【Description】
“As troubles subside, murky water shall clear.”
Such is the analogy chosen by Meditation Master JinBodhi in this teaching to explain the process of meditation. Using an easy going approach and accessible language, he tells us how meditation helps people to see through to natural laws, clarify chaotic thoughts, tap into innate wisdom, recover mental and physical health, and hence create a joyful life. This teaching embodies the truth that the great Way is actually simple and easy.
【Content】
Today, I have this opportunity to chat with all friends, old and new. It is not a formal class, but it may help you physically or mentally. While you are listening to me, sit relaxed, and loosen your belt if it is tight, but don’t loosen it so much that your pants fall off when you stand up. That would be too much. Keep your wallet; it is safer. Just relax.
A Chinese enlightened person, Laozi, was asked: What is Tao (the Way)? Laozi said, “It is really hard to explain. The Way that can be spoken cannot be the unvarying Way. It is roughly like this.” Eventually, he managed to describe the inexplicable. But meditation seems a bit easier. Let’s visualize its concept: The action of sitting there and calming down can be roughly called meditation. After this visual picture, there are also a variety of meditation methods. Our school uses visualization. Visualize something. We humans are smart; besides being able to move, we can also think. Most of our thinking is visual. Thus, we use our visualization to meditate. We often visualize compassion and light.
Schools using this method may number as many as ten. Our school has our unique visualization, more open, healthier, less likely to lead people astray. A deeper look reveals that there is standing meditation such as “The Meditation of Greater Illumination.” I find that it is much more beneficial than sitting. Standing makes the energy channels open and become unblocked. Many diseases are caused by blockages. Thus, Chinese Medicine says: If you are unblocked, you are free of pain; if there is pain, there are probably blockages. An saying goes, “Pain indicates blockages.” Thus, we stand to meditate to clear the blockages easily. In fact, we do both, sitting and standing meditations, and now include Energy Bagua practice. This is far from enough. To counter health issues, I also teach you to do prostrations.
When we prostrate, we eradicate our arrogance and ego. In the past, in the process of learning and teaching meditation, usually students must eradicate their strong ego. After eradicating it, they can 100 percent or perfectly receive Master’s teaching. When Master teaches you his experience, the truths he has realized, and even gives his energy to you, if you have ego and attachment, you will analyze and repel. This will automatically filter out much of what your master teaches you. However, in practicing dharma and meditation, your master has way more wisdom than you. Thus, if a student uses his own logic to measure his master, it is wrong; the student is wrong, and the teacher is right. Though the teacher is right, a student without that much wisdom may not be able to understand their master’s correctness. Thus, what you filter out may be some invaluable experience. So, one method I teach you is prostration, throwing your body on the floor to respect your master; by doing so, we deliberately eradicate our self-attachment.
Our holistic meditation method allows everyone to obtain the best knowledge, energy, and wisdom to meet their needs. The origin of meditation is untraceable now, but according to my own understanding, all over the world, from Europe to Asia, to ancient India, it has been discovered that through meditation, or worshiping Heaven and deities, one can connect with things ordinary people don’t know. Ancients discovered this. Thus, in ancient times, in a community, or a tribe, two kinds of people are the most authoritative.
You have watched the movie Avatar, with the blue aliens, haven’t you? (Yes.) In the movie, there is an alien tribe, right? Two people are the leaders of the tribe: The first is the chief who has the strongest overall ability; the second chief is a very respectable person. What kind of person is he? Can you remember? No? Let me tell you: He has spiritual or psychic power. At that time, there was no phone or modern technology. If they wanted to know something, they relied on someone who had spiritual power to tell the people that a natural disaster was coming, or it was time to harvest, or time for people to store more fruit, such as pears, or plant watermelons, because summer was coming. These ancient people depended on psychic people who guided their lives to best benefit them.
Thus, in ancient times, in almost every region and in every tribe, a person with spiritual power was needed and well respected. These spiritually powered people knew many things ordinary people didn’t. Some spiritually powered people discovered that to be more spiritual and inspirational, they must meditate.
