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Good solid advice right here. For me, personally I feel meditation is about developing wisdom through concentration. The more wise you become, the more sense th

by mping 9y ago

Good solid advice right here. For me, personally I feel meditation is about developing wisdom through concentration. The more wise you become, the more sense the Buddha's instructions make. The more insights you get.

kstrauser 9y ago
I was raised firmly Protestant. I've since decided that prayer is meditation: - You typically enumerate ways where you've strayed from your ethical goals. "I harmed so-and-so. I regret having done that." - You put yourself into the mindset of change. "I want to be a better person. Help me recognize when I'm about to do something I know I shouldn't so that I can steer away from it." - You open yourself to insight. "OK, I've said what I wanted to say. Now I'm going to sit back and listen for an answer." Although meditation is secular and prayer is explicitly religious, in my experience they seem to follow identical processes. The main difference is whether you intend to send your thoughts outward or to deal with them yourself, but either way you're introspecting your own behavior and desires to seek insights on how to deal with them.
- Mikeb85 9y ago
  Prayer absolutely is meditation. It's easier to see in say, Orthodox Christian practice, or in some Catholic monastic orders. While some Protestants are rediscovering it, it fell out of favour for awhile as Protestants often eschew monasticism.
- Buttons840 9y ago
  They don't feel the same to me at all. While meditating I try to keep my mind energized (not sleepy) while attempting to be aware of of the moment, my breath, and the stray thoughts which although I'm aware of I let them go. My mind is energized but quiet and without thoughts (if I'm successful, which I'm often not, that's ok), a state few in this world spend much time in. In contrast when I pray I'm often judging the past and planning the future. The first 2 points you mentioned are specifically reinforcing these habits. Meditation gives me a time to practice not constantly dwelling on the past or the future, which if we're not careful we spend most of our lives doing; meditation is merely a time to practice breaking this thought habit. Not to say one is better than the other though. I just wanted to express my opinion that meditation is much different than prayer according to my own understanding. Granted there are a variety of definitions and understandings of both words.
  - mping 9y ago
    My understanding is that there are different definitions, where generally meditation is some sort of thought cultivation. But the way I learned, you meditate in order to enter samadhi. Samadhi is a Sanskrit word that means right concentration/proper concentration, and it is what allows you to gain insight. It represents a class of meditative states that you enter and can last for short time or long time, typically when you leave samadhi you feel very good, very peaceful and blissful - you reduced your thinking process thus your afflictions too. The higher your samadhi, the better your concentration and wisdom. Without samadhi, meditation is just analytical thought process. So, if any practice (prayer included) is to be meditative it has to enable you to enter samadhi IMHO. I believe that's why it has a different feel for you.
    - Buttons840 9y ago
      I know there are many ways to meditate and many differing thoughts about how and why we should meditate. I don't know any of the religious beliefs behind meditation. I believe what I've practiced is called mindfulness meditation. What is the type of meditation you described called?
      - mping 9y ago
        Generally speaking, it is Buddhist meditation; Buddhist meditation texts talk about dhyana (or jhana in Pali; where most of mindfulness sources come from) which is another word for proper concentration. All Buddhist meditation is about entering/achieving dhyana as far as I can tell, although I believe the Chan meditation system puts more emphasis on this. Of course, mindfulness meditation nowadays means many different things, but if you go to the Buddhist sources you will find information about this.
jvagner 9y ago
"wisdom through concentration" As a buddhist-ish person for a decade now, I follow the path that meditation allows us to see things (and ourselves) as they really are, not as we've constructed or interpreted them. There may be other ways of achieving this, but meditation creates a space between the thoughts we have constantly. We can see our thoughts from the "don't believe your thoughts" perspective. Or, our thoughts -- our consciousness -- is like logs in a stream, and we're not in the stream, but on the banks of the stream, watching the logs go by. We are not our thoughts, we must observe our thoughts, and that requires practice, and meditation is a practice that allows us to develop this.

by mping 9y ago

kstrauser 9y ago

I was raised firmly Protestant. I've since decided that prayer is meditation: - You typically enumerate ways where you've strayed from your ethical goals. "I harmed so-and-so. I regret having done that." - You put yourself into the mindset of change. "I want to be a better person. Help me recognize when I'm about to do something I know I shouldn't so that I can steer away from it." - You open yourself to insight. "OK, I've said what I wanted to say. Now I'm going to sit back and listen for an answer." Although meditation is secular and prayer is explicitly religious, in my experience they seem to follow identical processes. The main difference is whether you intend to send your thoughts outward or to deal with them yourself, but either way you're introspecting your own behavior and desires to seek insights on how to deal with them.

Mikeb85 9y ago
Prayer absolutely is meditation. It's easier to see in say, Orthodox Christian practice, or in some Catholic monastic orders. While some Protestants are rediscovering it, it fell out of favour for awhile as Protestants often eschew monasticism.
Buttons840 9y ago
They don't feel the same to me at all. While meditating I try to keep my mind energized (not sleepy) while attempting to be aware of of the moment, my breath, and the stray thoughts which although I'm aware of I let them go. My mind is energized but quiet and without thoughts (if I'm successful, which I'm often not, that's ok), a state few in this world spend much time in. In contrast when I pray I'm often judging the past and planning the future. The first 2 points you mentioned are specifically reinforcing these habits. Meditation gives me a time to practice not constantly dwelling on the past or the future, which if we're not careful we spend most of our lives doing; meditation is merely a time to practice breaking this thought habit. Not to say one is better than the other though. I just wanted to express my opinion that meditation is much different than prayer according to my own understanding. Granted there are a variety of definitions and understandings of both words.
- mping 9y ago
  My understanding is that there are different definitions, where generally meditation is some sort of thought cultivation. But the way I learned, you meditate in order to enter samadhi. Samadhi is a Sanskrit word that means right concentration/proper concentration, and it is what allows you to gain insight. It represents a class of meditative states that you enter and can last for short time or long time, typically when you leave samadhi you feel very good, very peaceful and blissful - you reduced your thinking process thus your afflictions too. The higher your samadhi, the better your concentration and wisdom. Without samadhi, meditation is just analytical thought process. So, if any practice (prayer included) is to be meditative it has to enable you to enter samadhi IMHO. I believe that's why it has a different feel for you.
  - Buttons840 9y ago
    I know there are many ways to meditate and many differing thoughts about how and why we should meditate. I don't know any of the religious beliefs behind meditation. I believe what I've practiced is called mindfulness meditation. What is the type of meditation you described called?
    - mping 9y ago
      Generally speaking, it is Buddhist meditation; Buddhist meditation texts talk about dhyana (or jhana in Pali; where most of mindfulness sources come from) which is another word for proper concentration. All Buddhist meditation is about entering/achieving dhyana as far as I can tell, although I believe the Chan meditation system puts more emphasis on this. Of course, mindfulness meditation nowadays means many different things, but if you go to the Buddhist sources you will find information about this.

jvagner 9y ago

"wisdom through concentration" As a buddhist-ish person for a decade now, I follow the path that meditation allows us to see things (and ourselves) as they really are, not as we've constructed or interpreted them. There may be other ways of achieving this, but meditation creates a space between the thoughts we have constantly. We can see our thoughts from the "don't believe your thoughts" perspective. Or, our thoughts -- our consciousness -- is like logs in a stream, and we're not in the stream, but on the banks of the stream, watching the logs go by. We are not our thoughts, we must observe our thoughts, and that requires practice, and meditation is a practice that allows us to develop this.