{"id":11770,"date":"2010-03-12T19:31:52","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T19:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/03\/12\/meditation-what-and-why\/"},"modified":"2010-03-12T19:31:52","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T19:31:52","slug":"meditation-what-and-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/03\/12\/meditation-what-and-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Meditation: What and Why"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are some preliminary thoughts on the nature and purposes of meditation. Perhaps a later post will deal with methods of meditation.<\/p>\n

Meditation Defined<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 proximate goal of meditation is the attainment of mental quiet. I say \u2018proximate\u2019 to leave open the pursuit of further, more specific, goals, and so as not to prejudge the ultimate goal which will be differently conceived from within different metaphysical and religious perspectives. It would be tendentious to claim that the ultimate goal of meditation is entry into Nibbana\/Nirvana<\/em>, or union with the Godhead, or realization of the identity of Atman<\/em> and Brahman<\/em>. For these descriptions import metaphysical schemes acceptance of which is not necessary to do meditation. All the major religions have  their mystical branches in which meditation is cultivated despite differences in metaphysical schemes.  The meditating monks of Mt. Athos whose mantram is the Jesus Prayer subscribe to a Trinitarian metaphysics according to which Jesus Christ is the Son of God, a metaphysics incompatible with that of a Buddhist who nonetheless can employ a similar technique to achieve a similar result.
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\u2018Mental quiet\u2019 involves a minimum of conceptualization and names a state that is phenomenologically verifiable. Mental quiet is not easy to attain, but it is within reach of the resolute meditator. When you reach it, you will know you are there. But when you reach union with the Godhead, if you do, will you know that it is union with the Godhead as opposed to a very unusual state internal to your own psyche, a state with no objective validity?  Will you know that it is entry into the Godhead as opposed to entry into Nirvana, or absorbion into the Plotinian One?<\/font><\/p>\n

I will use \u2018meditation\u2019 to cover both the attempt to achieve mental quiet and the resting in it once it is achieved. Mental quiet is an intense state of wakeful consciousness and is not to be confused with any sort of unconsciousness or mental torpor.  What\u2019s more, it is a positive state of consciousness, and thus not a mere absence of \u2018mental noise.\u2019 Ordinary mind is characterized by \u2018mental noise,\u2019 by the presence of a relative chaos of memories, expectations, perceptions, imaginings, trains of association, emotional responses built upon the foregoing, and much else besides. Ordinary mind is undisciplined mind. It is mind dis-tracted, pulled apart.  Training in logic, and indeed the systematic study of any subject, introduces discipline whose fruits are concentration and order. The result is disciplined thinking. The disciplined thinker thinks to some purpose, putting his mind to work on well-defined problems. This is one step beyond ordinary mind. Meditation, however, is disciplined non-thinking.<\/em> Meditation is two steps beyond ordinary mind. Concentration is developed and put to use, but not for the sake of precise and orderly sequential thinking about some object external to thinking, but to dis-cover the root of all thinking, that which is transcendentally-ontologically prior to all thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan is a stream whose source is hidden.\u201d (R. W. Emerson) In terms of this simile, the meditator is one who attempts to swim upstream, against the outbound current of thought, in order to arrive at the hidden source of the thought-stream. This arrival is a return, a return to what one is in one\u2019s root and essence. By contrast, and continuing with the simile, the disciplined thinker allows himself to be carried downstream but controls his movement by means of canoe and paddles, while the person of ordinary mind goes with the flow letting himself be swept away and delivered into the diaspora of worldly distraction and Pascalian divertissement<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Thinking is discursive; meditation non-discursive. 'Discursive' from L. currere<\/em>, to run.  The discursive mind runs from percept to concept, from concept to concept by analysis or synthesis, from premise to conclusion,  from argument to counterargument. Discursive procedures include: subsuming particulars under concepts; affirming, denying, and entertaining propositions; constructing arguments from propositions; analyzing concepts, propositions, arguments; drawing distinctions; comparing, contrasting, synthesizing; making inferences, framing and testing hypotheses, etc. Meditation may start with these procedures, but the goal is to bring them to a halt, but without falling back into ordinary distracted mind, or into any state of mind in which discipline and focus is provided by worldly objects rather than by the mind itself, or into a state of sleepiness or mental torpor.   The person of ordinary mind has mental discipline imposed upon him by external events and other people; the meditator seeks a state of sovereign self-discipline.  He aims at intensely aware mental self-control.<\/p>\n

The proximate goal of meditation, then, is to focus the mind so as to touch upon, and then abide in and enjoy, mental quiet.<\/p>\n

