Meditation from the Humanistic Buddhist Perspective

Notes on January 2009 Activity

A talk By Ven. Jue Wei in the Ratanapannya Meditation Center, Wildomar, CA, Feb. 7, 2009, 11:00am

After expressing our sincere appreciation to Venerable Sompoch and his center’s reception of our visit, Venerable Jue Wei shared her view about meditation from Chinese Buddhist and humanistic Buddhist perspectives.

Venerable Jue Wei stressed that

(1) Mediation can help us to deal with the problems we are facing in the present moment;
(2) The most prominent problem exists in our mind: the mind processes external sensory data through our sense organs and consciousness, then mind develops desires contribute the suffering we are experiencing;

So mediation’s purpose is to train our mind to change its habit-finding satisfaction inside, but not from external world. As for mediation methods, Venerable Jue Wei pointed out, cited from a prominent text in Chinese practice, the Diamond Sutra, that we should not allow our sense organs to be cheated by those things from outside.

There are four powers brought by meditation:

- To perceive the world better, to solve problems better;
- It leads to happiness, and joy;
- It makes us at ease;
- It enhances the contemplation.

By sharing her own experiences of mediation, although humbly claiming that she was only a novice in mediation, Venerable Jue Wei thought that Pure Land was our choice, and Chan was our daily life. We should therefore pursuit our spiritual practice life after life. Venerable Jue Wei further illustrated this idea by telling the story of the “Bodhisattva in negative conditions” to encourage everyone in the audience.