Looking for Meaning November 12, 2009
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Buddhism , trackbackAs long as we insist that meditation must be meaningful, we fail to understand it. We meditate with the idea that we’re going to get something from it—that it will lower our blood pressure, calm us down, or enhance our concentration. And, we believe, if we meditate long enough, and in just the right was, it might even bring us to enlightenment.
All of this is delusion.
- Steve Hagen, from “Looking For Meaning,” Tricycle, Fall 2003
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Looking for Meaning
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People are always saying to me, “you meditate that must be so relaxing”. It always makes me laugh. This paragraph sums it up perfectly!
Typical worthless Zen junk.
What is the appeal here?
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Alan, what appeal are you looking for?
What thing do you want that has “worth” over the “junk” that has no worth?
Stay away from telling people what meditation “should” be or what it is. If it lowers blood pressure and it feels good, so be it. If it helps you relax, so be it. Who made the rules? Who decided what meditation “should” be about? Follow your path of joy. You decide what is right for you. Gina
Arrash, I am looking to use my time and effort wisely. I expect a positive result from my right effort.
The pernicious Western Zen idea: “just do nothing and expect nothing” is junk. Why? It demands nothing. It delivers nothing. It makes no sense and is therefore a waste of time.
Plus, it has no relation to what the Buddha actually taught.
Cheers!
Alan,
Doing nothing certainly does demand something. I find it much harder to do nothing than to, for example, be diving into my work emails all the time — when I don’t really have to.
And it obviously delivers something. Just doesn’t follow the usual input/output relationship based on expectation and reward that we have come to expect.
Greg