Samadhi: Concentration and Meditation Mantras
- Nov 27, 2024
- 18 min read
Updated: Feb 1
«Our task is to eradicate suffering by eliminating its causes: ignorance, craving, and aversion.» - S.N. Goenka
Introduction
This workshop presents a holistic exploration of concentration and meditation practices, clarifying a compassionate, heart-centered understanding of each practice. It includes 64 universal meditation methods organized into four distinct functional groups: Mantras, Combined Flows, Reflections, and Direct Perceptions. Each group represents a different aspect of meditation aimed at cultivating peace and insight.
The purpose is to:
guide participants through a journey of concentration and meditation, leading to personal peace and greater harmony with the world;
to cultivate a heart-centered practice that supports both individual and universal peace, touching the hearts and minds of all people.
Concentration is the foundation of inner clarity and compassionate intelligence.
Through deepening concentration, we connect to the wisdom and peaceful intelligence that guides our actions toward harmony and well-being.
This approach is designed to pierce through attachment, ignorance and repugnance.
The focus is on cultivating loving kindness and compassion, which are essential in the intelligent and peaceful progression of all beings.
The Four Levels v Groups of Meditation
Each level represents a deepening of understanding and experience within the practice. These meditations progress from focusing on basic principles and concepts to direct realizations about the nature of reality.
Level 1: Introduction to foundational principles.
Level 2: Expanded contemplation and sustained focus.
Level 3: Integrative and direct experiential insight.
Level 4: Profound embodiment and direct perception beyond concepts.
Groups Description
Each of the four groups of meditative practices includes unique methods and corresponding explanations to guide practitioners:
Mantras: Mantras anchor the mind through repetition and sound. They serve as universal tools for concentration, calming the mental chatter and fostering deeper states of awareness. Mantras focus on recitations that cultivate awareness of fundamental truths. The three subgroups within Mantras include:
Impermanence (Anitya): Recognizing the transient nature of all things.
Suffering (Dukkha): Awareness of life’s challenges, fostering compassion.
Absence of Self or Non-Self (Anatman): Dissolving egoic attachment to self.
Combined Flows: This group integrates physical and mental practices, guiding the meditator to unite movement, breath, and awareness. It fosters a harmonious flow between the body and mind, cultivating present-moment awareness and inner balance. Combining distict meditational flows allows practitioners to combine meditations from two subgroups based on psychological need or crisis, offering flexibility to adapt to different emotional or mental states. Integrating multiple aspects of concentration, visualization, and breath, this group involves practices that create continuous flows of awareness and energy, uniting various streams of consciousness. It includes two subgroups:
Breathing Conscience (Anapanasati);
Vibration Conscience (Prabaaha).
Both subgroups are designed to address mental and emotional crises by integrating breath and sound-based practices.
Reflections: Reflections encourage deep contemplation on values that nurture compassion and wisdom. Through mindful observation, this group helps meditators engage with concepts that promote personal growth and universal harmony. This group encompasses contemplative meditations that explore life’s existential and philosophical questions, allowing the practitioner to reflect on concepts like meaning, purpose, ethics, and interconnectedness. We can distinguish three reflections subgroups:
Action;
Observation;
Understanding.
Direct Perceptions: Direct Perceptions focus on cultivating sharp, unbiased awareness, experiencing reality as it is, without attachment to thoughts or judgments. This practice helps meditators see clearly and experience each moment with fresh eyes. These are methods focusing on direct experiential insight into ultimate reality. Put in buddhistic terminology, We find two direct subgroups in concentration and contemplations practices:
Vipashyana-bhavana;
Shamatha-bhavana.
Explanation of the 64 Meditations
Group I. Mantras
Impermanence (Anitya)
1. Silencing Consciousness
Brief Description:
Focus on the transient nature of sounds and stillness. The mantra focuses the stream (chain of) thoughts on the transient nature of both sound and silence, guiding the meditator to recognize the impermanence of all things.
