I’ve discussed a lot of topics on this blog, but one I’ve avoided is meditation.
When you meditate, you learn not to talk about it too much with others who don’t meditate, since it seems to make them uncomfortable. A very good friend said to me not long ago when I tried to describe for him briefly the benefits of meditation, “But can’t it throw you into a frenzy if you’re not careful?” It was more a statement than a question, though, so I just changed the subject.
In my experience, meditation is like a poor cousin to yoga. My yoga teacher always allots the last 15 minutes of her one-and-a-half hour sessions to meditation…and 80 to 90% of the students leave in the brief interlude between when yoga ends and meditation begins. Some of those who leave have told me, “I tried meditating, but I’m terrible at it.” Or, “Yeah, I did it for a while, but my mind just goes a mile a minute, so I don’t even bother.” (Meditation teachers say that an active mind doesn’t mean anything is wrong; a big part of meditation "practice" is simply observing the mind in all its contortions, and increasing awareness of what is going on up there.)
Yet despite all this, I sense meditation is becoming more popular. The Wednesday evening meditation and teaching sessions at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Society where I hang out used to attract 20 to 30 people five or six years ago. Now they routinely draw 70 or 80 people, filling up the spacious meditation hall. Maybe the biggest indication is that consumer ads now show pictures of individuals meditating to suggest the advertisers are hip.
The reason I decided to talk about it now is that the popular media and scientific community are at long last discovering meditation. Traditionally, the media have had as much or more difficulty reporting about meditation as about raw milk. They’ll often poke fun at it, or at best allow that it can help in reducing stress. And scientists couldn’t figure out how to measure it, so they discounted it.
But what about the possibility that meditation actually changes the brain, much like exercise changes (strengthens) muscles, including the heart? The Wall Street Journal in a lengthy article yesterday reported that scientists say long-term meditation actually alters the way the brain functions. (The article is excerpted from a new book, "Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain".)
The endorsement by the media and scientists makes it official, doesn’t it? No matter that Buddhist monks have known this for centuries, or that practitioners like me, who have done it for many years, experience fundamental changes in their thoughts and feelings. None of that counts, just like consumers of raw milk don’t count when they get rid of asthma and allergies. In the meantime, for more information and guidance on meditation, take a look at the Insight Meditation Society’s resources page.
P.S. I’d like to alert people readers of this blog who may also read Linda Diane Feldt’s blog (one of this blog’s links) that it has been off-line for several days. I contacted Linda when I couldn’t access the site, and she informs me there is a server problem and accompanying security issues that have taken longer to fix than she expected. She’s hopeful she’ll be back online within the next few days.
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