My meditation journey

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You’ll notice me talk about meditation quite a bit.  I don’t talk about prayer, much.  This is mostly semantics.  I don’t like the connotations of prayer, and I don’t like the way a lot of people use prayer.  I’m not interested in asking anybody for anything.  Prayer for petition, then, is out for me.  In fact, I’m not even sure who I would be asking - or what that means.  It comes down to my somewhat non-traditional concept of God, I suppose.  God is that, and that’s that.  So what are you going to be asking?  Seriously?

Meditation is a much better description of what I do.  The earliest etymological roots of the word (at least the European rendition) call it a “discourse on a subject” and later, in the 1390’s it appeared as meaning, “continuous, calm thought upon some subject.”  In non Roman languages, I’m sure we find something much different in the words used to describe what we know in English as meditation.  But the essence is this - sitting quietly and in a focused manner.  Sometimes there is discourse, sometimes there is calm, sometimes there are neither.  It depends on where I am, generally.  In my back yard, meditation usually yields some kind of peaceful surrender to nature and natural processes.  In my meditation space upstairs, generally I find some deeply held concept unraveling steadily.  In church there’s usually some ecstatic experience involved, and thought isn’t so much present - mostly feeling and sensation.  It’s the same process, redefined for the moment.

So, am I Buddhist because I meditate?  Hardly.  I think many Christians are afraid to talk about meditation, because it’s not supposed to be part of our shared language.  I’ve read all the stuff about the difference between contemplation and meditation, about what’s truly ok for a Christian.  I guarantee all of those concepts will explode in a million pieces when you actually sit down to do it - or you’re probably not doing it right.  When done perfectly (rarely) I simply abide.

It reminds me of an episode with one of my mentors in Chinese medicine, Heiner Fruehauf.  When I first met Heiner and began listening to him lecture, I had a series of very strange experiences which can only be described as transcendent.  We talk in school about the “transmission” of our medicine which is a kind of passing down of knowledge from person to person - but it is more than spoken.  It comes in on multiple frequencies, some not fully apprehended during the moment of transmission.  Straight to the dome, as it were.  I think when that was first happening for me with him it was pretty intense - I experienced a lot of light and color and other interesting phenomena.  That was fun, and I enjoyed it.

At some point, all of that intensity sort of died away.  It still happens on occassion, but for the most part it doesn’t.  For a short time, I was let down by this change.  I thought, maybe, I was doing something wrong.  After the first experience of this “loss,” not so long ago, I had another lecture with him.  I actually ended up sitting very near him because of the seating arrangements and at one time that would have been a touch overwhelming.  It wasn’t, this time, and when I sat and he began to speak I had the overwhelming sense of home.  This is what it feels like when my meditation is done correctly.  I’m simply abiding in the space and time and taking in whatever it is that I’m taking in.  Bad things never come in during that time and I feel as though I could stay there forever.  Yet, when it’s over, it’s ok.  There’s no drama, no freaking out.  Just abiding.

I don’t go into this space as often as I should, and I don’t experiment with it like I would like to.  I would like to try holding different concepts in that space to see what happens to them.  What happens when I hold the concept of Jesus, or Qi and Blood, or lava or hope?  What happens when I hold the concept of death or love or myself?  What happens when I do it every day for a year?  I’m doing a lot of things right now, so I don’t feel like adopting any particular habit around this would be wise in terms of maintaining the rest of my goals — but expect me to do so someday.

I’d be interested to hear folks’ thoughts on meditation, prayer, the difference between them or their similarities.  For those of you in particular traditions, do my words ring true for you?  If so, what practice do they speak to that exists in your tradition?  If not, what doesn’t?

My best,

Eric