Asian Traditions of Meditation
Page 5
Scientific discourse often lumps together meditation and pure relaxation techniques. In our terminology, only meditation has long-term transformative aspirations beyond the health and well-being that results from basic relaxation. With a few exceptions, methods such as progressive muscle relaxation and autogenic training are not presented as transformative practices. In principle, our definition of meditation excludes modern relaxation techniques that focus exclusively on momentary rest and recreation.
Medicine may overlap with meditation, and the two words are etymologically related. Both in modern and traditional contexts, meditation is often practiced for improved health, and inner practices may be supplemented by medicinal herbs, pills, and concoctions, as in the Tibetan practices described by Samuel in this volume. In early China, meditation was sometimes believed to have the power of driving away demons that could otherwise cause illness.68 As Roth points out in this volume, however, the overlap between meditation and medicine in early China was by no means complete, and the two were considered separate fields. In our terminology, health-oriented techniques count as meditation only when they are also used for long-term inner transformation.
Like meditation, prayer is a deliberately undertaken practice that frequently follows more or less clearly specified procedures. It often aims at producing certain effects, such as the cleansing of sins, though it may also be motivated by a sense of obligation rather than the hope of future rewards. One of the crucial characteristics distinguishing meditation from prayer lies in the continuous activity involved in the former. The activities involved in prayer are typically much more complex, and often involve sequences of actions or utterances rather than one continuous activity; they are sequential rather than continuous. In the prototypical case, meditation differs from prayer in being a technical form of self-transformation rather than a communicative method of expressing devotion, petition, submission, or gratitude to a divine being. In practice, there is considerable overlap, as when an Orthodox Christian practices the Jesus Prayer, in which a short, formulaic, and strongly devotional prayer is repeated continuously, sometimes aided by breathing techniques. Related practices include the dhikr of Sufism, the japa of Hinduism, and the niàn-fó (Chinese) or nen-butsu (Japanese) of Buddhism. Similar considerations apply to devotional visualization practices. Like prayer, many forms of meditation aim at establishing contact with fundamental aspects of reality, and these aspects are often presented in anthropomorphic language, as divine beings with their own sense of agency. When prayer becomes wordless, as in some forms of Christian mysticism, it also comes close to meditation.
“Mysticism” is a wide and multifaceted term but typically focuses on experiences and states rather than technical issues. Meditation as a self-transformative technique may be part of a mystical orientation, but this is not necessarily the case.
Meditation differs from ritual in typically being more focused on the individual rather than the community, and in involving durative or repetitive action rather than the stepwise or sequential procedures of ritual behavior. However, meditation may take place in communal settings, and ritual in individual settings. Repetition also constitutes an important element in quite a few rituals. In many contexts, meditation is surrounded by ritual, rituals contain meditative elements, and the border between the two is quite blurry.
Shamanism and spirit mediumship involve entering a different state of mind and contacting gods or spirits not primarily for the sake of the shaman or medium but for some other person or for an entire community. While this differs from the self-transformative purpose of meditation, many traditions hold that meditation is not only good for the meditator but also for his environment, and communal meditation is sometimes practiced for the sake of a whole community.
What about body practices such as Hatha Yoga, Tài-jí, and Qì-gōng? Though focusing on the body, these also involve the use of attention and are concerned with inner transformation. However, in addition to static (and thus durative) postures, they involve sequential rather than repetitive movements and thus differ from the most typical forms of meditation.
Traditional martial arts, which are also sometimes claimed to contain meditative elements, have their main focus on external self-defense rather than internal change. Arguably, however, some of them pursue this goal partly by including techniques for bringing about inner transformation but, like body practices, often in a way based on sequential rather than repetitive movements.69
Psychotherapy, though also a transformative practice, differs from meditation in several respects. First, it presupposes the presence of a therapist, while meditation usually takes place without the active or intervening presence of another person. Second, psychotherapy hardly counts as a technique in our narrow sense, since it is seldom characterized by the durative or repetitive elements typical of meditation. Note, however, that the various forms of guidance often linked to meditation and sometimes considered indispensable for its effect share these and other features of psychotherapy.
Many practices have both meditative and nonmeditative usages. Where some practitioners seek long-term transformation, others go for short-term relaxation; some prefer inner development, others physical health; some have spiritual aims, while others seek to improve their performance in work or sports. This phenomenon is not restricted to modern uses of meditation. As shown in particular clarity by Myrvold and Samuel in this volume, traditional meditative practices may also be employed to achieve material wealth, bodily health, and other worldly benefits.
This discussion of the nature of meditation hardly solves all of the problems related to the term, and we may still be uncertain whether to include particular practices. At least, however, we have criteria to base our discussion on. Quite a lot of practices, whether they are called meditation or go by other names, may come close to our definition, but with one or two features missing, thus positioning themselves in the gray areas between meditation and other types of practice. For instance, some meditation-like practices resemble ritual and prayer in proceeding stepwise rather than in a durative or repetitive fashion.70 Rather than identifying a natural class or taxon, our definition seeks to establish, on practical and theoretical grounds, a single point of reference for cross-cultural and comparative studies.