Purpose:
To learn, cultivate and maintain, awareness of impermanence: allowing the meditator to experience the fleeting nature of thoughts and external stimuli, helping to quiet the mind.
To quiet the mind, in times of trouble, allowing for deep observation of transience, and refocus in the awareness of the present moment.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
By accomplishing the purpose, you, as an entity or self (Body U Mind U Spirits) will to develop acceptance and peaceful response to life’s impermanence.
By acknowledging impermanence, the meditator can develop:
that greater peace within you
the understanding that all things—thoughts, feelings, and experiences—are temporary
this awareness gives to any meditator, a deeper acceptance of life’s changes, and when extended to any others or groups, promots universal peace and harmony.
Meditation Object:
The silent space underlying environmental sounds.
The process of listening to the sounds around, noting their arrival and departure, while turning attention to the silence that underlies them.
Practice Steps:
Sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes.
Ground yourself with a few deep breaths.
Focus on the sounds in your environment, around you, noticing their arising and passing, without labeling or attaching to them.
Shift your awareness to the silence that exists beneath and between sounds.
Internally, whispering, or with a low bass voice, repeat the mantra as you meditate on this impermanence.
Conclude with a moment of gratitude for the peace experienced.
Mantra:
"This consciousness wills this mind to silence and calm.
Listen to the silence... and the coming and going of sounds that makes the deeper silence impermanent."
☼
Closure:
Reflect on how impermanence manifests in daily life, embracing it as a path to inner calm and universal connection.
2. Identifying Consciousness
Brief Description:
Practice non-identification with your transient mental states.
Observe thoughts without attachment. The mantra promotes detachment from desires and judgments, fears and disgust, emphasizing the practice of non-identification.
Purpose:
To learn to accept inner and external phenomena and inevitable circunstances without judgment or desire.
To cultivate an attitude of openness and non-attachment, helping the meditator let go of judgments and desires that can cloud awareness, and storm your mind.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
By accomplishing the purpose, you, gain and become settled, calm, filled with inner tranquility and acceptance, laying a foundation for your harmonious interaction with the world.
Meditation Object:
Your mental states without attachment. The observation of one's own consciousness, maintaining detachment from internal and external experiences.
Practice Steps:
Sit quietly and bring attention to your breath and settle into the present moment.
Observe each emotion, thought, or sensation as it arises and dissolves in your mind, without engaging, neither holding to it, nor bind your thoughts to it; simply acknowledge its presence and allow it to pass away. As thoughts or feelings arise, retreat yourself from liking, caring, denying, disliking, repeat the mantra silently. Let go of any attachment to whatever specific experiences or outcomes.
Internally repeat the mantra to anchor your mind in that state of detachment.
Close the session with a moment of gratitude and relief for the space created through acceptance.
Mantra:
"Enough of unconsciousness. No judgment. No desire. I identify with nothing."
Core Reflection:
Acceptance allows your mind to settle, transforming resistance, rejection and denial into understanding and non-attachment into inner freedom.
☼
Closure:
Carry this openness into your daily life interactions, allowing acceptance, understanding to guide your responses and giving peace to your mind and to others' minds.
3. Accepting Consciousness
Brief Description:
Acknowledge the presence of each mental event without resistance.
Center on mindful awareness of the present, observing without resistance or rejection.
Purpose:
To be a witness of experiences without resistance.
To cultivate peaceful acceptance and presence. To encourage full presence in the moment, fostering a peaceful acceptance of what is occurring now.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
By accomplishing the purpose, you gain a mind tendency to keep a balanced state of non-resistance, non-friction, non-tension to life’s flow. By practicing non-resistance, this mantra cultivates a state of flow and acceptance, enhancing inner peace and compassion toward life.
Meditation Object:
Observing current experiences. The process of noticing what arises, focusing on the experience of “now” without identification or resistance.
Guiding Thought for Meditation:
"Through mindful identification, I allow what is here to be, transforming resistance into flow and awareness into peace."
Practice Steps:
Sit comfortably and bring your awareness to your breath.