It’s hard to trace when meditation originated, maybe 5,000 or 10,000 years ago. I guess it is even earlier than 10,000 years ago. So, meditation was neither invented by Chinese Taoism nor by Indian Buddhism. It was earlier ancestors who invented this method.
In Vancouver, a few years ago, when I started to teach meditation, people from different cultures and races asked me the same question, “Why can meditation benefit our health?” It is hard to explain. At the time I used a simple analogy to explain, which may not be 100 percent correct. I said, “If we used a transparent pail to get water from a running river, observe it. This water should be turbid and full of mud, sand, grass, wood, and dust floating on the surface. Usually after two hours, the heavy stuff, like mud and sand, will sink to the bottom; the light ones will float on the surface. The middle of the water is relatively clean. Meditation, I mean beginner meditation, is like separating the complicated, chaotic things in
the mind into several layers. Set aside the complications and afflictions and keep the pure, calm part. With purity and calmness, when we think things over again, we may find things are really simple.”
Some may lose their temper over something minor. After meditating for a while, that is not so easy to do so. For instance, when you have a bad stomachache, as a person in charge of an organization, can you chair a reasonable meeting or negotiate with your business partner? If you are young, can you date happily? Of course, some injured people still can date, though the date could be affected because our emotions are affected by our body and physical pain. Also, when chaos fills our brain, even when facing something minor, our brain tends not to accept or see it clearly, but instead tends to dislike it. When we are vexed and hear something, we don’t think at all, and say, “I don’t want to see.” Or “I don’t care, leave me alone.” We use words of rejection. Such emotion can lead to disharmony amongst family and colleagues. It is clear that our mind is filled with too much stuff.
Once we calm down, we discover it is not a problem. Something seems to bother us today, but it no longer does after meditation. Only when our mind is pure and calm, can it work normally, easily accepting happy or vexing things, and untangling them more easily. If we are clear, our affliction is gone automatically. Thus, I use the analogy of the turbid water to describe the initial benefit of beginner meditation. It works for our mind; does it also work for our health? Yes. It does. Thus, our health is undeniably related to our mental judgment and guidance. Our health may be directly related to the purity and calmness of our mind. This pure, calm behavior of meditation purifies and calms not only our mind but also our physical body.
The human body is complex. Every molecule or atom of the human body is composed of different elements. When we have a pure, calm behavior and a healthy, compassionate consciousness, what we receive are those elements that bring our body health, joy, and help; we are absorbing those elements. Through visualization and calm, pure movements, we can eradicate or regulate the complicated, harmful part of our body. Maybe emotions, injuries, or infection cause the imbalance in our body. If we create balance through pure, calm meditation, health is regained. Meditation seems inconceivable. To many Chinese minds, meditation is the thing that a minority of senior philosophers and monks study. Now, we apply it to our life, our physical and mental health, and we benefit.
Meditation Improves Our Holistic Health – Its Effect Arises from Built-up Physical Energy
As for its effect on our health, I have been teaching and observing that meditation’s benefit to health is comprehensive, helping conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, which is bone and joint pain, which so many adults have. It is common. Bodhi Meditation helps this type of illness significantly. Everyone can experience such benefit; it is especially effective in healing rheumatoid arthritisrelated illnesses.
When I was 16 or 17 years old, I was sleeping in a tent of a nomad, and it was windy in the tent. On the prairie of the plateau, the wind was very strong. During the day, I did some manual labor for the nomads. I was tired and my lower back, especially, hurt. After the wind had penetrated my lower back, I could hardly sit up the next day or even stand up. After I struggled to stand up, I couldn’t bend my lower back. At the time, my kung fu did not help. No cure. Very painful. Later they sent me to TCM and Western doctors. They tried to cure me, but the excruciating pain was still there. An X-ray did not show any problem with the bone, but my lower-back pain was unbearable. One doctor said it was strained lumbar muscles. I did not understand the term the doctor used for the pain. There was just no cure. After my master found out, he asked me, “Do you think you can recover?”
