History and Etymology

- 1250 relig. meditatiun “contemplation”;
- 1380 meditacion “action to reflect deeply”;
- 1626 meditation “writes on a subject religious (or philosophical)”.

Empr. with the lat. meditatio, - onis (DER. of meditari, v. to meditate), “preparation (with a speech, to write)”, “reflection”, direction very fréq. at the aut. chrét., v. Blaise Lat. chrét. and Gloss Nov., from where evolution of direction in the religious lang.

Synonymy:

Reflection, application, attention, concentration, thought, study, meditation, research, contemplation, deepening, speculation, application, prayer, loneliness, speech, spirit.

General description

The various techniques of meditation can be classified according to their hearth: a body zone or the displacement of zone at zone a precise perception, the vacuum of any concept or vacuity, on a specific object preselected layman or monk, the name of a deity or a concept inspiring peace (the breath, a sound, an incantation, a koan or enigma evoking of the questions, a visualization, or a exercise). The meditation carries different behavioral names: relieving, concentration, modified state of conscience, suspension of the processes of the rational and logical thought, and maintenance of the observation of oneself.

Meditation and science

Scientific research

The Psychologie is interested in the meditation, in these psychotherapeutic applications. The cognitivo-behavioral Psychothérapie proposes to the people suffering from mental ruminations, for example at the time of a depression, a form of meditation which approaches the Zen, but whose typical elements of a Spiritualité were removed.

Within the framework of the scientific research or philosophical on the nature of the Conscience, certain authors defend the importance of the meditation like introspective practice, through which the researcher can observe his own flow of thoughts and acquire a differently inaccessible knowledge. Susan Blackmore defends for example, on the basis of of its own practice of the Zen and its scientific research, that the conscience is an illusion.

Religious or mystical meditation

Hindouism

There are several types of meditation in the Hindouisme and the Indian Philosophie:

In the Védanta, the Jnana Yoga has as a principal method the investigation of Self (atma will vichara), which turns over to the source of the thoughts until the thought I ,
In the Yoga, the Rajah yoga is a spiritual practice to calm the fluctuations of the spirit, Dhyana, the stage of the meditation in yoga, is before last of the eight directions called Ashtanga Yoga. In Yoga one uses several supports of meditation: the postures and breathings (Hatha yoga) are maintained to raise spiritual energy, the Kundalini which goes up by centers of energy: the Chakra S; the visualization of a form, an image; devotion with a deity (Bhakti yoga); production of sound by the repetition of a Mantra (Japa yoga).

Meditation with support , there exist many proposals for a meditation with support:

To observe the light which penetrates by the top of the head (Chakra) and to be identified with this light.
To listen to the sound in the internal ear (nada).
Parcourir interior of the body by the feeling, which is very releasing.
To remain in a posture with a position of codified hand (Mudrâ).

Meditation without support , for that the spirit must be parvenu with calm and the Détachement of the desires of the world, if not it roves. There is enough to be present and to remain conscious and available to spontaneous blooming to silence.

Contemporary spirituality

In contemporary spirituality, Krishnamurti or Jean Klein, the term of meditation means state of quiet clearness without support, a Vigilance where mental constructions are absent. They drew some directions of meditation:

the attention: “This investigation requires an attention empties of any waiting, of any anticipation; to some extent, an innocent attention. This morning we peacefully sat. It is a meditation without subject to meditate, and object on what to meditate. It is our natural peace. ”.

the observation : “Teaching rests mainly on comprehension, it rather acts to be comprehension. To include/understand is the result of a right observation. It is an opened observation, without judgment, comparison nor interpretation; we cannot objectify it. We cannot locate it in space, because it is out of time. Time is a creation of the thought, while the observation which emanates from the totality of the body raises, it, of the timeless one. ”.

time : “The thought is time, the thought is a function. Time is an expression of the timeless one. Time must cease so that can live the timeless one. And when the thought discovered its limits, then we are opened with timeless, with the present eternal. ”.

freedom : “The freedom of which you made the experiment in these moments can never be objectified, nor definite. You can never formulate it. Comprehension can be well in your head, but to be comprehension does not have anything any more to see with the head; it is your total perception. ”.

the observer/ego : “

Faith of Bahá' í

Although the founder of the faith, Bahá' í, forever indicated any particular form of meditation, some practical is méditatives: " The meditation is the key to open the doors of the mysteries to your spirit. The man abstracts itself, in this state it withdraws himself from all the external objects; he is immersed in the ocean of the spiritual life and can reveal the secrecies of the things in they-mêmes.". One of them is the daily repetition of: God is most glorious , in Arab: اللهابهى.

