Practicing Meditation
Living Skillfully January 11, 2022 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197587355.003.0005
Summary
The chapter discusses the Buddhist meditation practice found in the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, emphasizing mindfulness during everyday activities. It highlights that instead of rejecting emotions, bodhisattvas should cultivate them, with calming and concentration meditation helping to manage suffering. Vimalakirti is portrayed as both a practitioner and teacher of insight meditation, which serves as a tool for self-transformation and coping with life's inevitable challenges.
Study at a glance
| Key finding | Mindfulness and emotional sensitivity are integral to the bodhisattva path, with meditation practices aiding in managing suffering. |
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Abstract
Abstract This chapter describes the Buddhist practice of meditation as it appears in the early Mahayana context of the Vimalakīrti Sūtra. It stresses mindfulness as a state of mind cultivated in the midst of ordinary life activity. Rather than demanding the abandonment of the passions and emotional sensitivity, it encourages bodhisattvas to cultivate emotion as one essential element of life. That sensitivity is prevented from being an extreme source of suffering by calming and concentration meditation practices. Vimalakirti is described as practicing and teaching insight meditation throughout the sutra as a means of self-transformation and as a method to deal with the inevitable suffering in human life.