Notes
1. This essay has profited much from comments on earlier versions by Ole Gjems-Onstad.
2. Cf. Eifring and Holen, “Uses of Attention,” 1.
3. In religious studies, Livia Kohn is an exception in suggesting the following generic definition: “Meditation is the inward focus of attention in a state of mind where ego-related concerns and critical evaluations are suspended in favor of perceiving a deeper, subtler, and possibly divine flow of consciousness. A method of communicating with hidden layers of the mind, it allows the subconscious to surface in memories, images, and thoughts while also influencing it with quietude, openness, and specific suggestions” (Kohn, Meditation Works, 1). Even in Kohn’s case, however, generic definitions are mainly used in her popularized works, not her scholarly publications.
4. Smith, Relating Religion, 134.
5. Ibid., 4.
6. Ibid., 5, 8.
7. Van der Toorn, review of Relating Religion, 586.
8. See, for example, Satlow, “Defining Judaism.”
9. Needham, “Polythetic Classification,” 358, 364.
10. Beckner, Biological Way of Thought, 24.
11. Bashir, “Movement and Stillness,” 211.
12. Cf. Eifring, “Meditative Pluralism in Hānshān Déqīng.”
13. Cf. Seppälä, “Meditation.”
14. Cf. Robinet, Taoist Meditation.
15. Sometimes, however, the same technique is practiced both in specified meditation periods and throughout the day (and even night) accompanying other activities; cf. Schlütter’s discussion of Chinese keyword practice in this volume, and similar discussions of the Orthodox Jesus Prayer in Rydell-Johnsén, “Early Jesus Prayer.”
16. Cf
. Eifring, “Meditation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”
17. Der weglose Weg; cf. Cooper, “Pathless-Path of Prayer.”
18. Most famously in the title of the thirteenth-century gōng-àn (kōan) collection Wú Mén Guān (lit. “the gateless checkpoint”), but later also in the even more obviously paradoxical formulation wú mén zhī mén (gateless gate), sometimes co-occurring with the equally paradoxical bú rù ér rù (to enter without entering).
19. Wolters, Cloud of Unknowing, 231.
20. Goleman, Meditative Mind, 97ff.
21. Loori, Art of Just Sitting.
22. Sheng Yen, Method of No Method.
23. Cardoso et al., “Meditation in Health.”
24. Ibid.; West, “Meditation”; Kokoszka, “Axiological Aspects.”
25. Walsh and Shapiro, “Meeting of Meditative Disciplines,” 227–228; West, “Meditation”; Kohn, Meditation Works.
26. Walsh and Shapiro, “Meeting of Meditative Disciplines,” 228; Manna et al., “Neural Correlates.”
27. Perez de Albeniz and Holmes, “Meditation.”
28. Walsh and Shapiro, “Meeting of Meditative Disciplines,” 229. Ospina et al., “Meditation Practices for Health,” 10, excludes the same practices.
29. “Tassa mayhaṃ Aggivessana etad-ahosi: Abhijānāmi kho panāhaṃ pitu Sakkassa kammante sītāya jambucchāyāya nisinno vivicc’ eva kāmehi vivicca akusalehi dhammehi savitakkaṃ savicāraṃ vivekajaṃ pītisukhaṃ paṭhamaṃ jhānaṃ upasampajja viharitā.” Trenckner, Majjhima-nikaya, 246, lines 30–35. Nanamoli, Middle Length Discourses.
30. Cf. Shaw, Buddhist Meditation, 11.
31. An interesting attempt to deny the importance of attention is the late nineteenth-century Chinese Buddhist monk Yùfēng Gǔkūn, who argues that practicing his form of meditation in a “digressive and messy” (sànluàn) way is still full of effects; see Eifring, “Spontaneous Thoughts in Meditative Traditions.”
32. Walsh and Shapiro, “Meeting of Meditative Disciplines,” 228 (“focus on training attention and awareness”); Goleman, “Meditation and Consciousness” (“a consistent attempt to reach a specific attention position”); West, “Meditation” (“involves training the individual to focus the attention or consciousness in a single object, sound, concept or experience”); Perez de Albeniz and Holmes, “Meditation” (“training one’s level of awareness”).
33. Walsh and Shapiro, “Meeting of Meditative Disciplines,” 229.
34. Brown, “Stages of Meditation,” represents an initial attempt at investigating long-term trajectories of meditative processes.
35. Walsh and Shapiro, “Meeting of Meditative Disciplines.”
36. See, for example, his and others’ contributions in Forman, Problem of Pure Consciousness. The most prominent arguments against perennialism are presented by Steven T. Katz and others in Katz, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, as well as in other books on mysticism edited by Katz.
37. Kapstein, “Rethinking Religious Experience.”
38. Shulman and Stroumsa, “Introduction,” 5.
39. “Soudeyn withouten any menes”; Hodgson, Deonise Hid Diuinite, 58.
