I have begun practicing meditation. I am a rank beginner, but I'm finding meditation relaxing. It's a good way to shuck the strains of work and daily life.
Personally, I don't expect to achieve oneness with God or to see spiritual beings, but I may come to understand more of what mystics and sufis experience, or report that they have experienced.
The very personal, very inward practice of meditation makes a strong contrast with the public, representive, and formalistic religious practices prescribed in Exodus and Leviticus. There isn't a word about about Aaron and his sons achieving oneness with God, although there is a lot about the burning of unblemished sheep or goats creating an aroma pleasing to the Lord. And most of the congregation just sits or stands somewhere in the temple (or tabernacle) enclosure to watch the priests make the offerings to God on their behalf.
The practices defined at length in Exodus and Leviticus remind me strongly of the sacrifices described in the Iliad. Leviticus is more explicit about which parts of the animal must be burned (God's portion), and which parts can be eaten, and by whom, but there is very little doubt that the worship service bore a strong resemblance to a barbecue.
So far, my favorite mantra for meditation (although I usually don't use a mantra at all) is bismallah, ar-rahman, ar-rahim. (In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.) It's just about the right length to pronounce on a long breath.
Does anyone else have any meditative practices or experiences you'd like to share?
Glenn A Knight
In my study
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3 comments:
I have been practicing meditation along a Buddhist tradition: Vaipassana. This is a mindfulness meditation where one observes the breath or other bodily or mental activities. It can be done seated, standing, walking or lying down. Very often, one will say something like "rising" on the in-breaths or raising the foot while walking and "falling" on the outbreaths or lowering the foot.
I find that meditation helps to quiet the mind. I have also observed something of the process of how thoughts are generated. From the "Teaching Company" course on the neurophysiology of human behavior, I understood that the lower brain is responsible for basic emotion and simple responses while the cerebral cortex is the rational part. Meditating, I can observe this process from the inside. I find that "proto-thoughts" arise which have a basic emotional sense to them, and then the rational mind clothes them with reason and rational thought.
I discovered that very often I am "upset", but it is my rational mind that decides what I am upset about. It is important to realize that my emotions arise and fall and my rational mind, with its hunger for causal explanations often just makes things up - anything it can string together. "Don't believe everything you think." has become a reality for me.
I don't have any practices to relate, but I can recommend a good book.
Wherever You Go There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life, by Jon Kabat-Zinn (Hyperion, 1994), describes meditation as a way to become/remain "mindful" or awake in order to avoid the modern tendency to wander through life on autopilot. Kabat-Zinn believes that only by remaining mindful of the actual experiences of living can one use those experience to one's advantage. For him, meditation is a sort of tool one can use to weed out the overgrowth in one's life, which is necessary to attain the mindfulness he describes.
I don't think I'm explaining it very well, but I found it useful and thought-provoking.
I think it is interesting that both of the people who have commented here on meditation are using mindfulness meditation. Although Meditation for Dummies describes a number of form, mindfulness is obviously the author's favorite style of meditation.
I, too, have mostly been trying the mindfulness form: counting my breath, following my breath, and so on.
I think that Sean's point about being "upset" is very interesting. Some years ago I was diagnosed with very high blood pressure. When I brought the blood pressure under control, I stopped finding as many occasions to be angry with my family and other people. I have since concluded that the process is like this:
1) The blood pressure rises, for whatever reason, causing such feelings as a congested head, heat in the face, and a rapid pulse;
2) The rational mind, to use Sean's nomenclature, associates these feelings with the emotion of anger;
3) The rational mind, taking it one step further, looks for the "cause" of my anger;
4) I become disproportionately angry over some small action of someone nearby.
The rational mind doesn't know about some physical conditions, so it elects some understandable stimulus as the cause of our feelings, because the only alternative would be to admit that we are not rational being.
The rational mind wants to be in control.
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