Meditation in the World's Religions

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Buddhism

Meditation lies at the very centre of Buddhism, the term used in the West to describe the teachings of an Indian prince, Guatama Siddhartha, who lived from c.563 BC to 483 BC. Siddhartha's wealthy father did everything he could to protect his son from the evils of the world, and it was not until the young man was in his late twenties that he saw a beggar, a sick man, a decrepit old man and a corpse for the first time and realized just how privileged he was.

When he asked a wandering monk about sickness and suffering, the mendicant told him that misery and pain were part and parcel of everyday life. Inspired by the monk's example, Siddhartha left his wife and family and turned his back on wealth and self-indulgence.

At first he looked to Hinduism for answers to the problems of suffering, but finding no answers in the faith of his ancestors, he began to conduct his own search for the truth and meaning of life.

Six years later, sitting deep in thought in the shade of a bo tree on the banks of the Neranjari River he achieved enlightenment, and seeing it as his duty to help others along the path he had trodden for so long, he began to preach his message.

At the heart of Buddhism lie the Four Noble Truths:

This path demands that those who seek enlightenment must trust in the Four Noble Truths until they can see them for themselves. They must have the right values, the right speech, conduct themselves in the right manner and have the right means of livelihood. They must endeavour in the right way, have right control of their minds and have the right kind of meditation.

One of the major disciplines of the Buddhist meditator is to attain 'unification of the mind' by eliminating all distractions. As the practitioner learns to meditate for long periods, agitation, scepticism and doubt disappear and are replaced by a feeling of bliss. The meditator becomes absorbed in thought (a process known as jhana) and moves deeper and deeper until he or she finally acquires an awareness of infinite space.

Many Buddhists regard the pursuit of various jhana levels as secondary to the 'Path of Mindfulness', which in the end leads to nirvana. The meditator learns to break out of stereotyped thought and comes to perceive every moment of everyday reality as if it were a new event.

The ego shrinks in importance; the universe is seen to be in a state of total and ever-changing flux. This realization leads to a sense of detachment from the world of experience, an abandonment of all desires, the abolition of self-interest and, ultimately, the ego itself.

Meditation can take place anywhere, for Buddhism is essentially a religion for the individual. Meditation is not a communal act. Even within organized Buddhist communities, the way one meditates is a matter for the individual and not for the community. There is no prescribed pattern of worship for Buddhists.

They may, if they so wish, visit pagodas, temples and shrines and focus on something there while meditating. But it is equally proper for them to meditate in their own homes, sitting in whichever position they choose (usually cross-legged) on the floor.

Some Buddhist families may have a statue of the Buddha in a specially built shrine in their homes; some burn incense and use prayer beads to help them concentrate the mind; some use mantras and mandalas, while others simply adopt their usual meditative position and quickly lose themselves in meditation.

It is estimated that more than 300 million people around the world practise Buddhism, and it is an interesting comment on early 21st-century life that more and more young people in the West are treading the same path and that Buddhism is one of the fastest-growing religions in the Western world.

Zen Buddhism

According to legend, in AD 520 the Indian thinker Bodhidharma (the first patriarch of Zen Buddhism) journeyed from India to China, where he presented himself at the court of the Emperor Wu, a devout Buddhist. When the emperor asked Bodhidharma what merit he, the emperor, had gained on the Path to Enlightenment by building temples and assiduously copying holy writings, the Indian incurred his wrath by telling him that there was no merit in such deeds as they showed worldly attachment.

True merit was only to be found in acts of absolute wisdom, beyond the realm of rational thought. Truth, said Bodhidharma, is emptiness, and holiness for holiness' sake has nothing to recommend it.

Wu was so furious with Bodhidharma's doctrine that the Indian left court and spent several years in a monastery contemplating a wall. He later communicated his thoughts and teachings-the Visuddhimagga, or Path to Purification, which describes the meditative approach from the Buddhist point of view-to Hui-k'o who thus became the second patriarch of Zen Buddhism.

Meditation has always been a keystone of Buddhism. Zen teaches that it is everything. Its followers do not believe in rituals or reading the Buddha's sermons (sutras). In Zen, meditation is more total and more intense than in any other Buddhist sect. The Buddhist who follows the Zen path must strive to avoid all conscious thought except the point on which he or she is meditating.

There is a famous story of a man who went to a Zen master and asked to be taught Zen. The master said nothing but poured the seeker a cup of tea, using a cup that was already full, and kept pouring until the pot was empty. Then he spoke.'You are like this cup,' he said. 'You are full. How can I pour Zen into you? Empty yourself and come back.'