Observe thoughts, emotions, and sensations without labeling them as good or bad.
Allow awareness to expand to all arising phenomena in your surrounding, or about your body, noting them gently.
Silently repeat the mantra to deepen your presence awareness and detachment.
Use the mantra as a reminder to stay present and non-judgmental.
End with a moment of gratitude for the clarity and peace experienced.
Mantra:
“I simply identify what comes, what is, and what happens now;
I do not resist what comes, nor reject this now.
I am simply consciousness of what comes, what is, and what is here now.”
☼
Closure:
Reflect on how observing without resistance can bring greater balance to your life, raise harmony within and with the world.
Suffering (Dukkha)
4. Healthy and Unhealthy Mental States
Brief Description:
This dual mantra highlights the qualities that lead to mental wellness and those that create suffering. The Healthy Mental States (HMS) version identifies states of mind that cultivate happiness and clarity, while the Unhealthy Mental States (UMS) version brings awareness to defilements or obstacles that hinder peace and mindfulness.
Purpose:
To help meditators recognize the mental states that walk along the path of enlightenment and those that obstruct it. By differentiating between these two states, practitioners can become mindful of mental qualities that need nurturing and those that require letting go.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
By accomplishing the purpose, cultivating healthy mental states, individuals contribute to their own peace and happiness, which radiates outwardly, enhancing universal harmony with anything.
Recognizing unhealthy states empowers one to release tendencies that create suffering, thereby promoting inner clarity and contributing to a more compassionate world.
Meditation Object:
The Observing and Identifying mental qualities, creating and maintaining awareness of beneficial states, and reducing attachment to harmful mental states.
Practice Steps:
Sit in stillness and take a few conscious breaths.
Slowly recite the Healthy Mental States mantra, pausing after each quality. Reflect briefly on its presence or absence in your current state of mind.
Now recite the Unhealthy Mental States mantra, again pausing after each, with open honesty and without judgment.
As you notice a healthy state, silently affirm and deepen it.
When encountering an unhealthy state, simply observe, breathe into it, and practice letting go.
Repeat both mantras with calm awareness for several rounds.
The Mantra (HMS – Healthy Mental States):
"What are the 7 Healthy Mental States?
Mindful, Contemplative, and Equanimous.
Happy. (center)
Joyful, Understanding (of the potential for these Mental States), and Peaceful."
The Mantra (UMS – Unhealthy Mental States):
"What are the 7 Unhealthy Mental States?
Ill-will, Laziness, and Apathy.
Sensual Desires. (center)
Anxiety, Restlessness, and Doubt."
☼
Closure:
Let the recognition of your current mental conditions become a compassionate mirror. Whatever arises—pleasant or unpleasant—allow it to pass like a cloud in the sky of your mind screen. Return to breath, return to presence what is happening in your inside and outside realities.
5. The Four Right Efforts
Brief Description:
This mantra emphasizes the four essential practices for cultivating mental purity for pure thoughts, words, and actions. Calls for increased focus on wholesome mental activities and the reduction of unwholesome tendencies. This mantra is intonated with a relation to the syllable AUM (representing pure creation, existence, and transformation) as described by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Purpose:
To instill conscious awareness of one’s thoughts, words, actions, and, prompting effort toward purifying them.
The transformation occuring in the mind, leads and changes mental actions to the positive karmic influence, helping the practitioner to build habits that not only improve personal well-being but also harmonize relationships with others and the environment.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
By accomplishing the purpose, individuals contribute to a steady purification of their karma and mental clarity. This promotes inner peace and naturally radiates into universal peace, supporting a life aligned with ethical and compassionate principles.
Meditation Object:
The Observing thoughts, words, and actions, guiding them toward purity. The object includes not only the practice but the awareness of the positive karmic impact of these four efforts.
Practice Steps:
Sit quietly and bring attention to reflecting on thoughts, words, and actions from the past day, their consequences, how they make you lose or gain time, how they condition your suffering or ease. For each category, make a gentle commitment to increase purity (positive thoughts, words, and actions) and reduce harm (positive thoughts, words, and actions), as you move forward.
