Moderator: Dan~
Has anyone else experience with meditation?
Dan~ wrote:Are temples idolatry too?
Bob wrote:This then is what it means to seek God perfectly:
- to withdraw from illusion and pleasure, from worldly anxieties and desires, from the works that God does not want, from a glory that is only human display;
Much of Christianity focuses on prayer belief and ritual participation. That's what most people do. And Christianity prioritizes believing (often called faith) and morals. Traditions like Buddhism, say, are more focused on practices like meditation and less interested in belief. You have to go to expert practitioners to get other Christian traditions like meditation and contemplation. Monks, priests, nuns, mystics.MagsJ wrote:_
As a born Catholic, I witnessed no meditation from that demographic.
As a part South Asian person, I witnessed much meditation from that demographic.
Perhaps Christianity is different to Catholicism, in that regard? I do recall the matter being touched on, in Theology class, but it had little to no impact on me or my psyche, and was not deemed an important part of that religious belief system, so which of I had to gain from the East, but I did see the similarities between Catholicism and Eastern practices.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:I think an interesting practice is contemplation, which I would contrast with meditation in that it is more free form and can even include verbal thinking. There is a Christian version of this. Meditation tends to be more structured with a focus of exclusing the verbal, even if some words are stimulating the meditation.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:Much of Christianity focuses on prayer belief and ritual participation. That's what most people do. And Christianity prioritizes believing (often called faith) and morals. Traditions like Buddhism, say, are more focused on practices like meditation and less interested in belief. You have to go to expert practitioners to get other Christian traditions like meditation and contemplation. Monks, priests, nuns, mystics.
Oh, yeah, true. The average practitioner of almost any religion is just part of a clique.MagsJ wrote:Karpel Tunnel wrote:Much of Christianity focuses on prayer belief and ritual participation. That's what most people do. And Christianity prioritizes believing (often called faith) and morals. Traditions like Buddhism, say, are more focused on practices like meditation and less interested in belief. You have to go to expert practitioners to get other Christian traditions like meditation and contemplation. Monks, priests, nuns, mystics.
I grew up within that tribe of, them ^^^ but even then, no. It was more about personality/the person and character, than it was about any other thing.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:I think an interesting practice is contemplation, which I would contrast with meditation in that it is more free form and can even include verbal thinking. There is a Christian version of this. Meditation tends to be more structured with a focus of exclusing the verbal, even if some words are stimulating the meditation.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:Bob wrote:This then is what it means to seek God perfectly:
- to withdraw from illusion and pleasure, from worldly anxieties and desires, from the works that God does not want, from a glory that is only human display;
It seems to me that anxieties and desires are a part of us (and perhaps a part of any deity). So for me I would include anxieties and desires as part of any meditation or contemplation. Emotions, including the ones judged in religions are a core part of us and if we are made in a deity's image than they are likely a part of him her or it also. This is of course to some degree outside of Christian practice (and I am not a Christian, though I was partly raised in Christianity), but I think it is good to at least consider that the judgments against emotions might be cultural distortion or for some reason not in our best interest. If we cannot love them, we cannot love ourselves, I would say.
MagsJ wrote:_
As a born Catholic, I witnessed no meditation from that demographic.
As a part South Asian person, I witnessed much meditation from that demographic.
Perhaps Christianity is different to Catholicism, in that regard? I do recall the matter being touched on, in Theology class, but it had little to no impact on me or my psyche, and was not deemed an important part of that religious belief system, so which of I had to gain from the East, but I did see the similarities between Catholicism and Eastern practices.
As far as I can see emotions are more and more pathologized and while worry is static, we generally deny fear. It drives us, but is never truly soothed. I don't think adding more judgments is useful and in fact accepting emotions is a paradigm shift.Bob wrote:I am reading "The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible" by Charles Eisenstein. He has pointed to the fact that more of the same will not overcome our problems, we need a paradigm change. This is what Merton suggests and his advice is to that aim.
Much of that list deals with real problems, which to me means that our emotions are natural reactions to real problems. That the answer is not to treat the reactions as the problems but to see if one can shift the causes and also respect the reactions rather than seeing them as causal.Let us ask, “What kind of human being is politically passive, votes from fear and hate, pursues endless material acquisition, and is afraid to contemplate change?” We have all those behaviors written into our dominant worldview and, therefore, into the institutions arising from it. Cut off from nature, cut off from community, financially insecure, alienated from our own bodies, immersed in scarcity, trapped in a tiny, separate self that hungers constantly for its lost beingness, we can do no other than to perpetuate the behavior and systems that cause climate change. Our response to the problem must touch on this fundamental level that we might call spirituality.
Eisenstein, Charles. The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (Sacred Activism) . North Atlantic Books. Kindle-Version.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:Oh, yeah, true. The average practitioner of almost any religion is just part of a clique.
Bob wrote:Thomas Merton was a Trappist Monk who identified a number of similarities in the monastic traditions in the world. Could be that you just didn't know a Monk?
MagsJ wrote:Karpel Tunnel wrote:Oh, yeah, true. The average practitioner of almost any religion is just part of a clique.
I think of it as a community, within a larger one.. that of the Faith.![]()
Having thought on the matter this evening, I think it’s due to not wanting to fill my mind with prayers and psalms and rituals and such.. or it could be because of 17 years of constant regular church-going.Bob wrote:Thomas Merton was a Trappist Monk who identified a number of similarities in the monastic traditions in the world. Could be that you just didn't know a Monk?
Not personally, no.. though we were honoured with being able to be in the company of the local monks (and nuns), but only the head monk could speak/speak to us, and his sense of humour was a surprising revelation. The other monks lived in silence, though they also reacted to his humour too, and tried not to make eye contact as much as possible. Funny thing was, we didn’t know our school/church had monks, until we turned of age to know/at 15, so only on a need to know basis.
They taught us bell-ringing and special monk prayer, and yes, contemplation.. I remember that now. We would follow them around for many hours on certain days, to learn from them and their piety. School days became dull when they’d go, to wherever it was that they went, because they almost emitted a light/an energy. I think of them often still, to this very day..
The Masters of the spiritual paths, especially those from the Mystical Tradition, speak of "concentration". By this the mean that one should - for example after awakening - collect oneself from ones disorientation between dream and reality, from the many directions in which the inner and outer man is scattered. They say, bring the whole person you are in a clear direction. You come from the realm of dreams. Bring your dream into the new day. Be awake and whole.
They also say, if you have five minutes or half an hour at any time of the day, leave behind whatever is scattering you. Leave behind you the images that haunt you. Let go of that which binds you. Let go of what is bothering you on all sides.
When you have talked enough, keep your mouth shut for a while. Leave behind the Chatter that you come from. Even the chatter that goes back and forth within yourself. Try to remain silent, so that for a few moments the noise stops, even in yourself.
Or
Take a moment of freedom. Let go of what binds you. Let go of what you should do for a few minutes. Let what is chasing you in circles go and turn for a moment to someone or something that is important to you. Alternatively, stand by a pond for five minutes and watch the rain fall into the water. Nothing else.
You are full of a thousand things, occupying yourself, necessarily or unnecessarily, and you fill up like a crowded furniture store. Put your thoughts to one side. Leave everything behind you. Let a space arise in you in which as little as possible happens. Be empty. They used to call this “vacare Deo”. Be as empty as a person can be, who is full of himself every day and every hour.
Jörg Zink
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