Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Meditation

  • Suggestions on How to Meditate

    Some time ago I wrote a post entitled Meditation: What and Why? I was meaning to write a follow-up on the how of meditation, but didn't  get around to it. But recently a friend asked for some practical  suggestions. So here goes. I recommend first reading the What and Why entry. There I explain what meditation…

  • Philosophy, Religion, Mysticism, and Wisdom

    Dennis E. Bradford sent me three comments via e-mail on my recent Butchvarov post.  I omit the first and the third which are more technical in nature, and which I may address in later posts.    Bradford writes, Second, and this separates me from Butch, Larry [Blackman], and you, I reject your assumption concerning the narrowness of philosophy.  You mention…

  • Buber on Buddhism and Other Forms of Mysticism

    Robert Gray e-mails: Dear Bill, I am appreciating Kerouac month. Here is something on Buddhism in Buber's I and Thou that may be of use. Nor does he [Buddha] lead the unified being further to that supreme You-saying that is open to it. His inmost decision seems to aim at the annulment of the ability…

  • Logic’s Limit

    Logic is not to be denigrated, nor is it to be overestimated. It is an excellent vehicle for safe travel among concepts and propositions. It will save us from many an error and perhaps even lead us to a few truths. But it cannot move us beyond the plane of concepts and propositions and arguments.…

  • Meditation: Three Baby Steps

    First, drive out all useless thoughts.  Then get rid of all useful but worldly thoughts.  Finally, achieve the cessation of all thoughts, including spiritual ones.  Now you are at the threshhold of meditation proper.  Unfortunately, a lifetime of work may not suffice to complete even these baby steps.  You may not even make it to the…

  • Modern Media and the Deterioration of Spiritual Life

    During my first visit to St. Anthony's Greek Orthodox monastery (Florence, Arizona)  in February 2004, I purchased Harry Boosalis, Orthodox Spiritual Life According to Saint Siloan the Athonite.  What follows is a passage to give users of the new media pause.  It was published in 2000 before blogging really took off, and before texting, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter: Writing nearly…

  • Mental Quiet and Enlightenment/Salvation

    In yesterday's post I claimed that the proximate goal of meditation is the attainment of mental quiet, but listed as an ultimate goal the arrival at what is variously described as enlightenment, salvation, liberation, release. In a comment to the post (from the old blog), Jim Ryan raised a difficult but very important question about the connection…

  • Meditation: What and Why

    Here are some preliminary thoughts on the nature and purposes of meditation. Perhaps a later post will deal with methods of meditation. Meditation Defined We need to start with a working definition. The question of what meditation is is logically prior to the questions of why to do it and how to do it. The…

  • The Demons of the Desert

    The desert fathers of old believed in demons because of their experiences in quest of the "narrow gate" that only few find. They sought to perfect themselves and so became involved as combatants in unseen warfare. They felt as if thwarted in their practices by oppponents both malevolent and invisible. The moderns do not try…

  • Grades of Prayer

    1. The lowest grade is that of petitionary prayer for material benefits. One asks for mundane benefits whether for oneself, or, as in the case of intercessionary prayer, for another. In its crassest forms it borders on idolatry and superstition. A skier who prays for snow, for example, makes of God a supplier of mundane…

  • The Inconceivable

    It is arguable that all religions and salvation-paths point to the Inconceivable and terminate in it if terminus they have. The Nibbana of the Pali Buddhists. The ontologically simple God of Thomas Aquinas. A theory of the Inconceivable would have to show that it is rationally admissible that there be something that cannot be grasped…

  • Logic and Meditation: Complementary Disciplines

    Logic is an attempt at disciplining the discursive mind from within the discursive mind. Meditation is an attempt at transcending, by silencing, the discursive mind by using a resource that lies beyond it. Logic is disciplined thinking; meditation is disciplined nonthinking.

  • Control Your Mind!

    A thought arises. Interrogate it: Whither? To what purpose? The climber tests each foothold before putting his weight on it. So should we test each thought before living in it and losing ourselves in it. Why? Because the seed of word and deed is in the thought. To control thought is to control the seed…

  • The Problem of the Fugitive Thought: Write It Down Before It Escapes!

    If you are blessed by a good thought, do not hesitate to write it down at once. Good thoughts are visitors from Elsewhere and like most visitors they do not like being snubbed or made to wait. Let us say a fine aphorism flashes before your mind. There it is is fully formed. All you…

  • Meditation Better Than Travel

    It is better to dive below the surface of consciousness than to move around on the surface of the earth.