Six 'Vision and Transformation' classes at the Colchester Buddhist Centre have raced by.
Yesterday was the final class which mainly concerned meditation and, together, we tackled the 'Five Hindrances' to meditation.
They are;
Craving and Desire (the experience of wanting our experience to be different during meditation).
Anger and Ill-will.
Restlessness and Anxiety.
Sloth and Torpor (having no energy or enthusiasm)
Doubt and Indecision.
This was followed by a ' Walking Meditation' practice and the Metta Bhavana (Loving Kindness) meditation. It was a lot to cram into two and a half hours, and easily could be extended.
Many searching souls sample meditation.
Since the late 1950s and 60s, and the landing of Zen Buddhism in American culture (with D.T. Suzuki, a Zen teacher from Japan) meditation has been the hip, or is that the cool thing to practise. In fact since the 1950s Beat Poets, Jack Kerouac included (‘Mexico City Blues’), who, though born a Catholic, had practised Buddhist meditation. Meditation, it seems, is now de rigueur for busy people who seek (and need) non-alcoholic and non-drug assistance in winding down. Never mind that Eastern meditation has been around for roughly five thousand years, in various forms.
But why bother with meditation anyway? Perhaps, initially, you thought that being seen sitting cross-legged on a supportive cushion, with your arms supported on your legs and index fingers touching your thumbs, made you seem more interesting. It doesn't. That's just a media hype born out of the current mania (and a money making factory) for mindfulness, and the imagery of beautiful young things, slim and radiant, selling the latest fad to quick-fix hungry over-workers. No, battling the merry japes and pranks of the 'Monkey Mind' is constant hard work (insert images of flying monkeys from L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900).
Researchers have been discovering what many more spiritual peoples have known for centuries, and that is…that meditation is good for the brain and body.
Articles, such as those written by Paul H. Levine in The Phi Delta Kappan journal (1972, TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION AND THE SCIENCE OF CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE) and magazines like ‘Time’ (1975, TM Forty Minutes to Bliss), ‘The Harvard Gazette’ (2006, Meditation found to increase brain size) and Psychology Today (2013…Robert Puff Ph.D.’Meditation for Modern Life An Overview of Meditation: Its Origins and Traditions’) have considered then encouraged meditation.
According to those who know better than I,‘meditation’ comes from the Latin word ‘meditatum’,which means ‘to ponder.’ However what we now would like to call ‘meditation’, hails back to India (probably about 1500 BC and indicated in both the Upanishads and the Mahabharata) while the practice of ‘Dhyāna’ or ‘Jhāna’ (in Buddhism) is seen as a training of the mind.
Meditation is very much a practice, like learning to play a violin, or working up to a marathon walk or run. Hence the five hindrances, or five easy ways to give up meditating without really trying, because it would be so much easier to give up rather than persevere.
And so the class has ended. Never mind, I’ve still got my fortnightly Colchester Buddhist Centre ‘Men’s Group’ to look forward to, where we discuss Triratna Western-style Buddhism and, hopefully, internalise some of the wisdom therein..
Yesterday was the final class which mainly concerned meditation and, together, we tackled the 'Five Hindrances' to meditation.
They are;
Craving and Desire (the experience of wanting our experience to be different during meditation).
Anger and Ill-will.
Restlessness and Anxiety.
Sloth and Torpor (having no energy or enthusiasm)
Doubt and Indecision.
This was followed by a ' Walking Meditation' practice and the Metta Bhavana (Loving Kindness) meditation. It was a lot to cram into two and a half hours, and easily could be extended.
Many searching souls sample meditation.
Since the late 1950s and 60s, and the landing of Zen Buddhism in American culture (with D.T. Suzuki, a Zen teacher from Japan) meditation has been the hip, or is that the cool thing to practise. In fact since the 1950s Beat Poets, Jack Kerouac included (‘Mexico City Blues’), who, though born a Catholic, had practised Buddhist meditation. Meditation, it seems, is now de rigueur for busy people who seek (and need) non-alcoholic and non-drug assistance in winding down. Never mind that Eastern meditation has been around for roughly five thousand years, in various forms.
But why bother with meditation anyway? Perhaps, initially, you thought that being seen sitting cross-legged on a supportive cushion, with your arms supported on your legs and index fingers touching your thumbs, made you seem more interesting. It doesn't. That's just a media hype born out of the current mania (and a money making factory) for mindfulness, and the imagery of beautiful young things, slim and radiant, selling the latest fad to quick-fix hungry over-workers. No, battling the merry japes and pranks of the 'Monkey Mind' is constant hard work (insert images of flying monkeys from L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900).
Researchers have been discovering what many more spiritual peoples have known for centuries, and that is…that meditation is good for the brain and body.
Articles, such as those written by Paul H. Levine in The Phi Delta Kappan journal (1972, TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION AND THE SCIENCE OF CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE) and magazines like ‘Time’ (1975, TM Forty Minutes to Bliss), ‘The Harvard Gazette’ (2006, Meditation found to increase brain size) and Psychology Today (2013…Robert Puff Ph.D.’Meditation for Modern Life An Overview of Meditation: Its Origins and Traditions’) have considered then encouraged meditation.
According to those who know better than I,‘meditation’ comes from the Latin word ‘meditatum’,which means ‘to ponder.’ However what we now would like to call ‘meditation’, hails back to India (probably about 1500 BC and indicated in both the Upanishads and the Mahabharata) while the practice of ‘Dhyāna’ or ‘Jhāna’ (in Buddhism) is seen as a training of the mind.
Meditation is very much a practice, like learning to play a violin, or working up to a marathon walk or run. Hence the five hindrances, or five easy ways to give up meditating without really trying, because it would be so much easier to give up rather than persevere.
And so the class has ended. Never mind, I’ve still got my fortnightly Colchester Buddhist Centre ‘Men’s Group’ to look forward to, where we discuss Triratna Western-style Buddhism and, hopefully, internalise some of the wisdom therein..
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