Christianity

Modern Christianity stresses the importance of doing good deeds, loving one's neighbour and avoiding sin; the mystical side of the religion has largely been swept aside. But Christianity is essentially a mystical religion, for the true Christian seeks to be united with God through following the way of Christ, who said, T am the way, the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except through me.'

Meditation should play an important part in Christian worship, and it is interesting to note in this respect the volume of music that has been composed down the centuries to encourage meditation. Traditional Christian teaching advocates meditation as a means of getting closer to God.

St Teresa of Avila, for example, recommended the via positiva-concentrating the mind on God's love and absolute goodness in order to acquire some sense of His magnitude.

It is through such contemplation that the Christian meditator strives to overcome the limitations of conscious thought and achieve a state of ecstasy in the perfect union with God in love and adoration.

Meditation is still widely practised in monasteries, convents and other religious communities, and more and more Christians are spending time 'in retreat', sometimes for a day or two, sometimes for longer, in quiet contemplation. Christian meditation usually concentrates on the life of Jesus, Mary and the saints, and the most common aid to meditation is probably the Crucifix, although some Christians find that their concentration is heightened if they repeat the name of Jesus or Mary or recite short prayers while they meditate.

Hinduism

It is probably with yoga that most Westerners associate meditation. A few years ago the mention of the word would conjure up images of scraggy men, dressed in loincloths, sitting in a meditative trance, and stories of yogis who had been in such a state for so long that birds had nested on their heads were widely circulated to general amusement.

Westerners who 'did yoga' were regarded at best as cranks, but today, with more and more people in the West taking it up and with an awakening interest in oriental religion generally, if someone confesses to trying yoga, the reaction is generally one of interest and an expressed desire to know more.

The watershed for the increased interest in yoga meditation probably came in the 1960s with the huge publicity given to the pop groups who travelled to India and returned extolling the virtues of transcendental meditation. But what was new to the West has been practised for thousands of years in the subcontinent.

There is no formal creed in Hinduism, rather a number of religious concepts have developed and have been elaborated since it was founded, probably about 3000 years ago. These ideas were centred on the aim of every Hindu, which is to attain ultimate freedom, or moksha, to be free of the endless cycle of rebirths and to be at one with Brahman-the one ultimate reality. Humans learn through yoga (the word derives from the Sanskrit yuj, meaning 'to bind together') to achieve this union.

Yoga, the means of gaining liberation from the senses, is one of the four main concepts that underlie Hindu spiritual philosophy. The others are karma, the law of causality that links mankind to the universe, may a, the illusion of the manifest world, and nirvana, the absolute reality that lies beyond illusion.

Yoga encourages the practitioner to see things as they are rather than as they seem. All bodily and mental tensions must cease to be if this is to be so, and, accordingly, one of the basic yoga techniques is meditation as this turns consciousness towards inner calm and finally transcendence.

Judaism

When a man strips away the material aspect which envelops him, he will depict in his mind only the divine energy, so that its light will be of infinite greatness.' The words of Rabbi Dov Baer underline the importance of meditation in Jewish mysticism, which has its roots in the Kabbalah, the movement that combines a complex system of philosophy with specific techniques for increasing spiritual awareness.

Kabbalistic teaching holds that everything in the universe is derived from one source and that the purpose of our existence is to recognize our identity with God and all of creation through meditation and other spiritual practices.

Kabbalistic Jews most often practise visual meditation, focusing their thoughts on the Tree of Life or the characters of the Jewish alphabet, each of which is said to contain an aspect of the creative energy. Jews who follow the meditative path claim that they are open to a state of awareness that transcends their normal level of consciousness.

They hold that their physical health also benefits. This is in line with the teaching of early Jewish mystics, who recognized the relationship between a person's state of mind and his or her physical wellbeing.

Sufism

Some say that Sufism (the word comes from 'sufi' and was originally applied to someone who wore suf, or undyed wool) developed from Islam. Others believe that it developed as a reaction against it. Whatever its origins, most Sufis are Muslim, although the latter is not a prerequisite of the former, and non-Islamic Sufi groups are found in many parts of the world.

Sufis base their beliefs on certain passages of the Koran, and some early Christian ideas. Their aim is to transcend everyday thought processes and to achieve a mystical union of the physical, the spiritual and the mental. The Sufist way of life involves fasting, storytelling, dancing and meditation.

There are many different types of meditation. Perhaps the strangest is one practised by a particular group of Sufists-the whirling dervishes who achieve a state of meditative ecstasy by spinning round and round at an ever-increasing rate, hoping to empty the mind of everything apart from communicating with God. Most forms of meditation can be easily practised at home-this one should not.