An Explanation of Guided Meditation

Buddhist Theology teaches us that each person has eight levels of human consciousness. The first five levels of consciousness are connected directly to the senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought. The sixth level which describes our human thought process is usually defined as our intellect, and it is through our intellect then, that we create an illusory self that functions separate from the universe it perceives, and this separate self we call ‘I.’ The separate self is therefore held apart from the objective and perceived outside world, which causes our sixth level of consciousness (thinking and intellect,) to not be aware of this persistent habit of constantly creating a separate self.

In terms of the Buddhist theory of mind, this type of guided meditation functions in the following manner. Buddha teaches that the sixth level of consciousness controls our body and our will mind, the seventh level of consciousness controls our emotional (or our like and dislike discriminating consciousness) and the eighth level of consciousness is referred to as our storehouse consciousness, and controls our memory. During the first stage and the second stage of this guided meditation we use the sixth, seventh and eighth levels of consciousness to bring stillness to the sixth level of consciousness. After this has been done, then in stage three we use the seventh and eighth levels of consciousness and bring all three of them together. Then in stage four we still the seventh level of consciousness. At this point we are usually ready when we get to stage five to accept seeds of change (changing karma) into our eighth consciousness; and finally, at stage six we connect the sixth, seventh and eighth levels of consciousness so that they begin to function in harmony as a single unified consciousness.

Many individuals have problems in focusing their consciousness and especially in controlling their thinking. Sŭngsan Daesŏnsa would often teach that these kinds of people were suffering from a broken consciousness. What he meant was that the person’s eight levels of consciousnesses were all functioning independently and were constantly involved in separate actions. He was especially referring to the affected individual’s lack of integration between their sixth, seventh, and eighth levels of consciousness, which ultimately caused the person to become somewhat schizophrenic. Buddhist theory espouses that each person’s mind is only one mind, and Sŭngsan Daesŏnsa realized that some of his students were not able to control their minds, and therefore could also not fully control their bodies. Achieving this Buddhist ‘one mind’ means that our sixth, seventh, and eighth levels of consciousnesses all become unified. In the Heart Sūtra Buddha said, “Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita perceives that all five skandhas are empty.”

Buddha concluded that it is only in the seventh level of consciousness, (Sanskrit: manas) that the awareness of a discreet construct of a separate ‘I” can become constant. The seventh level of consciousness also acts as the communication vehicle of our essential nature as well as the universe’s essential nature up to our eighth consciousness (Sanskrit: ālaya-vijñana,) from which, in response to causes and conditions, specific insights are communicated back to the six senses. New perceptions are in turn conveyed up to the sixth and seventh levels of consciousness and the cycle continues endlessly.