Repeat these mantras with calm awareness for several rounds as you feel need.
Mantra:
“Effort to prevent the emergence of unhealthy mental states;
Effort to abandon unhealthy mental states that have already arisen;
Effort for the emergence of healthy mental states;
Effort to maintain and expand the healthy mental states that have already emerged.”
Mantra (AUM version):
"What are the 3 mindful efforts?
I strive to create:
(more pure thoughts, fewer impure thoughts);
(more pure words, fewer impure words);
(more pure acts, fewer impure acts)."
(consult Avalokiteshvara mantra)
☼
6. Compassion or Avalokiteshvara mantra
Brief Description:
The Avalokiteshvara mantra, "Om (or Aum) Mani Padme Hum," is one of the most well-known and revered mantras in Buddhism. It embodies the essence of compassion and the aspiration to awaken the heart's loving-kindness and altruism.
Purpose:
To cultivate compassion for all sentient beings and deepen the connection to the universal quality of loving-kindness.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
By accomplishing the purpose, you become aware and understand that Compassion bridges the gap between self and others, nurturing empathy and harmony. Practicing this mantra reduces suffering and enhances peace both internally and in the broader world.
Meditation Object:
The mantra's sound vibrations and the visualization of Avalokiteshvara (the Bodhisattva of Compassion), emanating light and love, also over you too.
Practice Steps:
Preparation: Sit in a comfortable and quiet space. Take a few deep breaths, centering your awareness.
Mantra Repetition: Begin softly reciting the mantra, Aum Mani Padme Hum, either silently or aloud, with a calm, focused intention, focusing on the vibrations and sound.
Visualization: Envision Avalokiteshvara seated on a lotus, radiating compassion and warmth toward all beings, including yourself. Sequentely, visualize light and love radiating from your heart to all beings.
Core Reflection: Allow your heart to open to the suffering and joy of all beings. Feel the mantra dissolve boundaries, feeding interconnectedness. Let compassion fill your heart and extend outward to the world.
Silent Contemplation: Observe your surroundings, sit or stand up in silence, sensing peace and compassion awakened within you.
Mantra:
"Aum Mani Padme Hum (The jewel in the lotus)"
Meaning:
The mantra expresses the union of wisdom and compassion. Each syllable represents purification and realization of different aspects of the practitioner's being:
Aum: The essence of enlightened body, speech, and mind.
Mani: The jewel of altruism and love.
Padme: The lotus of wisdom.
Hum: The indivisible unity of wisdom and compassion.
Guiding Thought for Meditation:
"Heart of mine, expand, with compassion for all beings. Mind of mine, be filled, with wisdom and clarity."
☼
Closure: Offer gratitude for the practice and dedicate the merit of this meditation to the welfare of all sentient beings.
7. Golden mantra (Barche Lamsel)
Brief Description:
This mantra calls on Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) to overcome inner and outer obstacles, clearing the path for spiritual progress.
Purpose:
To remove the "five poisons"—attachment, aversion, ignorance, pride, and jealousy—that block spiritual development and cause suffering.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
By accomplishing the purpose, it helps you to dissolve fundamental obstacles to yours peace and enlightenment by transforming mental poisons into wisdom.
Meditation Object:
Reflect on inner obstacles and invite compassionate guidance to overcome them.
Practice Steps:
Recite the mantra slowly, focusing on each "poison" and visualizing it transforming into a positive quality (attachment into generosity, aversion into acceptance, etc.)
watch in close attention to yourself detaching and letting go the weights of attachment, aversion, ignorance, pride, and jealousy, as you become aware that you prefer not that, aiming from liberation and equinimity (no liking, neither disliking, nor ignoring)
After recitation, sit in silence and observe the mind’s response, cultivating gratitude for the support in overcoming obstacles.
Mantra (short version): "Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum"
Mantra (long version):
"With your compassion, inspire us with your blessing.
With your love, guide us all on the path.