40. On interior sociality, see Handelman, “Postlude,” and Du Bois, “Co-Opting Intersubjectivity,” 59ff.
41. Kirsch, “Response Expectancy”; Geers et al., “Goal Activation”; Geers et al., “Expectations and Placebo Response”; Linde et al., “Effect of Patient Expectations”; Bausell et al., “Is Acupuncture Analgesia an Expectancy Effect?”
42. Walsh and Shapiro, “Meeting of Meditative Disciplines,” 228.
43. That is, the direction of attention toward the meditation object, or “anchor”; Cardoso et al., “Meditation in Health.”
44. Craven, “Meditation and Psychotherapy.”
45. Cardoso et al., “Meditation in Health.”
46. In Chinese, “Jiàn Fó shā Fó, jiàn zǔ shā zǔ.”
47. Cf. McDaniel, Madness of the Saints (mainly concerned with passing states of ecstatic madness); Ivanov, Holy Fools in Byzantium; Larchet, Mental Disorders and Spiritual Healing; Feuerstein, Holy Madness; and Linrothe, Holy Madness.
48. See Roth’s contribution to this volume, as well as Cahn and Polich, “Meditation States and Traits”; Davidson, “Empirical Explorations of Mindfulness.”
49. “Zhǐ tān qīng-jìng jìng-jiè, zhè shì wǒ-men yòng-gōng zuì yào bù dé de chán-bìng,” Xū Yún lǎo héshàng niánpǔ fǎhuì zēngdìngběn, 248.
50. Hodgson, Cloud of Unknowing, 86; Wolters, Cloud of Unknowing, 114.
51. Hodgson, Deonise Hid Diuinite, 55; Wolters, Cloud of Unknowing, 228.
52. Kabat-Zinn, Coming to Our Senses, 62.
53. Holen, Inner Strength, 13.
54. Halbfass, “Concept of Experience”; Sharf, “Buddhist Modernism.”
55. Benson, Relaxation Response; Lazar, “Functional Brain Mapping.”
56. Fischer, “Cartography”; cf. Komjathy, Cultivating Perfection, 94–95; Eliade, Yoga, 339.
57. Kohn, Meditation Works, 1 (including note 1); Cardoso et al., “Meditation in Health,” 59 (defining “logic relaxation” as “(a) [n]ot ‘to intend’ to analyz[e] (not try to explain) the possible psychophysical effects; (b) [n]ot ‘to intend’ to judg[e] (good, bad, right, wrong) the possible psychophysical [effects;] (c) [n]ot ‘to intend’ to creat[e] any type of expectation regarding the process”); Ospina et al., “Meditation Practices for Health,” 9.
58. Wallace et al., “Wakeful Hypometabolic Physiologic State.”
59. Kohn, Meditation Works, 1.
60. Thus, the psychological study of altered states of consciousness typically includes meditative states as well as states resulting from fever, delirium, mental illness, machines, drugs, sleep deprivation, and so on. For one of many attempts at equating meditative states and states resulting from psychedelic drugs, see Ram Dass’s preface to Goleman, Meditative Mind.
61. Cf. book titles such as Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy by Osho; Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy by Georg Feuerstein; and Yoga: The Technology of Ecstasy by Georg Feuerstein.
62. See Schlütter’s contribution to this volume.
63. See Eifring, “Meditative Pluralism in Hānshān Déqīng.”
64. Brewer et al., “Meditation Experience”; Hofmann et al., “Loving-Kindness and Compassion Meditation.”
65. Holzel et al., “Differential Engagement.”
66. Hasenkamp et al., “Mind Wandering and Attention.”
67. Xu et al., “Nondirective Meditation.”
68. Strickman, Chinese Magical Medicine.
69. Cf. Raposa, Meditation and the Martial Arts; Kennedy and Guo, Chinese Martial Arts Training Manuals (which argues against the premodern use of martial arts for other uses than combat); Shahar, Shaolin Monastery, 137ff.
70. Cf. Brill, “Meditative Prayer in Cordovero” (on Kabbalah), and Seppälä, “Meditation.”
Glossary
bú rù ér rù 不入而入
chán 禪
chán-zuò 禪坐
Dào 道
Dà-huì 大慧
dǎ-zuò 打坐
duān-zuò 端坐
fó-xìng 佛性
gōng-àn 公案
Hānshān Déqīng 憨山德清
jiā-fū-zuò 跏趺坐
“Jiàn Fó shā Fó, jiàn zǔ shā zǔ” 見佛殺佛， 見祖殺祖
jìng-zuò 靜坐
kōan 公案
nen-butsu 念佛
niàn-fó 念佛
Qì-gōng 氣功
shī-fu 師父
shi-kan ta-za 只管打坐
Tài-jí 太極
wú jì-liǎng 無伎倆
Wú Mén Guān 無門關
wú mén zhī mén 無門之門
Xū-yún 虛雲
yǔ-lù 語錄
Zen 禪
zhèng-zuò 正坐
“Zhǐ tān qīng-jìng jìng-jiè, zhè shì wǒ-men yòng-gōng zuì yào bù dé de chán-bìng” 只貪清淨境
界， 這是我們用功最要不得 的禪病
zuò-chán 坐禪
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