Meditation
A statue of the Buddha meditating, Borim Temple, Korea
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their
minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit. Meditation
is generally an inwardly oriented, personal practice, which individuals can do by
themselves. Prayer beads or other ritual objects may be used during meditation.
Meditation may involve invoking or cultivating a feeling or internal state, such
as compassion, or attending to a specific focal point. The term can refer to the
state itself, as well as to practices or techniques employed to cultivate the state.
There are dozens of specific styles of meditation practice; the word meditation
may carry different meanings in different contexts. Meditation has been practiced
since antiquity as a component of numerous religious traditions. A 2007 study by
the U.S. government found that nearly 9.4% of U.S. adults (over 20 million) had
practiced meditation within the past 12 months, up from 7.6% (more than 15 million
people) in 2002. Since the 1960s, meditation has been the focus of increasing scientific
research of uneven rigor and quality. In over 1,000 published research studies,
various methods of meditation have been linked to changes in metabolism, blood pressure,
brain activation, and other bodily processes. Meditation has been used in clinical
settings as a method of stress and pain reduction.
Terminology
Caravans on the Silk Road helped spread meditative practices from India.
The English meditation is derived from the Latin meditatio, from a verb meditari,
meaning "to think, contemplate, devise, ponder, meditate".In the Old Testament hāgâ
(Hebrew: הגה), means to sigh or murmur, but also to meditate. When the Hebrew Bible
was translated into Greek, hāgâ became the Greek melete. The Latin Bible then translated
hāgâ/melete into meditatio.The use of the term meditatio as part of a formal, stepwise
process of meditation goes back to the 12th-century monk Guigo II.Apart from its
historical usage, the term meditation was introduced as a translation for Eastern
spiritual practices, referred to as dhyāna in Buddhism and in Hinduism, which comes
from the Sanskrit root dhyai, meaning to contemplate or meditate.The term "meditation"
in English may also refer to practices from Islamic Sufism, or other traditions
such as Jewish Kabbalah and Christian Hesychasm. An edited book about "meditation"
published in 2003, for example, included chapter contributions by authors describing
Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, and Taoist traditions.Scholars have noted that
"the term 'meditation' as it has entered contemporary usage" is parallel to the
term "contemplation" in Christianity.
History
Man Meditating in a Garden Setting
The history of meditation is intimately bound up with the religious context within
which it was practiced.Even in prehistoric times civilizations used repetitive,
rhythmic chants and offerings to appease the gods.Some authors have even suggested
the hypothesis that the emergence of the capacity for focused attention, an element
of many methods of meditation,may have contributed to the final phases of human
biological evolution.Some of the earliest references to meditation are found in
the Bible, dating around 1400 BCE, and in the Hindu Vedas from around the 15th century
BCE. Around the 6th to 5th centuries BCE, other forms of meditation developed in
Taoist China and Buddhist India.In the west, by 20BCE Philo of Alexandria had written
on some form of "spiritual exercises" involving attention (prosoche) and
concentration and by the 3rd century Plotinus had developed meditative techniques.
The Pāli Canon, which dates to 1st century BCE considers Indian Buddhist meditation
as a step towards salvation. By the time Buddhism was spreading in China, the Vimalakirti
Sutra which dates to 100CE included a number of passages on meditation, clearly
pointing to Zen. The Silk Road transmission of Buddhism introduced meditation to
other oriental countries, and in 653 the first meditation hall was opened in Japan.
Returning from China around 1227, Dōgen wrote the instructions for Zazen. The Islamic
practice of Dhikr had involved the repetition of the 99 Names of God since the 8th
or 9th century. By the 12th century, the practice of Sufism included specific meditative
techniques, and its followers practiced breathing controls and the repetition of
holy words. Interactions with Indians or the Sufis may have influenced the Eastern
Christian meditation approach to hesychasm, but this can not be proved. Between
the 10th and 14th centuries, hesychasm was developed, particularly on Mount Athos
in Greece, and involves the repetition of the Jesus prayer. Western Christian meditation
contrasts with most other approaches in that it does not involve the repetition
of any phrase or action and requires no specific posture. Western Christian meditation
progressed from the 6th century practice of Bible reading among Benedictine monks
called Lectio Divina, i.e. divine reading. Its four formal steps as a "ladder"
were defined by the monk Guigo II in the 12th century with the Latin terms lectio,
meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio (i.e. read, ponder, pray, contemplate). Western
Christian meditation was further developed by saints such as Ignatius of Loyola
and Teresa of Avila in the 16th century. By the 18th century, the study of Buddhism
in the West was a topic for intellectuals. The philosopher Schopenhauer discussed
it, and Voltaire asked for toleration towards Buddhists. The first English translation
of the Tibetan Book of the Dead was published in 1927. Secular forms of meditation
were introduced in India in the 1950s as a Westernized form of Hindu meditative
techniques and arrived in the United States and Europe in the 1960s. Rather than
focusing on spiritual growth, secular meditation emphasizes stress reduction, relaxation
and self improvement. Both spiritual and secular forms of meditation have been subjects
of scientific analyses. Research on meditation began in 1931, with scientific research
increasing dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s. Since the beginning of the '70s
more than a thousand studies of meditation in English-language have been reported.
However, after 60 years of scientific study, the exact mechanism at work in meditation
remains unclear.
Hinduism
A large statue in Bangalore depicting Lord Shiva meditating
There are many, many schools and styles of meditation within Hinduism. Yoga is generally
done to prepare one for meditation, and meditation is done to realize union of one's
self, one's atman, with the omnipresent and non-dual Brahman. This experience
is referred to as moksha by Hindus, and is similar to the concept of Nibbana in
Buddhism.[citation needed] The earliest clear references to meditation in Hindu
literature are in the middle Upanishads and the Mahabharata, which includes the
Bhagavad Gita. According to Gavin Flood, the earlier Brihadaranyaka Upanishad refers
to meditation when it states that "having becoming calm and concentrated, one
perceives the self (ātman) within oneself". Within Patañjali's ashtanga
yoga practice there are eight limbs leading to moksha. These are ethical discipline
(yamas), rules (niyamas), physical postures (asanas), breath control (pranayama),
withdrawal from the senses (pratyahara), one-pointedness of mind (dharana), meditation
(dhyana), and finally samadhi, which is often described as the union of the Self
(atman) with the omnipresent (Brahman), and is the ultimate aim of all Hindu yogis.
Meditation in Hinduism is not confined to any school or sect and has expanded beyond
Hinduism to the West. Today there is a new branch of yoga which combines Christian
practices with yogic postures known popularly as Christian Yoga.
New Age
Meditation workshop at 1979 Nambassa in New Zealand
New Age meditations are often influenced by Eastern philosophy, mysticism, Yoga,
Hinduism and Buddhism, yet may contain some degree of Western influence. In the
West, meditation found its mainstream roots through the social revolution of the
1960s and 1970s, when many of the youth of the day rebelled against traditional
belief systems as a reaction against what some perceived as the failure of Christianity
to provide