Buddhism

The meditation was always central with Buddhism. The historical Bouddha realized while meditating under the tree of Bodhi. The majority of the forms of Buddhism distinguish two classes from practices as regards meditation to reach the illumination:

Shamatha develops the capacity to focus the attention in only one point
Vipassana develops perspicacity and wisdom by seeing the true nature of reality.

To differentiate these two types of practices is not always easy, except in Anapanasati which starts in shamatha, and finishes in a practice vipassana.

Theravada

Buddhism Theravada (doctrines of Old) underlines the fact of being attentive (sati) and includes two practices:

Samatha bhavana, the development of peace, leads to the attack of the Jhana S, of deep levels of concentration. It also aims the development of the benevolence, the compassion, the detachment. Thus, Metta is the development of a feeling of love detached towards each being. Anapanasati is the concentration based on breathing. Anapasati is however sometimes employed for the practice of vipassana.
Vipassana bhavana, the formal practice of an introspection, is sometimes described according to a whole of 18 contemplations, like the contemplation of impermanency. In the " continuation; of Nibbana " , it leads to the realization of the state of Arahant.

Mahāyāna

Here the lesson which distinguishes Mahāyāna:

doctrines of the Vacuity, according to the Sūtra S known as of the Prajñāpāramitā, from where hatch, mainly, philosophical schools Madhyamaka and Yogācāra.
the search of the Awakening (either only of the Nirvāna) in the altruistic motivation and universalist of the Bodhicitta, which the Bodhisattva until complete Bouddhéité develops.

The Japanese schools Mahayana

Tendai (Tien-tai), the concentration is cultivated by a strongly structured ritual. Zazen and Koan is extremely important practices of meditation, making it possible a practitioner to directly test the true nature of the Réalité.
Shingon this section divides many devices with Bouddhisme Tibetan.

The Chinese Buddhist school Chán which was exported in the Japanese form: Zen, and Korean Its, each name of these schools derives from the Sanskrit Dhyana, and translates it by " méditation" in their respective languages.

The Buddhism Tibetan (Vajrayana)

It is also called Tantra or Tantrayana. Many monks spend their day without " méditer" under a recognizable aspect, but are more inclined to sing or take part in a liturgy of group. In this tradition, the goal of the meditation is to wake up nature similar to the sky of the spirit, and to introduce the practitioners with what they are really: pure invariable conscience. To meditate, it is necessary to adopt an attitude of not-seizure, inspired by the nature of the spirit and free of any conceptual reference. The meditation requires at least two things of that which practices it: maximum relaxation and will. The purpose of the practice of the Buddhist Méditation is to help the beings, for that it is necessary to carry out the influence of the ego which slows down and prevents from developing the true compassion.

The meditation can be obtained by the practice of the Attention which allows that:

the various fragmented aspects of mental settle, dissolve and calm down: to see Dhyana;
the practice of the attention defuses negativity, the aggressiveness and the turbulence of the emotions: to see Vipassana, Zazen;
this practice reveals and reveals fundamental kindness, the seed of awakening according to the Bouddhisme Tibetan.

There exist several kinds of meditation in Buddhism Tibetan (Vajrayana). Most known are shiné and tonglen:

- practice of Shiné which means calm mental in Tibetan. It consists in sitting down and being attentive with breathing. The spirit is without stop slave of the thoughts, of the emotions, without stop consolidating the ego. The practice of shiné consists in more not exerting pressure on the thoughts and the emotions, to let them go and come.