I said, “I have lost hope. It seems that I am going to be a beggar for the rest of my life, crawling on the ground, because I can’t work anymore.” Such lumbar pain was so unbearable. My master had some kung fu, a bit more advanced than mine; he just waved at my lower back a few times, and toward a blanket he chanted a mantra and blew. When the blanket was put on my lumbar spine, I felt like it was an electric blanket heating me up, which I couldn’t bear and sweated. I woke up feeling so hot, and I rushed to open the door. Hey, how come I could move? My back pain was gone. I felt it was really miraculous. Later, when I taught others, some of whom had severe lumbar and leg pain, the rheumatic type, a quick, significant effect was achieved.
Two years ago, in Singapore, the mother of our center’s director, she was 73 or 76 years old, was reluctant to walk because of her leg pain. If she had to leave home, she would ask ahead of time if she would take an elevator or stairs to visit someone. If it was a two-storey old house without an elevator, then she wouldn’t go, because she was afraid of walking up the stairs because of the leg pain. She came to learn meditation with me. She only learned one method of Bodhi Meditation, Energy Bagua. After she practiced it for 108 days, or 108 hours, I went to see her. This old mother, in front of me, squatted, then jumped, telling me that she could run upstairs, not just walk upstairs. Her legs recovered so well. Hearing this, newcomers may think I am bragging, that it is too miraculous to believe. She spent 108 days practicing Energy Bagua for one hour each day, and she had such a result. This is an example I saw.
Illnesses of the internal organs can also be healed. The human body has many parts, including the bones. Rheumatism is an illness in the bones. Humans also have internal organs. There is the head as well. These are the three main parts. For the internal-organ part, people’s healing varies because of differing karma; I have heard of successful healing of almost every kind of organ disease here. The recoveries were very good. The healed cases include some severe illnesses, such as liver cancer, pancreatic illness or diabetes, chronic diarrhea, mysterious illnesses, heart problems, and so on. Skin illness is also included. Four days ago, in the evening, I came to see the Energy Bagua friends. One of them told me that two years ago, he had a severe skin problem. After he practiced Energy Bagua off and on for a year, it disappeared. Very good. Thus, meditation has multiple effects on illness.
Generally speaking, though it sounds miraculous, I believe many come to practice for a purpose. Say, they want to eradicate their lumbar pain. Though the lumbar pain still exists after one year of practice, other physical problems may be healed. This happens because people’s physical structures and causes of illness vary. The recovery also relates to our life, work, diet, and habit. If you have lumbar pain, you often bend your back at work and do labor, then in the process of recovery, the pain may come back again. If your back is recovering, and you have to work the next day, continuing to bend and do labor, then it is hard to recover.
For some people, their illnesses relate to their diet; some may have a severe allergy. After they practice for a while, it is gone, but then it comes back a few days later. Because they are eating food they are allergic to. If we live a reasonable, healthy lifestyle, we may gain health.
Let’s come back to Bodhi Meditation. Its comprehensive healing effect comes from the built-up of physical energy. It builds up, strengthens our energy to fight existing illnesses or prevent potential ones. That is how it works. It is also my responsibility to share my experience in diet and lifestyle. Some have a heart problem, but still go gambling, right? After winning, they may die due to over excitement. People with a heart problem cannot stand great sorrow or great happiness. Losing can easily cause a heart attack, especially losing lots of money. It brings much pain to the heart. If people with a normal heart go gambling, they will easily get it. Many health problems are caused by our lifestyle. If you want to truly become healthy, you need to form healthier habits, avoid or change the unhealthy ones, then we will be healthier. Don’t say, “I have a good method to control my heartbeat after I lose in gambling, or I am fine after taking a cold drink.” If such a method exists, it is just temporary sensation loss; your life span will be short. It is like drinking a narcotic; it is wrong.
Bodhi Meditation is usually helpful to our holistic health. If you want to have a better result, practice more. I usually suggest that since you have learned it, keep practicing. Don’t wait till you are ill; it will be a bit late. It is better to prevent illness than take pills after you fall ill. Also, some illnesses may seem healed, but may only be healed partially; you just don’t feel it anymore. A more serious problem may remain latent. OK, that is my suggestions for you.