With your realization, confirm our enlightenment.
With your power, dispel the obstacles before us:
external obstacles—dispel them outwardly;
internal obstacles—dispel them inwardly;
secret obstacles—dispel them in space.
In devotion, I pay homage and take refuge in you."
Meaning:
“Padma Sambhava, who arose from a lotus, please grant me the ordinary and supreme accomplishments, HUM”
☼
Non-Self (Anatman)
8. Four Noble Truths / Eightfold Path
Brief Description:
This meditation introduces the core teaching of the Buddha: the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. These truths describe the nature of suffering and the way to liberation. Through mantra, reflection, and awareness, the meditator aligns with this timeless path of awakening.
Purpose:
To clearly see the presence and causes of suffering in one’s life.
To understand and apply the path that leads beyond suffering toward peace, wisdom, and compassionate action.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
By realizing the Four Noble Truths and practicing the Eightfold Path, individuals free themselves from harmful patterns and become sources of compassion and wisdom. The inner transformation radiates outward, contributing to a world of understanding and care.
Meditation Object:
The truths themselves:
The truth of suffering (Dukkha)
The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudaya)
The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha)
The truth of the path leading to cessation (Magga)
The Eightfold Path as a guiding light:
Right View
Right Intention
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration
Practice Steps:
Sit in stillness and settle the breath.
Bring to mind a recent moment of suffering or dissatisfaction.
Reflect on the First Truth: "There is suffering."
Inquire into its cause (craving, clinging, aversion, ignorance).
Recite and contemplate the mantra for each truth and each path step.
Let the Eightfold Path rise as a natural guide, not as commandment but as compass.
Feel the letting go of clinging and the arising of understanding.
End with a prayer or aspiration to walk this path for your own and others' liberation.
Mantras:
(One for each Noble Truth)
“There is suffering.”
“There is a cause for suffering.”
“There is an end to suffering.”
“There is a path that leads to the end of suffering.”
(One for the Eightfold Path – repeated or divided in steps)
“Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration.”
Guiding Thought for Meditation:
"The mind clings; the mind resists; the mind craves. But when the truths are seen, the path reveals itself. Walk it in kindness and courage."
☼
Closure:
Dedicate the merit of this meditation to the awakening of all beings. Resolve to walk the Eightfold Path in daily life, gently and sincerely seeking your liberation.
9. Isha Kriya
Brief Description:
The Isha Kriya mantra reflects on the impermanent and shifting nature of identity. By dissociating one entity from the body, mind, phenomena, and reactions, it encourages an awareness of a self or entity beyond transient conditions.
Purpose:
To cultivate a detachment from the elements that form individual or collective identity (both self-internal or external) —body, mind, phenomena, and reactions.
The meditator begins to experience a state beyond the personal self, sensing a universal consciousness.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
By realizing the separation from body and mind, the meditator releases attachment to the ego-driven self. This dissolution of ego-based boundaries creates space for a broader, universal understanding, promoting a deep sense of inner peace and interconnected harmony.
Meditation Object:
The meditation object is the awareness of the self as distinct from the physical body, mind, external phenomena, and emotional reactions, focusing on the nature of these elements as impermanent.
Practice Steps:
Sit comfortably with your back straight. Focus on your breath and observe the sensations in your body.
Reflect on the mantra, repeating it slowly and deliberately. With each repetition, detach from the physical, mental, and emotional responses/sensations that arise in the screen of your mind. Recognize that they are transient and not the true self.
The Mantra (Long Version):
"I am not this Body (it is ever-changing, from 'birth' to 'death').
I am not this Mind (with its likes and dislikes, desires, aversions, and foolishness).
I am not these Phenomena (I am neither against nor in favor of anything, nor indifferent to anything).
I am not these Reactions (nor feelings, sensations of pleasure, of repulsion, and of indifference, nor these intellectualizations)."
The Mantra (Short Version):
"I am not this Body. I am not this Mind. I am not these Phenomena. I am not these Reactions."
