First of all, before any meditation, bodhicitta must be born with a sincere and positive attitude. It is very important to cultivate bodhicitta. Only by practicing bodhicitta with all one's strength can enlightenment be achieved. We not only hope to free ourselves, but also hope that other sentient beings can free themselves from pain. We carefully ask ourselves: "What is bodhicitta? Am I really willing to make a vow to benefit all beings? Am I doing this meditation for the benefit of all beings? Am I really trying to help some irrelevant beings to meditate and seek liberation? " And ask yourself: "How to create bodhicitta?"

After giving birth to bodhicitta, I use the certain insights I have gained after listening and thinking, and carry out internal meditation step by step in full accordance with the meditation steps and analysis methods stipulated by the guru; When the analysis or observation is over, immediately settle down in the way indicated by the guru. This is the most basic way of meditation.

After meditation, we must sincerely think that we are willing to return all the merits and demerits gained from meditation or all the wonderful experiences and feelings (such as peace, harmony, compassion and trouble relief) to all sentient beings and pray that they will be enlightened and relieved in the future. Not only that, we should also return all our merits to our enemies, so that our practice can be successful.

The length of meditation time

At the beginning of meditation, don't sit too long, with an average time of 10-30 minutes. When meditation produces a good feeling or realm, go back and end meditation, and don't cling to those beautiful experiences. In this way, we will become more and more interested in meditation, look forward to meditation, and then we can slowly postpone it for a long time. Remember, don't force yourself to sit for a long time at a time, or you may become more and more disgusted with meditation and even avoid it.

Three methods to solve doubts

At the beginning of the "smell" stage, we must rely on wise masters who can dispel our doubts, interpret the Buddha's classics and saints' discourses, and carefully examine and study them.

In the "thinking" stage, we may further perceive many places that we don't understand, and then we need further guidance from the guru; According to the guidance, we think deeply again. In this process of thinking, there may be doubts, but it doesn't matter. We must patiently ask the guru to answer our doubts one by one. This process must be repeated until we are convinced and master the surface and deep meaning of Buddhism. Then, with this confident attitude, we immediately meditated.

In the process of actual meditation, many doubts and hesitations will gradually disappear, but if they are found to be growing, we should go back to the previous steps again and solve them with the actions of smell and thinking.

When all doubts disappear, we will directly realize the true meaning of Buddhism, and eventually meditation will become more stable, away from all hesitation and uncertainty.

Although the time spent by practitioners in listening, thinking and walking is different, anyone who wants to gain enlightenment and liberation must complete it. Meditation without listening or thinking is blind, and it is impossible to reach the destination, just like blindly mining without knowing where the treasure is buried; Hearing and thinking without meditation is like knowing where the treasure is buried without digging it. Therefore, we must discuss the three stages of listening, thinking and practicing one by one, so that the perfect Buddha fruit will be just around the corner.

The editorial team of Guanyin. GMB is taken from "An ethereal smile-an ethereal meditation"