To drug-takers, Bodhi Meditation should be beneficial, but we haven’t experimented with a group of drug addicts. We haven’t organized such a class, but people who take drugs have come to us. Fifteen years ago, in China, some drug addicts came to Bodhi Meditation. One quit drug-taking. But the damage to his health was very obvious. When that person came, he was in his 20s. He stole and borrowed from all his relatives and friends and spent it all; his whole family was broke because of his drug-taking. He was very lucky to be able to quit drugs after 100 days. The addiction didn’t returned. A few years later, he saw me and was excited. To me, this 30-year-old looked like a 60-year-old because his teeth were gone, his face was full of black speckles, and his spirit or energy all seemed wrong. He told me his story. The damage caused by his drug-taking was severe. Compared to a normal person, he felt like he was an alien. The harm was significant. He cannot do manual labor now because taking drugs made him weak. But he had quit his addiction.
In America, in the past ten years or so, there have been a few drug-addicts who came to Bodhi Meditation and quit drug-taking. We just didn’t experiment with a group. If you have a drug-taking relative or friend who wants to stop, they can come and try practicing. My requirement is that they keep practicing for 100 days. For serious drug-takers who are unable to work, my requirement is that for 100 days, they have got to practice three hours daily, 300 hours in 100 days will surely yield a good result. For people with a minor illness, practice for 100 days and one hour per day should be enough, 100 hours in total. Come to experience it. But, if one wants to complete the 100 hours in a couple of weeks, its effect is poor. So eight hours at most for a day is required.
However, for some who like to practice, the limit can exceed ten hours. If you have a good foundation, and have practiced for over two years, you can practice up to ten to fourteen hours. When I was young, I meditated fourteen hours each day. Because of my good foundation, I sat there motionless and fully concentrated. I had no leg pain, back pain, didn’t want to go shopping, or do other things. As I sat there, I forgot time. Thus, one meditation can last for over ten hours. When I was out of meditation, I just felt it had been just half an hour. I started to meditate before dawn, but when I was out of meditation at dusk, it was dark; I wondered why it was still dark, and I thought it was still dawn. To me, it just seemed half an hour. It is better if you could practice like this. For people without foundation, it is very hard to enter such a state.
Meditation Develops Wisdom and Inspiration, Increasing Overall Ability
If you enter such a state, you will have more energy; you are more inspired. Especially for improved intelligence, I am a good example. When I was young, I was a blockhead, a stupid person. Now, though not very smart, I am much smarter than when I was young. I remember people and simple things, and can make good judgments. To me, intelligence development is the number-one benefit. Dozens of years ago, in my home country, China, some middle-school and university teachers and I did some experiments. They played the children the mantra and songs; I sang and taught them my mediation methods. Usually, those distracted students with minds that easily wandered from the body, and who sat here but whose soul was at home or in the park, do poorly at school or get little of what is taught. For a normal student, teaching them three times is enough, but distracted students need to be taught 30 times. But through a short period of meditation, their memory improved a lot; their focus and thinking ability improved significantly. Thus, learning meditation will surely enhance our intelligence.
In Asia, books about modern and ancient meditation masters are plentiful. The masters’ talks are full of wisdom, philosophical truths and words that make us leave suffering and gain happiness. Meditation truly develops our intelligence. It surely helps seniors delay mental degeneration, and youths become smart. Its use is wide and multiple. It awakens wisdom and our spiritual power. Sometimes it is hard to tell between wisdom and inspiration. Spiritual inspiration is a miracle. Wisdom allows us to think. Through analysis, we draw a conclusion, which is usually called wisdom. But inspiration is beyond our imagination, analysis, and logical thinking.
For instance, once I used inspiration to heal a child’s diarrhea. This boy was a teen who had serious diarrhea. No medicine worked for him. After his parents found me, since I had many patients, I didn’t have time to think about what the problem was. I just looked for the cure with my inspiration. Instantly, I got an idea: drink a few bowls of water. At that time, they used a well for water. After drinking the water, he recovered. The water was un-boiled, and he took no medicine. He just drank it. Normally, for a diarrhea patient, drinking well water that is not even from the tap is unimaginable, so the mother opposed it, “What? Let him drink water?” But the kid joyfully accepted it. He was willing, “OK. I’ll drink. Mom, bring the water.” His mom was very surprised. She did as asked and brought the kid the water. Simply said, after drinking the water, he recovered. According to common sense, both Westerners and Easterners think giving water to patients with serious diarrhea just doesn’t make sense. Was it my experience? No. It was inspiration. I had never tried this before. It was the first case for me. Instantly, I got an inspiration – Drink water. Then he recovered. It was as easy as that.
