Taking a Look at Budhist Precepts - 851 Words

I. Meditation: The impermanence of all things includes meditation. While you are wholly in one moment, the moments change – there is not simply one breath, but another breath that follows. If you hold your breath, you will pass out. Eventually an individual will stop breathing. But another will continue. Focusing on being in the moment, being where you are, you can see that even meditation is not permanent. This â€Å"spiritual practice hones skills, including the religiously valued to do one thing†¦to do everything we do with full attention.† (Burford 2003) â€Å"We tend to see body, breath, and mind separately, but in zazen they come together as one reality. The first thing to pay attention to is the position of the body in zazen.† (Zazen Instructions 2012) This attentiveness will sink into the ability to pay attention to only the body, and then only the breath. Hopefully, this will give an individual the ability to empty one’s self and see the blurred line that separates and unites the â€Å"self† and the â€Å"others.† The time and practice of meditation can help focus on basic patterns in life so they can be recognized and changed. This means a person can recognize what the reasons for their actions, the intentions and outcomes, recognizing the karma of these. Creating good karma allows one to better follow a path with less suffering, while suffering less will create more good karma. Meditation puts you into a position of being, which allows you to recognize the emotions of greed, hatred