Why Meditate?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meditation is hard work, demanding time and daily commitment.  It is much harder than accomplishing a physical feat such as running a marathon.  To discipline and control the body, to train it up to a high level of performance, is relatively easy as compared to disciplining and controlling the mind.  Controlling the mind <\/font>is an \u2018unnatural\u2019 activity in that it involves \u2018swimming upstream\u2019 as per the Emersonian simile.   Changing the metaphor, it is an attempt to counteract the centrifugal tendency of the mind.  Ordinary mind, in virtue of its intentionality, is ever fleeing itself towards what is not itself.  To counteract this natural center-fleeing tendency is extremely difficult.  Why do it? To invoke a third metaphor, why try to tame the wild horse of the mind when it can be so much fun to ride it to new and exciting destinations?  Since it demeans meditation to think of it as a mere relaxation-technique, I mention only to set aside such reasons as stress-relief and the lowering of blood pressure. There are at least three serious reasons to meditate, falling under the rubrics tranquility, inquiry, salvation.<\/p>\n

Tranquillity.<\/em> The first serious reason is to gain control of one\u2019s mind for the sake of peace of mind and the sort of happiness that accrues therefrom.   One day a person realizes that mastering one\u2019s thoughts is better than being mastered by them. Just as one can become disgusted with being a fat slob and resolve to get into physical shape, one can become disgusted with having a chaotic mind not one's own.  Tired of being assailed by pointless memories, fears, worries, negative and useless thoughts generally, one sets out to do something about it. The meditator eventually discovers that the mind has a wonderful power to regulate itself, to detach itself from thought-pollutants and withdraw within what could be called the Inner Citadel. Like the Stoic in quest of ataraxia<\/em>, the meditator seeks imperturbableness, freedom from avoidable suffering. One seeks to develop a calm, deliberate, measured response to the flux and shove of life. <\/p>\n

Inquiry.<\/em> A second serious reason is to inquire into the mind\u2019s essence. Now the goal is not tranquillity so much as it is insight. The aim is understanding over pacification. What is consciousness in its own nature? Is it merely a diaphanous medium through which things appear? A mere \u201cwind blowing towards objects\u201d (J.-P. Sartre) ever evacuating itself so as to reveal what is other than it? Is it nothing in itself, being only the revealing of objects? Or does consciousness have a hidden nature that can be discovered only by \u2018swimming upstream\u2019? Does intentionality (object-directedness) characterize every form of consciousness, or are there non-intentional (but also non-sensuous) states of consciousness wherein the mind abides in itself? Is there a depth-dimension, normally hidden, that can be penetrated?<\/p>\n

Third-person approaches to mind, through behavioral or brain studies, are important but cannot give any real insight here. What is needed to is a first-person approach. Introspectionist psychology and phenomenology advance part of the way in this direction, but they continue to operate within subject-object duality. Can we execute a sort of transcendental-phenomenological re-duction ( L. re-ducere<\/em>, a leading back) to the originary source of subject and object? Maybe, maybe not. But to explore this, the only appropriate method would be some kind of deep meditation technique. In short, meditation is a tool of inquiry into the nature of mind. Although it must be balanced out by other tools, it is an indispensable tool. Someone who claims to be serious about understanding the mind, but refuses to meditate I would dismiss as unserious. If this entails my dismissal as unserious of almost all contemporary philosophers of mind, then so be it. Analogy: You say you are serious about oceanography, but you refuse to descend into the depths? Then I say you are not all that serious. You don\u2019t want to see with you own eyes what is down there.<\/p>\n

Salvation.<\/em> The human predicament \u2013 and it is indeed a predicament \u2013 is clearly unsatisfactory: Sarvam Dukkham<\/em> as the Buddhists say. It is also clear that no social or political action can ameliorate things in any fundamental way, which is not to say that piecemeal improvements by social and political means cannot and should not be made. Now anyone who accepts these two points may well wonder whether there is a Way Out of the human predicament. To investigate this, a retreat
\nwithin would seem to be indispensable. Meditation can thus serve a soteriological purpose.<\/p>\n

Leaving the royal compound, prince Siddartha encountered suffering, old age, and death. A world containing such things shocked him as profoundly unsatisfactory. Resolving to get to the root of the matter, he took up meditation and ascetic practices. Some say he achieved the ultimate insight and became Buddha, the Enlightened One.
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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 … Continue reading “Meditation: What and Why”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[579,105,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ataraxia","category-meditation","category-spiritual-exercises"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}