{"id":6188,"date":"2016-09-25T14:37:09","date_gmt":"2016-09-25T14:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/09\/25\/questions-about-meditation\/"},"modified":"2016-09-25T14:37:09","modified_gmt":"2016-09-25T14:37:09","slug":"questions-about-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/09\/25\/questions-about-meditation\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions about Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"
An academic philosopher inquires:<\/span><\/div>\n
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As usual, I want to ask you about something (something you're free to blog about).<\/span><\/div>\n
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Since December 2015, I've practised mindfulness meditation, with low intensity. Just 20 minutes or so each or every other day, paying calm (if possible) attention to things as they were happening in my mind or in my body. It's been great, mainly as an antidote against anxiety.<\/span><\/div>\n
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These days I have asked myself, could I gain something more, or something deeper, from my practice? If so, how? By practising more intensively, even painfully? Or by praying during, or after, my practise? The first path is carved with admirable precision in some Buddhist, step-by-step manuals . . . . But it might eventually lead me into a land of — what seems like — mental disorder and metaphysical madness (sensory overload, intensive fear or disgust, the impression of no self and of the nullity of classical logic).  On the other hand, no comparably detailed manuals for following the latter path seem to be available . . . .<\/span><\/div>\n
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So I wonder, what would be your suggestion to someone who considers meditating more seriously and in line with really good sources yet who wants to turn neither insane nor Buddhist?<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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First of all, I am glad to hear that you have taken up this practice.  Philosophers especially need it since we tend to be afflicted with 'hypertrophy of the critical faculty' to give it a name.  We are very good at disciplined thinking, but it is important to develop skill at disciplined nonthinking<\/em> as well. Disciplined nonthinking is one way to characterize meditation.  One attempts to achieve an alert state of mental quiet in which all discursive operations come to a halt.<\/span><\/div>\n
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It is very difficult, however, and 20 minutes every other day is not enough.  You need to work up to 40-60 minute sessions every day.  Early morning is best, the same time each morning.  Same place, a corner of your study, say.  Posture?  Seated cross-legged on cushions, with the knees lower than the buttocks. Kneeling has spiritual value, but not for long periods of prayer or meditation.  Breath?  Slow, even, deep, from the belly.<\/span><\/div>\n
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There needn't be any physical pain; indeed, there shouldn't be.  If the full lotus is painful, there is the half-lotus, and the Burmese posture.  Depending on the state of my legs and joints, I adjust my body as needed for comfort and stability.  A lttle hatha yoga is a useful preliminary.  Or just plain stretching, holding each stretch for 20-30 seconds.<\/span><\/div>\n
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A certain mild ascesis, though, is sine qua non<\/em> for successful meditation\/contemplation.  You have to live a regular life, follow the moral precepts, abstain from spiritual and physical intoxicants, and so on.  A little reading the night before of Evagrios Pontikos, say, is indicated; filling your head with mass media dreck & drivel contraindicated.  <\/span><\/div>\n
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Meditation is an inner listening.  The receptivity involved, however, opens one to demonic influence.  So there is a certain danger in going deep.  It is therefore a good idea for a Christian meditator to begin his session with the Sign of the Cross, a confession of weakness in which one admits that one is no match for demonic agents, and a supplication for protection from their influence.  I recommend you buy a copy of the spiritual classic, Unseen Warfare<\/em> by Lorenzo Scupoli. (Available from Amazon.com) Anyone who attempts to make spiritual progress ought to expect demonic opposition. (Cf. St. Paul, Epistle to the Ephesians<\/em>, 6:12: "<\/sup>For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.")<\/span><\/div>\n
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Since you are interested in the Buddhist approach to these matters, you may find useful my post, The Christian 'Anatta<\/em> Doctrine' of Lorenzo Scupoli<\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Could deep meditation drive one mad?  I would say no if you avoid psychedelic drugs and lead an otherwise balanced life.  You could meditate two hours per day with no ill effects.  <\/span><\/div>\n
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But if you go deep, you will have unusual experiences some of which will be disturbing.   There are the makyo phenomena<\/a> described by Zen Buddhists. (Whether these phenomena should be described as the Zennists describe them is of course a further question.)  For example, extremely powerful and distracting sexual images.  I once 'heard' the inner locution, "I want to tear you apart."  Inner locutions have a phenomenological quality which suggests, though of course it does not prove, that these locutions are not excogitated by the subject in question but come from without.  Demonic interference?<\/span><\/div>\n
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But on another occasion I felt myself to be the object of a very powerful unearthly love.  An unforgettable experience.  A Christian will be inclined to say that what I experienced was the love of Christ, whereas a skeptic will dismiss the experience as a 'brain fart.'  The phenomenology, however, cannot be gainsaid.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Will deep meditation and the experiences that result drive you to accepting Buddhist teaching according to which all is impermanent (anicca<\/em>), unsatisfactory (dukkha<\/em>), and devoid of self-nature (anatta<\/em>)?  I don't think so.  Many Buddhists claim that these doctrine are verified in meditation.  I would argue, however, that they bring their doctrines to their experiences and then illictly take the experiences as supporting the doctrines.  <\/span><\/div>\n
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For example, if you fail to find the self in deep meditation does it follow that there is no self?  Hardly.  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Now that was quick and dirty, but I have expatiated on this at length elsewhere.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Does the path of meditation lead to the relativization of classical logic, or perhaps to its utter overthrow?  This is a tough question about which I will say something in a subsequent post that examines Plantinga's critique of John Hick in the former's Warranted Christian Belief<\/em>.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Finally, I want to recommend the two-volumed The Three Ages of the Interior Life<\/em>  (not the one-volumed edition) by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange.  (Available from Amazon.com) This is the summit of hard-core Catholic mystical theology.  This is the real thing by the hardest of the hard-core paleo-Thomists.  You must read it.  No Francine namby-pamby-ism here.<\/span><\/div>\n
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An academic philosopher inquires:   As usual, I want to ask you about something (something you're free to blog about).   Since December 2015, I've practised mindfulness meditation, with low intensity. Just 20 minutes or so each or every other day, paying calm (if possible) attention to things as they were happening in my mind … Continue reading “Questions about Meditation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meditation","category-spiritual-exercises"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6188","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=6188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}