why the monks meditate

Buddhist monks love to meditate but when you look at the Buddhist monks, you would be forgiven for thinking

1. They look weird
2. What are they up to with their eyes closed
3. Whats with the orange robes

Firstly, they don't look weird, they just look different. Their heads are shaved and they do strange things. But before you judge you should try and understand what their ideas and theory is.

Monks are striving to find nirvana but they also have a few beliefs that dictate what they do and what they wear.

Which brings us onto the orange robes query. Why are they wearing orange robes? It is to do with their belief that they have to live as simply as possible. The robes are made by themselves from old waste material. The monks aren't supposed to ask for anything so everything they have is usually a hand out from the locals.

Why do they meditate?

They are trying to find nirvana. They meditate to clear their minds and try to understand the ways of the world. They aim to get a total understanding of the world and the nature that exists here. They want to have ultimate knowledge of everything!

So how do the monks meditate?

Luckily you can learn to meditate like a monk because although what they are trying to do is quite complex, the techniques they use are very very simple.

Over the years people have developed hundreds of techniques to meditate and even bits of technology to try and make meditation easy but the monks like to keep things simple. They have used the same techniques for centuries. 

The aim of meditation for the monks is to focus the mind on the here and the now. The future doesn't exist and neither does the past, just the now.

They do this by clearing the mind of everything. Its actually harder to do than you might think to clear your mind of everything.

So how do the monks go about doing this. Well, they have a few techniques but one that is very popular is to have a mantra. Something that is concentrated on and repeated over and over until all they are thinking about is that single thing. It could be a word or a sound, doesn't really matter as long as the mind is focused entirely on that one thing.