- the practice of Tonglen (the gift of happiness and the assumption of responsibility of the suffering) consists in receiving the suffering of one or more beings and to return much happiness to them. It like the practice of is shiné a little, one imagines the suffering of the beings in the shape symbolic system of smoke, by inspiring it this one disappears in the center to be it. Then at the time expir it, a marvellous light representing what there is best for each one is returned.

Some of the méditatives techniques of the Buddha was divided with other traditions of its day, but the idea that ethics is causal related to the achievement of religious perspicacity was original.

Some of the méditatives techniques of Buddha were divided with other traditions of its time.

The majority of the Buddhist traditional schools recognize that the access road to the illumination requires three types of practice: the virtue ( Sīla ), the meditation ( citta ) and, wisdom ( Prajna ). Thus, the only méditative prowess is not sufficient; it is that part of the access road. In other words, in Buddhism, of par with the intellectual scholarship, the moral development and advised comprehension are also necessary for the achievement of the most goal.

Buddhism release-you it?

(under development)

Question of a former practitioner of the vajrayana. Meditation, another point of view

the meditation it is the art of:

- to calm down, sit down and let elutriate the emotions while concentrating on another thing that usually (breathing for example).

- with a framework in the form of ritual, to become aware of our operation, its emotions.

- to develop a méta-point of sight, i.e. to be in oneself and outside. For example it sometimes happens to me to climb on a hill to see where I live and that releases me from the pressures that I built myself, of my emotions, relativizes my problems, reduces my report/ratio with these problems and helps me to become serene.

The méta-point of sight is to be the observer and observed. It is not in no manner question of stopping thinking, feeling, to be in its life and withdrawing themselves any more as a hermit. It is question in the meditation of changing his report/ratio with its life, with the life, by developing its conscience of the present thanks to the " not saisie" (i.e. to realize that one cannot seize his thoughts, its angers, the setting sun, time which passes, to control others or oneself…). To develop its vigilance in the moment present to more let itself carry by trains of thoughts, destroying emotions, practices of life which are not favorable for us.

To contemplate is initially to create a moment of pause in the daily life to be authorized to calm themselves, to look at themselves, then to look beyond that. Then to contemplate is to set up new designs (ways of perceiving, ways of thinking, ways of acting) which one will gradually integrate in his life to reach to it not meditation. I.e. that these designs are integrated in our habitus and there does not need more to be said: I will meditate. It just like is done one walks without saying " to walk I will raise a foot, to advance it… " I know that I walk, I of it am conscious but I my " dig more the tête" for the faire"). It is in a simplified way the meditation within the framework of the Buddhist line Kagyu Tibetan. Line of Vajrayana met in the Dordogne, France.

To summarize, it is to become aware of its programming, déprogrammer (to remove what is not appropriate to us) and to reprogram themselves. Alarm with launching is on the quality of the reprogramming. The reprogramming does not seem neutral and does not seem not directed towards your only profit. The religious institution expatriate of Tibet benefits from it to make its nest like materially ideologically.

---- Elements institutionalizing of the ritual ones Various techniques of meditation of the vajrayana (shiné, tonglen…), the different ritual ones (Tchenrezi, Milarépa…), are narrowly overlapping with institutionalizing elements:

