Meditation
Excerpted from The Complete Guide to Life as a State of Grace, by Dr. Rita Sherma
What Meditation is NOT
The word meditation is widely used today to refer to diverse methods for addressing a variety of objectives. These objectives are sometimes spiritual, but more often, related to desires for psychological, physical, or existential wellbeing.
Meditation, originally created as a remedy for materialism and craving, has now become an adjunct to these very states of mind.
Any number of people, some with very limited knowledge of the depth and background of meditation practices, aggressively market mediation as something one can “instantly” learn. We see here the bizarre phenomenon of meditation as instant gratification.
This approach is the antithesis of meditation practice as developed throughout human history and across myriad cultures.
People now often practice meditation for such benefits as better relaxation; stress-relief; health advantages; clearer focus, and so forth. There is intrinsically nothing wrong with seeking wellbeing, but I have two subtle concerns with this situation.
First, when a meditation method is used only to achieve a limited goal, the deepest possible values of meditation are not realized because we are not trying to realize them. We will see what these values are shortly.
Second, marketing meditation widely, without any effort to frame it in any ethical or philosophical framework, can create problems of its own. For example, a friend who is a well-known mindfulness meditation teacher refused to provide a meditation seminar to a group of executives of an industry that was responsible for extreme environmental damage, and was fighting major lawsuits for producing and knowingly marketing products that had killed and injured users.
She was a conscientious objector who saw clearly that to arm unethical persons with deeper concentration, clarity, focus, and dynamic energy to create more havoc in the world was not the wisest use of her mediation teaching. Without a moral and ethical underpinning, meditation can become a potent tool for those who seek the benefits of meditation for intensifying the ability to exercise greater power and domination. If you are feeling doubtful, please read “Zen at War,” by by Brian Daizen Victoria, which presents, in a very compelling way, the exploitation of Zen by the Japanese military machine.
Meditation, properly practiced, is like a powerful river—it needs levees on its banks. These levees are the spiritual, moral, and ethical foundations in which mediation should be grounded.
Pure meditation is not petition to a higher power; praise-giving; thanks-giving; making your mind blank; thought control; guided imagery; relaxation; attempts to alter your brain waves; feelings of joy and bliss; peacefulness; or stress-relief. While some of these experiences can be by-products of meditation, they are not, in themselves, the meditative process.
Nor is meditation the same as contemplation, although these two words are often used interchangeably. To contemplate something means to reflect upon it. It signifies a quest, an active mental questioning and/or processing. Contemplation can be focused on a thought, a query, an idea, a problem, a concept, sacred art, an icon, or an image. It can be used in intellectual or creative work, as well as in spiritual practice.
Various Incorrect Meditation Definitions
- meditation – continuous and profound contemplation or musing on a subject or series of subjects of a deep or abstruse nature; “the habit of meditation is the basis for all real knowledge.”
- meditation – contemplation of spiritual matters (usually on religious or philosophical subjects)
- meditation—reflection, thought, study, musing, pondering, contemplation, reverie, ruminating, rumination, cogitation, cerebration.
What Meditation IS
Meditation is the instrument that allows us to journey to the deepest reaches of our consciousness. Why should you care about the depths of your consciousness? You should care because, stripped of all the aggregates of your self-created identity, pure consciousness is who you are.
Do you not want to know yourself?
Pure consciousness does not mean “object-consciousness.” To be conscious “of something” is your state of consciousness in response mode to an internal (within the body-mind) or external stimulus. The contact with, and reaction to, an object of perception (thought, feeling, cognition, sensation) is what we think of when we think of consciousness. This is the surface level of consciousness. It is conscious awareness colored by persons, places, things, and events. It is conscious attention in service of emotions, needs, and wants.
But pure consciousness is the natural state of your being if everything, including your waking state, was taken away from you. It is your “face before you were born” and your final identity beyond all temporary identities.
In the deepest reaches of consciousness, you are always free. Meditation, properly practiced, will take you there.
There is a story my grandmother used to tell me when I was a young child: there was a mermaid who swam up to the surface of the sea to float on the sun flecked foam. After a few hours, she realized that she was very far from the depths of the sea where her home was. She was so far from the ocean floor, that she did not know how to return. The sunny skies had turned an ominous charcoal and lighting split the horizon. In desperation, she spotted a school of dolphins and asked them for help. They pointed her to a rusty old anchor near the shoreline. They nudged the anchor until it budged from the sand. When she had a firm hold, it plunged to the bottom of the sea, and she found herself home.
The Meditation method is like that Anchor. Properly held, it can take us to the deepest reach of the ocean of consciousness, and we no longer need to float on the surface layers, playing in shallow waters.
Types of Meditation
The deepest benefit of meditation is that it can lead us to the deepest levels of consciousness, where freedom resides, where the key to our identity lies. On the way there, we know that there are many benefits, which many recent medical studies have corroborated. We can enjoy these varied benefits, while keeping in mind that a deeper gift lies within the heart of meditative practice.
Despite what the most aggressive meditation marketers assert, deeply effective meditation methods were not recently formulated. They were thousands of years in the making. And these methods did not arise in a vacuum but in the crucible of a spiritual-moral-ethical framework. Every wisdom tradition that gave rise to a flourishing meditation culture, had several related meditative disciplines available. There are several reasons for this.
Why Do We Need Different Methods?
- Recent medical studies done with a specific meditation method often yields information about the particular physiological, psychological, or cognitive value of that specific form. Research done with other meditation styles report other benefits. While all meditation techniques may have certain common benefits, some methods will more efficiently enhance certain modes of wellbeing, while other methods promote other areas of wellbeing more effectively.
- In some traditions, it was recognized that individuals differ in character and constitution and what works well for one, may not work as well for another. In these more “personalized” traditions, individuals were given a body of practices—a methodology—that they applied sequentially or in tandem, for self-transformation
- Some of the wisdom traditions that developed different modes of meditative practice were concerned with bringing into play all the layers of our sensory, motor, and cognitive being. Meditation with imagery speaks to our visual field, imagination, and creativity. Meditative practices with ritual objects that are used in tactile ways allow the inclusion of our sense of touch. Similarly, there are many modalities of meditation practice that integrate the many layers of our being.
- Finally, all practices that can truly be designated as “meditation,” practiced with diligence and commitment, will help the practitioner to reach the deepest level of consciousness. But the journey to full awakening to one’s true self, offers illuminations along the way. These are the intuitions, gnosis, insights, and wisdom that the path offers us, even before we reach the destination. Different meditation methods evoke different insights. There are shared insights common to different practices, and then there are illuminations unique to a particular meditative practice.
Excerpted from The Complete Guide to Life as a State of Grace, by Dr. Rita Sherma
© Rita Sherma, Ph.D., 2009
Convergence Spirituality offers a system of meditative practices that cover these four areas. The meditative methods offered by Convergence workshops and retreats are based on qualified, pure, effective, time-tested spiritual practices. These meditation modalities are then presented in a simple step-by-step format so that you can receive the maximum benefits from them. With the Convergence Spirituality meditation system, you will experience the opening and blossoming of every level of your being.
