For forty-eight minutes — one muhūrta — the Jain layperson sits in renunciation: no harm, no business, no distinction between friend and stranger.
Tagged: Meditation Prayer Silence Jain
How It Is Practiced
The practitioner bathes, dresses in clean (ideally undyed, two-piece) clothes, and sits facing north or east in a clean, quiet place, having set aside phone, work, and weapons of every kind. After homage with the Ṇamokāra mantra, he formally renounces sinful activity for the period, meditates on the self and on forgiveness toward all beings, and reads or recites scripture; a rosary of 108 beads may count the mantras. The vow closes with a formal release. Monks live inside what the layperson visits for forty-eight minutes.
Purpose and Meaning
Sāmāyika is the first of the Jain layperson's essential duties and its theory in miniature: bondage comes from passionate activity (āsrava), and liberation begins wherever activity is stilled in equanimity (samatā). For one muhūrta the householder practices being a monk — and, the texts promise, earns in that hour the merit of a vow kept perfectly, because within it no living thing is harmed by him at all.
References
- Jain meditation — Wikipedia Free / open access
- Jain eLibrary Free / open access
Related Practices
- Pratikramaṇa — The Rite of Repentance — Morning and evening, and climactically once a year, the Jain turns back over the day's harms — in thought, word, and deed — and asks forgiveness of every living being.
- Recitation of the Ṇamokāra Mantra — Jainism's supreme prayer bows to no god: it salutes the five supreme ones — the conquerors, the liberated, the teachers, the preceptors, and all monks.
- Mettā Bhāvanā — Loving-Kindness — The systematic cultivation of goodwill toward oneself, benefactors, the neutral, the difficult, and all beings: devotion practiced as the training of the heart.
Related Across the Site
- Mettā Bhāvanā — Loving-Kindness Devotion — The systematic cultivation of goodwill toward oneself, benefactors, the neutral, the difficult, and all beings: devotion practiced as the training of the heart.
- Recitation of the Ṇamokāra Mantra Devotion — Jainism's supreme prayer bows to no god: it salutes the five supreme ones — the conquerors, the liberated, the teachers, the preceptors, and all monks.
- The Rosary Devotion — The Rosary is a meditative prayer that moves through the life of Christ and Mary on a circle of beads.
- Dhikr Prayer or Creed — The remembrance of God through repeated short formulas of glory, praise, and greatness.
- Gayatri Mantra Prayer or Creed — The most revered mantra of the Rig Veda, a meditation on the divine light that illumines the mind.
- Jesus Prayer Prayer or Creed — A short, repeated invocation of Jesus asking for mercy, central to the Orthodox hesychast tradition.
- Namokar Mantra Prayer or Creed — Jainism's central mantra of homage to the five supreme beings, recited at the start of prayer and meditation.
- Prayers of the Rosary Prayer or Creed — The set of prayers prayed on the beads of the Rosary, including the Fatima Prayer and the Hail Holy Queen.