Extracts from Saddhana de Tchenrézi, the meditation-recitation of Large Sympathizing: First page - " Prayer with the Master of the line of Mahamoudra. " Second page - " Large Dordjé Tchang Omnipresent, give your attention. Télo Shérab Zangpo (Pure Wisdom, Tilopa), give your attention ". There is more than one about thirty Master to beseech and that ends in " Keep us, myself and all the beings of the six worlds, in your immense love and your wisdom. "
Extracts from the " Short Practice of Milarépa": " Prayer in seven worms with Gourou Rinpotché… Houng, in the North-western area of the country of Orgyen, on a lotus with its stem and its cheesecloths, you carried out the supreme and extraordinary achievement. You are called " appeared of the lotus" , you are surrounded by a mandala many dakinis. Come in order to give me your blessing, me which am your disciple. Bless this place sublimates and confer to me, authentic practitioner, four initiations. Draw aside the interferences, the perverse quides and the obstacles. Grant the supreme and ordinary achievements " …
Extracts from " Guru Yoga of Dagpo Lhadjé" : " homage and the praise by the means of the Twelve Acts of the Perfect Buddha, the Authentic Teacher. With that which, using of the means of the compassion, occurred in the line of Sakyas; that which came to end from the hordes from demons that no one had not been able to overcome; that of which the body with the splendid glare of gold; to You, king of Sakyas, I pay homage. Praise with You, who having given rise to the bodhicitta and perfect two accumulations of merit and wisdom, accomplished, in the present era, of vast works and soothsayers the protective of the beings . I pay homage… " There are of them thus 12 pages format 9.6 X 29.7 cm. That ends in (page 12): " , Tathagata, a body similar to yours Can we obtain; a longevity, a life, a pure ground and noble and pure name similar to yours; can it be thus for others and me. By Bouddha which came in our world, by the teaching which lights like the sunlight, by the perfectly developed line of the holders of the doctrines, can teaching remain a long time , can all excellent things occur. "

One finds As of the beginning of ritual repetitive sentences, psalmodiées anchoring in your spirit the following facts: 1 the origin of the doctrines transmitted to be waked up with being waked up. 2 Of high the magic facts carried out thanks to the techniques of awakening. 3 the first extract says clearly that the Masters are still in life since one beseeches them by reading that " give your attention " . All that consolidates concepts of immortality implicitly, capacities " magiques" and the hierarchical order of the Buddhist institution justifies (other extracts). It is strongly repeated that the life is suffering, dissatisfaction…

Extracts from " Preliminary Practices " , ritual related to the three years retirement three months three days. " (page I) It is important always to recite this invocation composed by Thirteenth Karmapa, prayer special of partic the preliminaries and the central practices which are the precondition to the practice of Mahâmoudra: Namo Guru bhya. Main, I prostrate with your feet. LAMA, you who reveal me my own conscience like the body of reality, make rain the heavy shower of elixir of your blessings , and to myself and all the beings whose extent touches with the borders of space, grant without exception the supreme and ordinary achievements. … Some of karmic causality, can apply to the ten virtues. To be released from the dangers of the cyclic existence and to arrive at the ground of eternal happiness , can they always take the Three Jewels like refuge and to cultivate sublimates it spirit of Awakening, its aspiration and its implementation.
In the Preliminary Practices, page6 " On the painful nature of the cyclic existence: Fourthly, the places, the friends, the pleasures and the wordly goods are in fact only torture, the continual experiment of the suffering in its three forms, similar to the ultimate feast which the torturer offers to us before acting to the scaffold. Let us slice any attachment then and practice for the Awakening with determination. ".
Pages 6 and 7 of the Preliminary Practices " Comes then the practice from the Refuge and the production of the spirit of Awakening; the purpose of it is to make our spirit a clean receptacle and to make that all our acts take part in the way of the release. To take Refuge and generate the Spirit of Awakening: In front of me, in the middle of a lake, draws up tree-which-exauce-all-the-wishes; of its single trunk at the base spread five branches. On the central branch, the LAMA-root present, sitting on a lotus, a sun and the moon, on a throne supported by lions; it is Vjradhara, surrounded of the Masters of the Kagyupa line. In front of them the Dharma Saint and on their left Sangha. Under the thrones the guards and guards of Dharma are, surrounded… (page 8) Me and all the beings we take refuge in that which incarnates the unified gasoline of the totality of the Body, the Word, the Spirit, the Activity and Qualities of Awakening of all Tathagatas of the ten directions and three times, that which is the cource of the eighty four thousand lesson of Dharma, that which is the sovereign Master of noble Communauté in its totality: our LAMA-root benevolent. With him we take refuge in all the glorious saints spangled who constitute his line… (to be recited seven times, came and once or more still, as much as one can). "

