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Beat Stress With Meditation: Buddhism

by Naomi Ozaniec

Buddism is founded on the experience of Siddhartha Gautama. Born a prince, he was determined to leave the confines of the palace where he saw death, sickness and old age for the first time. After eventually leaving, he travelled for many years seeking spiritual truth. Finally after six years, he settled into meditation beneath the shade of a tree where he attained enlightenment, a profound state of directly seeing into the nature of reality and in doing so became the Buddha, ‘One who is Awake.’ Buddhism was founded.

This founding story gives Buddhism two of its unique characteristics: the importance of meditation and the quest for enlightenment. After his enlightenment the Buddha attracted a small group of followers and gave his first teaching on The Four Noble Truths: life as we know it leads to suffering, suffering is caused by our attachments, suffering ends by reaching a state of enlightenment. The last of the Four Noble Truths sets out the Buddhist path to liberation. Called The Noble Eightfold Path, this is a practical guide for an ethical and aware life: Right View means to see and things as they really are. Right Intention brings commitment and energy to daily life. Right Speech orientates thought and conduct. Right Action grounds behaviour in an ethical code. Right Livelihood places a moral significance on how to earn a living. Right Effort is a prerequisite for personal development. Right Mindfulness is anchored in clear perception. Right Concentration refers to the development of mental faculties. These guidelines offer a gentle and simple yet profound view of life, not surprisingly Buddhism now has many western followers.


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Beat Stress With Meditation: Meditation Meditation may have developed when early humans stared for long periods of time into the flickering flames of their fires, in a dark cave, and fell into a state of relaxation. Although meditation often has spiritual or religious associations, this is not essential.
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Beat Stress With Meditation: Positions Meditation is undeniably associated with particular body positions, most especially the sitting cross-legged positions known as the full or half lotus. This idea is quite daunting to most westerners who will find such positions impossible.
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