what meditative absorption connects you to.
  
  
  

As always, you don’t have to be a Buddhist to find value in these teachings. The dharma is vast, pragmatic, and endlessly nuanced. I share what I’ve learned through 30+ years of practice, not because I have the answers—but because these teachings continue to challenge and change me.

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Produced by Citizens of Sound

Music by: Derek O'Brien

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