(to place here analyzes extracts)
To confirm and reinforce this idea one presents to you the awakening (the solution), supreme objective, like almost impossible to be reached in this life. Except for certain large meditating. This system reinforces frustration and invites even more to study, think differently and to impregnate concepts… to change its habitus.
But is this without consequences? While affirming the need for having a critical spirit towards its LAMA, is without stop reinforced the tender " spirituelle" with the large Masters. And thus by richochet, with spangled in general. It is enough to observe the behavior of the majority of the practitioners when one of these Masters (presented like the emanation of Boddhisatva, of a Buddha, the reincarnation of the main large last…)to realize with fright that the religious practice of Buddhism Tibetan, under democratic covers, is carrying an old feudal system. The awakening promised in a dubious future encourages with the sacrifice, the gift, a retirement cutting you of your conceptual and social world. … a permanent formatting legitimating the position of the large Masters. It is easy to be detached from the material world when it provides for your needs without you having to worry you to gain your meal, your clothing.
A large Master circulates in Europe in first class, in luxury cars, the disciples prosternent themselves in front of him and its word is word of Gospel. But nothing of all its comfort belongs to him, it is not him which requires to be treated with so many regards because it is detached from all that. It is the institution which undertakes some: i.e. disciples. It is there, in these religious institutions, a capitalist pyramidal hierarchy.
In what, the various techniques of release, awakening would thus make it possible to be released? The more one Master is detached, the more one wants to become like him (the " beings réalisés" as Milarépa for example are unceasingly shown in examples), which wants to say not to more have to worry about the material needs related to its life, not to more have to fight to live. Out, the only means more of doing it is although the different ones do it for you. It there forever much of elected officials, beings recognized as waked up or like the reincarnation, the emanation of a Buddha. It is mathematical, one needs little of it because one needs many disciples to provide for their needs. This is why it is repeated to you that one can almost never reach the Awakening in only one life. One needs many lives to arrive there, and it is not in your current life that will arrive. You here eccentric towards a hypothetical future for which you will implement activities which profit in this moment even with those which, having achieved this goal, guide you and help you… Here is the real detachment which hides in the Buddhist institution in general. The techniques of meditations interesting in the only condition of beings are expurgées of all the concepts related on the awakening, the reincarnation, with the capacities obtained, in short with all that concerns the unverifiable one. these psychological techniques of conditioning are astonishments close to those used by the advertizing executives. One shows you your imperfection and an ideal impossible to reach then one sells the solution to you. The result concerned is the transfer of the fruit of the work of others to enjoy it in its place. If it is true that the meditation alleviates, channels the emotions and can improve the report/ratio with the life, the need to develop a spiritual life, the need to connect itself to divine creates a psychological, emotional opening authorizing the diversion with the profit of others.
The preliminary practices are not for the beginners. It is necessary to be last by a certain number of initiations and to be advanced in practice. It is necessary to have a relation followed with a LAMA, to regularly practice the ritual ones, to carry out short retirements (a few days in several months) and after a time of probation during which one is invited to take part in the life of the community (voluntary help, practical regular of ritual…)one will be able to practice the preliminaries to see carrying out the three years retirement three months three days in Bhost, in the Massif Central. The ritual comprises many prostrations and must be practiced approximately 100.000 times or more. Psychological impact developed by such practices comprising as many elements of spiritual tender carry out-you it with the release? By questioning a woman leaving a three years retirement, it comes out from it a great difficulty of reintegration in the company.

The Western tradition

In the Occidentale tradition one finds reference to the meditation in monastic orders with the Middle Ages, but also in the spiritual alchemists, then at the 17th century in the writings of the Rose Croix.

monastic orders

Christendom

In the orthodoxe monks the Hésychasme or " prayer of the coeur" is a quiet prayer calling upon the name of Jesus at the rate/rhythm of breathing. By his report/ratio with the body, it is the Christian equivalent of certain techniques of meditations Eastern

Islam

August 1st

Jainisme

August 1st

Judaism

August 1st

Sikhisme

August 1st

Taoism

Towards -500, for the Chinese philosopher Lao Zi, the vacuum of the spirit belongs to the practices gathered under the term wei-wu-wei , act-without-to act. See on this subject CAT-you-king, chap.11

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