Tranquility | Experience Through Meditation

Meditation involves three stages. The first stage is concentration which represent the essential ground for both sitting meditation and mindfulness. mindfulness. Once the meditator starts to develop objective and watchful concentration, the second stage of meditation, tranquility, arises. The third stage, Insight, concern these lf awareness that emerge when the meditator abides for any length of time in tranquility.

Tranquility is a natural state of mind, we are simply in our own place, serene and untroubled, yet without a sense that this is anything we have done for ourselves. We rediscovered what we have always been and expressed through ourselves. None of these realizations is actually present during tranquility, if they were, we would once more be lost in thought, and the experience of tranquility would have disappeared. These realizations come later, when the meditation end and we are thinking over it. Tranquility is simply there to be experienced. Nothing is done to obtain it beyond sitting in meditation and stilling the mind, and nothing is done with it when it arrives. It is not greeted with excitement or pride or self-justification. Any or all of these things immediately dissipate the experience. it is just a state of presence, no more and no less. Tranquility does indicate progress in meditation. It is also during the tranquility experience that many of the benefits of meditation, both psychological and physical , begin to emerge. Some people report seeing beautiful visions, others describe feeling in the presence of a loving spiritual power. These dimension are experienced differently by different people, and it is important not to give preconception about it that may get in the way of the experience itself.

But these are experiences that arises during tranquility, not to be mistaken as tranquility itself. Such experience must not be grasped and held onto, otherwise tranquility is lost, and we are simply daydreaming. Daydreaming can be a potential obstacle to tranquility. The meditator may lose focus concentration , and falls into a trance-like state. Whether you have experienced tranquility or not, it is all too easy to fall into a trance state while meditating. This is a kind of dreamy, half-asleep condition, It is pleasant but not part of meditation. Meditation Exercise: Avoiding Trance Be careful to recognize this trance state if it arises during your meditation. Dispel it by bringing your concentration very firmly back to your breathing or to point of focus .At the end of a meditation, think back over it. Did you slip into trance on any occasion? Even if not, did you become lost in any beautiful vision that arose? We do not try to maintain tranquility. The state is either there or it is not.

All Meditator does is to remain focused. If tranquility arises, that is good. If it fades, that is not seen as bad. Seeing it as bad create a feeling of loss, and that feeling becomes a major obstruction to the return of tranquility. We do not pass judgement on whether tranquility is there or not, because to pass judgement is to slip back into thinking. All that happen is that we stay focused and sit patiently on the cushion, not expecting, not even, hoping, but just observing. This may sound very passive but meditative mind is in truth neither passive or active. Somewhere in between passive and active, there is a state just of being, this is the state of tranquility.