Recently in Higher RMPS we have been looking at the Buddhist practice of Meditation. Meditation is often a difficult concept for pupils to understand as, understandably, very few have encountered it before and any knowledge and understanding they do have is usually of meditation for relaxation purposes (which is quite different from Buddhist Meditation).
Pupils have been exploring the differences between Samatha (stilling) meditation and Vipassana (insight) meditation. As an introduction we looked at various calming images and thankas before trying a period of focussed meditation, concentrating on our breathing. As a stimulus I showed a meditation video downloaded from YouTube. As expected, several pupils found it all too much, but the majority of the class said, although it was hard, they could see the benefits of meditation as a regular practice.
For Vipassana meditation we discussed how hard it is to ‘strip away’ layers of reality (or the illusion of reality). This is a hard concept for pupils to understand and the best way I could think of to demonstrate it was by showing the Robbie Williams Rock DJ music video – surprisingly it worked well and pupils seem to now understand the differences between these two different forms of Buddhist meditation.
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Hey!! I am thoroughly impressed with your knowledge of Vipassana Meditation. Your insights into this article about Vipassana Meditation was well worth the the time to read it. I thank you for posting such awsome information. Signed Michelle Johnson on this Day Saturday.
Great post on meditation. Its really useful. great job man. Keep it up.
Hey,
Thought your article on medition was fascinating! I myself am very interested in The Human Condition, but unfortunatly did not have the chance to study the Religion during my school career. However, i am now at Napier and feel i would benefit further if i had a more thorough understanding on The human condition. Email Me Back if you could recommend any books for a more advanced student! Thanks.