Many people began meditating during lockdown, seeking inner peace and harmony, and as lockdown restrictions lift, they intend to continue. At both the religious and secular heart of meditation is a focus on breath, which is particularly poignant during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Focusing attention on breathing is common to Hindu and Buddhist practices and to Jewish, Christian, and Sufi traditions. They all offer different meditative techniques, including chanting, meditating on visual artforms and sitting in silence, alone or in groups.
Religions have their different approaches to prayers and worship, but meditation illustrates that there are also significant commonalities.
It is sometimes assumed that meditation only exists in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, but meditation also is rooted in the Abrahamic faiths. In Judaism Abraham Maimonides commented that the biblical prophets “did not prophesy at will. Rather they focused their minds and sat joyfully and contentedly in a state of meditation”. The “river of light”, as Jewish mysticism describes meditation, is when the deepest currents rise to the surface before significant truths emerge — truths about self, the dignity of others and God. Meditation is a precursor and guide and not a replacement for action.
In some Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions meditations are focused on prayers or on passages in the Bible or Koran. The Book of Psalms has numerous references to meditation, including in Psalm 19 “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight”.
In Hinduism, as with other religions, meditation or dhyana, the journey or movement of the mind, helps to control responses and reactions. Through regular practice, insight is gained into the essential nature of life and the impermanence of bodily existence.
The repeating of a mantra assists in disconnecting from thoughts crowding the brain, allowing the mind to experience a deeper level of awareness.
Meditation is focused contemplation in which the mind and the body are brought together to function as one harmonious whole. According to many religious traditions, as well as secular psychology, you “become” what you think.
The name Buddha is Sanskrit for the enlightened or awakened one, and meditation in Buddhism is the art of fully awakening, leading to enlightenment and spiritual freedom. The principal types of Buddhist meditation include vipassana, or insight, and samatha, tranquillity.
Both Buddhism and Yogic practice build meditation upon a period of moral and ethical preparation. Meditation is not simply an add-on to life to relieve stress, as with some forms of contemporary mindfulness, although this is valuable. It is the development of a deeper state of mind, which can only grow from living a moral life. According to the Dalai Lama this is circular. First comes morality, then concentrated meditation, and these lead to wisdom, which in turns leads to morality.
A common form of meditation focuses attention on the area between the eyebrows, sometimes described in Hinduism as the third eye or ajna chakra. This is also a means to silence the mind, with gaps between thoughts growing wider.
Many people associate the traditional lotus crossed-leg position with meditation, but the position is intended to be comfortable, allowing the diaphragm to expand to its maximum to benefit from the inhalation and exhalation of the breath. There are also walking meditations. Their essence is the same because, as Mildred Norman, the first woman to walk the Appalachian Trail in one season, and who called herself the Peace Pilgrim, observed: “You are within God. God is within you.”
An increasing number of scientific research papers point to the health benefits of meditation. These range from a 2012 study in which meditation may increase the brain’s ability to process information, to studies which point to a reduction in blood pressure.
Meditation demonstrates that there can be commonality between the religious and the secular.