If we could be certain that this life will last for a long time we could afford to be carefree and unconcerned, but every day we hear of people dying unexpectedly of heart attacks or strokes, in car crashes, and so forth. Human life is very uncertain.
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Universal Compassion
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Meditation is simply a method to calm the mind in order to gain clarity and perspective of your life. There are many different kinds of meditations, all serving different purposes.
You don't need an excessive amount of time or experience to start meditating. All you need is a few minutes every day to settle your mind. Once you learn the basic meditation techniques, you can use these methods for 5 minutes every day to help you improve your life.
If we train our mind to become peaceful we will be happy all the time, even in the most adverse conditions. But if our mind is not peaceful, even if we have the most pleasant external conditions we will not be happy. Therefore it is important to train our mind through meditation.
There are two types of meditation: analytical meditation and placement meditation. When we contemplate the meaning of a Dharma instruction that we have heard or read we are doing analytical meditation. By deeply contemplating the instruction, eventually we reach a conclusion or cause a specific virtuous state of mind to arise. This is the object of placement meditation. Having found our object through analytical meditation, we then concentrate on it single-pointedly for as long as possible to become deeply acquainted with it. This single-pointed concentration is placement meditation. Often, analytical meditation is called simply `contemplation', and placement meditation simply `meditation'. Placement meditation depends upon contemplation, and contemplation depends upon listening to or reading Dharma instructions.
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