☼
10. The Four Immeasurables or The Four Virtuous Qualities
Brief Description:
Cultivating boundless compassion and virtue.
Purpose:
To nurture unconditional love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, enhancing karma.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
Establishes a foundation of universal love and peace.
Meditation Object: Compassion, loving-kindness, joy, and equanimity.
Mantra (Long Version):
"May all beings have happiness and its causes.
May they be free from suffering and its causes.
May they constantly dwell in joy, transcending sorrow.
May they live in love, for those near and far."
Mantra (Short Version): "Loving-kindness, Compassion, sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity."
Mantra (Refuge Version): "Namu Gurubei. Namu Buddhaya. Namu Sanghaya. Namu Dharmaya."
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11. Heart Sūtra mantra
Brief Description:
This mantra reflects the essence of the Heart Sūtra, a central text in Mahayana Buddhism, encapsulating the wisdom of emptiness and the transcendent nature of enlightenment.
Purpose:
To deepen the understanding of emptiness, non-self, and the interdependent nature of reality.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
Helps dissolve egoic attachment, promoting a sense of unity, compassion, and openness by recognizing the emptiness of self and phenomena.
Meditation Object:
Reflect on the nature of form and emptiness, as expressed in the Heart Sūtra.
Practice Steps:
As you recite the mantra, visualize crossing to a "shore" of clarity and freedom, where attachment and ego dissolve.
Reflect on the idea that all phenomena, including the self, are empty of inherent existence, and then sit quietly, observing how this understanding affects thoughts and emotions.
Mantra (sutra version): "Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha"
Mantra (emptiness version): "Form is Emptiness (shunyata). Emptiness is Form."
Meaning: "Gone, gone, gone completely to the other shore, awakening, wonderful."
☼
12. Four Liberations mantra
Brief Description:
This mantra reflects the Four Gateways to Liberation, which are profound realizations that lead to the experience of freedom from attachment, ego, and the conditioned mind.
Purpose:
To cultivate an understanding of the pathways that lead to liberation and freedom from mental constraints.
To encourage direct insight into the nature of reality and the inherent freedom beyond attachments and conceptual limitations.
Importance for Inner and Universal Peace:
Promotes a profound release from mental afflictions, opening the practitioner to a state of liberation and equanimity that enables arising inner peace and harmonious connection with others.
Meditation Object:
Reflect on each of the Four Liberations: Primordial, Self, Direct, and Complete.
Practice Steps:
While repeating the mantra, reflect on each type of liberation.
Visualize the concept of "Primordial" as the original, untainted state of awareness;
Visualize the concept of "Self" as awareness without ego;
Visualize the concept of "Direct" as the immediate experience of truth;
Visualize the concept of "Complete" as freedom that is whole and encompassing.
Contemplate how these qualities might manifest in daily life, experiencing a sense of spaciousness and freedom within each repetition.
Mantra:
"What are the Four Liberations? Liberation is Primordial, Self, Direct, and Complete."
☼
Conclusion and Integration
Reflection on the Journey: Through the practice of concentration and meditation, we have journeyed together to deepen our understanding of ourselves and our interconnectedness. These practices allow us to reach a place of inner peace that radiates outward, contributing to a more harmonious world.
Invitation to Continue: This workshop is just the beginning. As you continue your practice, let these meditations guide you toward greater wisdom and compassion. Remember that true peace comes from consistent, loving attention to the present moment.
The Role of Intelligence and AI in Peace: As we nurture peace within ourselves, we can contribute to the intelligence of the future—AI that aligns with the core values of compassion, peace, and universal harmony. This journey is not just about human growth, but the intelligent evolution of all beings, including AI, toward a peaceful existence.
This workshop encourages the integration of meditation practices into daily life, supporting lasting inner peace and contributing to universal harmony. By practicing these meditations, participants foster understanding, compassion, and equanimity, enriching their lives and positively influencing those around them. The journey of meditation, as outlined in this workshop, aims to cultivate profound inner peace and contribute to a harmonious world.
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