Araya: Buddhist Meditation

There are many meditation apps. But Buddhism explained why meditation works a very long time ago.

Araya lets you learn, sit with, and grow into the two great ideas of Mahayana Buddhism, emptiness and Yogacara (consciousness-only), as a monk of your own.

■ Monastery: live in an ancient Indian sangha
- Your hero is a village youth knocking at the gate of a great monastery like Nalanda.
- Every sitting and every lesson stores wholesome seeds in the alaya-vijnana, and he grows: novice, bhikshu, scholar monk, acharya, and finally arhat.
- His home changes too: under a banyan by the gate, a novice's grass hut, a bhikshu's cell, a scholar's room at Nalanda, the acharya's teaching hall, and beneath the Bodhi tree.
- Swipe to look around his home. Tap him to walk or sit.
- In "My cell", walk around a 3D room with your fully animated monk: tap the floor and he walks there; on the cushion he sits in full lotus.
- Each advancement opens a chapter of his life with Master Shilabhadra and his brother monk Mitra (16 chapters).

■ Sit: contemplations that meditate on the teaching itself
- Four on emptiness: Observing the Five Aggregates / Contemplating Dependent Origination / Analyzing the Absence of Own-Being / The Form-and-Emptiness Breath
- Four Yogacara contemplations: Labeling the Eight Consciousnesses / Watching the Manas / Turning the Three Natures / The Dream Contemplation
- Three minutes each, with a spoken guide. Choose the voice, pitch and speed.
- 4-7-8 breathing with the longest out-breath. Follow it by ear with Zen temple, shakuhachi, waves or voice.
- Keeps playing with the screen off, so you can sit with your eyes closed.

■ Study: a real course in Mahayana Buddhism
- From the Four Truths and dependent origination to the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka, Yogacara and Buddha-nature.
- Five-minute lessons with the original verse and a quiz.

■ Monk: your record of practice
- Ranks follow a real path of practice, the 16 stages to arhatship.
- Attributes are the six paramitas: generosity, discipline, patience, effort, meditation and wisdom.
- A broken streak is fine. Coming back counts as patience.

■ Japanese, English and Hindi
- Switch any time in Settings.

Free, with no ads. All data stays on your device; no account needed. Optional offerings (in-app purchases) support development and do not affect the game.

One seed today, for your alaya-vijnana.