With regard to developing inspiration, some are very interested in it. Throughmeditation, we can increase inspiration. Once our overall ability becomes stronger, it benefits everything we do. Thus, meditation can develop inspiration, as well as increase and extend our overall ability. In the past, especially prior to 500 years ago, great achievers in each generation were spiritually inspired. You may research: In Chinese history, all recorded people of note were meditation masters. At least, 5000 years ago, there were not any iron weapons. In China, there was a Northern Emperor named “Yellow Emperor.” When he fought with the chief of the South, they each had many people and horses. When this emperor was losing, he used a method, a certain dharmic power (only people with dharmic power can lead this group) to make heavy smog rise from the earth, which is not smog from burning straw. People couldn’t see each other in the smog. The other party must first recognize the direction; at the time they used a smart invention, a method unknown to me, called a “compass chart.” If you read Chinese history, you will know this chart indicated directions. Thus, in ancient times, when technology was limited, there were such spiritual people. These well-recognized masters’ skills are used in all aspects of life: military, agriculture, medicine, weather, and astrology. The best known figures, Confucius, Laozi, Xunzi, and Zhuangzi, all end with “zi” meaning “saints”. These saints are meditation masters. Meditation can bring us many benefits.
Meditation Brings Us Liberation – See Through & Let Go
If you come to meditate, you obtain happiness and health. That is liberation. Also, many people pursue a higher spiritual state, which is also considered “liberation”. Thus, liberation is a general concept. It is like happiness that is not absolute. There is not a fixed definition of happiness. If we feel happy right now, it is called happiness. What is liberation? It is to unbind the fetters, the bondage that traps us. If you are bound because you committed a crime, you lost your freedom. To liberate is to be released from the bondage or pressure. This, we call liberation. The bondage includes the suffering of illness, mental suffering, afflictions, and pressure caused by poverty, all of which can bring confinement and pressure. If we take them off, unbind them, it is called liberation. When your marriage brings you suffering, you fix the problem through divorce or reconciliation, and you stop the suffering; it is called liberation. For example, someone’s house used to be worth $1 million; but due to a war between two countries, the oil price jumps up, and the house depreciates by half a million. Because of this, many may suffer. Once an economic crisis arises, almost all intelligent people, those listening to the news, start to suffer. When they find out the NASDAQ has dropped a few points, their hearts bleed, “My God, what suffering! My blood is gone.” I took care to observe these type of people in the States, Canada, and Taiwan. Especially in the States, someone groaned to me, “Master, help, please. Please help the NASDAQ. It drops every day, and my blood is almost gone.” Wow, he’s like a poet. “Please give me some help.”
Then I blessed him and said, “You’re lucky to have met me. The NASDAQ has started to bounce back.”
He kept asking, “Really?”
“True, don’t you feel you have more blood now?”
“I feel quite dizzy now.” Such people are like that. Ah, all beings are truly in suffering.
Liberation is surely related to afflictions, right? Affliction never ends. When it reaches a certain place, does it end? No. It is more like a running champion, who can reach the finishing line on the track, but never in life, be he a champion or not. Every day, every year of our life, repeats itself. So liberation never ends. Right after your liberation today comes another affliction tomorrow. Say, you eventually regain your health, then a mortgage issue arises. After the purchase of your house, you lose your job. Another financial crisis arises. Right? Once the financial issue is fixed, your children begin to have problems. Problems never end.
Then how to liberate? There are four Chinese words used by our ancestors, which I am not wise enough to have coined – see through, let go. After we see through the laws of matters, we will not be afflicted by phenomena manifested by them. As I mentioned just now, we have control neither over birth nor death. That being so, what’s the use of being scared? Does grief help? I would hold a goodbye funeral before death. This is called “see through”. We will die anyway. If we see the truth, we will not be scared and afflicted. What torments us most is nothing but critical illness, death, divorce, or breakup. These bring people great distress. However, if we see through these, the hurt is much reduced. The aforementioned is “see through.”
