Mon 10 Aug 2009
Meditation, eh?
Posted by Michael McAlister under Writing
No Comments
Douglas Todd, of the Vancouver Sun writes about an important aspect of meditation: it can mask what needs to be exposed.
A recent Vancouver Sun poll conducted by the Mustel Group found one out of three British Columbians, roughly 1.4 million people, have practised meditation. That doesn’t include many more who practise prayer in a contemplative way.
I believe meditation and contemplation are generally positive responses to North America’s culture of busyness.
But can meditation, contemplation and related practices encourage people to detach too effectively from their so-called negative thoughts, leading them to actually detach from life itself?
There is no doubt that meditation and its offering of insight can fix a person at whatever level of interior development they happen to occupy. I’ve seen this happen in the sangha I lead, where practitioners have breakthroughs that then quickly get co-opted by their egos. Their small selves begin, if you will, to see themselves as Big, and this derails the potential for awakening to the Truth beyond name and form.