Also, you should let go of any suffering including mentally unbearable, miserable feelings. They are natural phenomena, you just accept that. Say, having a cold leads to neither death nor serious problems, but if you take pills, the bitterness can be tasted. Just swallow them with water, and you will be fine. It is as simple as that. No need to be scared that before taking pills, you vow, shiver, and struggle. Such extreme emotion is unnecessary. It is too much. So, if we see through, we can liberate. Many things have their natural laws.
When I was initially teaching dharma a few years ago in Vancouver, one of my students called me one day. He seemed impatient and sounded impolite.
“Master, I got into a car accident.” His impoliteness was understandable under the circumstances.
I asked, “You’re not injured, are you?”
“No.” I sensed his extreme emotion when he talked to me.
I said, “Did you call 911?”
“Yes.”
I said, “How come you are so mad?”
He said, “I don’t understand. I have learned meditation and become your disciple. Why did I still get into a car accident?”
Upon hearing this, I wasn’t in a good mood either, but I saw through his mentality and told him, “Without learning meditation and becoming my disciple, you would have become wreckage just like your car, and you wouldn’t have been able to call me.”
“Really?”
“Probably.”
His car was a total loss, but he was totally fine and continued going to work. After he saw me, he repented to me: “Master, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have called you in a foul mood. I couldn’t understand then.”
“It doesn’t matter. It is good that you now understand it because you see through this event. When driving, you cannot always avoid accidents. That is normal. Either you or the other party didn’t control it well.”
He said, “The other party crashed into me.” I said, “He didn’t do it on purpose. Maybe because he was distracted, had a heart attack, or improperly steered or braked, his car crossed the line and caused this accident. No one wants to have car accidents. You are lucky not to have an injury. Why did you lose your temper? You should have been happy or laughed.” But, when the police come, don’t laugh. If you do, you’d be sent to a lunatic asylum thinking you became mad after the car accident. So don’t laugh even though you feel happy. So after awakening, you also need to take care of your facial expression. Thus, when we see through the laws of matters, we will have less affliction.
A decade ago, the wife of a guy who did very well in stocks and funds came to learn meditation with me; later, her husband joined us and asked me: “How can we avoid the risks in stock trading?” Stock trading is very risky; they are volatile every day. The heartbeat of many good stock traders and managers keeps pace with the volatility of stocks. When stocks drop a little bit, these people don’t sleep well. If people work in the stock market for ten years, their life span will be shortened by at least 20 years. It is as troublesome as this. It is really heartbreaking; few people can stand it.
When he asked me for advice, I said, “Stop investing in stocks and funds. Investment is worrisome.” The question of how to avoid the dropping of stock prices is immature. It is like the sea. When we sit at the beach, the sea will always ebb and flow, which is a natural law. It is the same for the stock market. Why do I say so? The involvement of a large number of investors makes it as uncontrollable as the sea. It is out of an individual’s control. Thus, it is volatile. If we don’t want to lose in the stock market, do not buy any stocks.
Some suggest: Since we have invested in companies with relatively good performance, we should hold them for a while or a long time. When they rise, trade them. Don’t wait for the highest price, then you will succeed. Isn’t it a simple truth However, people always expect a higher price. When the price has doubled, they want it tripled. When they wait, the price suddenly drops by half. How to solve the problem? Don’t be greedy. If we are not greedy, we will win. Otherwise, we will lose. Even though there could be a three-fold increase, don’t be greedy; we have made a 50 percent profit, and we should stop craving more; sell it. You have got your profit, right? It is such a simple truth. Why do we lose? We are too greedy. Ignore others’ greedy comments. It is our money; it is us and our family who bear the emotional upheavals money brings. If we can convince ourselves, good enough. No need to take our cue from others.
You are welcome here to learn more often. Such a session offers only a brief introduction. If you want to know more, further learning is necessary. Then you can really grasp and use the teachings.