Come and Sit , livre ebook

Turner Publishing Company - Marcia Z. Nelson

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129 pages

English

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The meditation experience demystified—an essential guide to
what goes on in meditation centers of many spiritual traditions.

Today's would-be student of meditation is confronted with such a wealth of available traditions from which to learn that it can make the prospect intimidating. Where should I start? Which one should I try? Come and Sit is the perfect companion to guide you on your way.

From Christian centering prayer, to Sufi dhikr (chanting the names of God), to Zen Buddhist zazen (formal silent meditation), this book demystifies both the kinds of meditation practiced in different spiritual traditions and the places people go to do them—and gives you a real feel for which method might suit you best.

Why do people meditate?
How might meditation affect my life?
What kinds of meditation are there?
What do people do in each meditation tradition?
Do I have to be a member of a specific religion topractice meditation?
Where should I start?

Meditator and journalist Marcia Z. Nelson addresses all of these questions as she takes you on visits to meditation centers of seven different types—Christian, Zen, Insight (Vipassana), Tibetan, Hindu, Sufi, and Jewish—representing the wide range of spiritual traditions that can now be found throughout America. She shows what a typical visit to each is like and talks to the teachers and the people who go there to discover how they got started, why they keep going, and what benefits they derive from the practice.

A list of further resources for in-depth exploration of each tradition, a directory of centers, and a glossary of terms make this guide exactly what you need to start meditating.

Come and Sit is not only a handbook for the beginning meditator, but also an excellent resource for anyone who wants to know more about the world's great meditation traditions.

Sujets

Mindulness

Meditation

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Publié par	Turner Publishing Company
Date de parution	09 mai 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781594735318
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0850€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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For Bill, the light of my path

Photo: Donnell Collins
Contents

Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Coming to Sit
1 Centering Prayer: Resting in God s Presence
2 Zen Buddhist Meditation: True Emptiness
3 Insight Meditation: Being Mindful
4 Tibetan Buddhist Meditation: Diamond Clarity
5 Hindu Meditation: That Thou Art
6 Sufi Meditation: Remembering the Beloved
7 Jewish Meditation: Awakening to Tradition
8 Staying Seated: Developing Your Practice
Glossary
About the Author
Copyright
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Foreword

There is considerable evidence everywhere we look that we have entered a new age-not in the sense of the New Age movement, but in the sense of a radically novel period of history. Bede Griffiths, the English Benedictine monk, writer, and spiritual teacher who went to India in 1955 to seek the other half of my soul, as he put it to a friend at the time, often spoke of the new age we were rapidly entering. This new age can be characterized as essentially interspiritual , since it measures the breakdown of barriers separating the religions as more and more people cross boundaries to explore the treasures of the various traditions. The Interspiritual Age is one in which people are interested more in mystical spirituality, and less in religion. Mysticism is direct awareness and experience of Ultimate Reality, the Divine Mystery, God, or the Infinite Spirit. It is the commitment to a mystical, experiential path that sets off the Interspiritual Age from all other ages.
Everywhere I go, I meet people who have awakened or are awakening to the mystical path, who have embraced a disciplined form of spirituality, and who have taken responsibility for their own development and refuse to leave it to an institution such as their church, synagogue, temple, or mosque. My students are no exception; they seem bored with religion, but vitally fascinated with spirituality. Please don t misunderstand: I m not trying to disparage the role and value of religion. It is important and needed, and it is an integral component of human culture and historical experience. The religions will always exist; they are repositories of vast experience, insight, and methodology. We stand on the shoulders of these great traditions, and of the giants who produced them and nourished their development over the centuries.
This is as it should be, since all the great world religions arose from the mystical processes of their founders. The Hindu tradition, the Sanatana Dharma , the Eternal Religion, came into being through the mystical experiences of the rishi s, the forest sages of ancient India. The dharma of the Buddhist culture has its origin in the inner awakening of Gautama Siddhartha Sakyamuni, the Buddha, the Enlightened One. His enlightenment experience is paradigmatic for all Buddhists. Similarly, the Jewish tradition owes its existence to the patriarchs and prophets of ancient Israel, who all encountered God, or Yahweh. Their encounters became the basis of their mandate for prophecy, giving them the courage to speak in God s name. Christianity sprang from the inner consciousness of Jesus, who was intensely aware of his intimate relationship with the mysterious One he called his Father. The Prophet Muhammad received a private revelation from Allah through the mediation of the archangel Gabriel. In each case, these traditions were born in mysticism and developed through a historical unfolding of tradition, which attempted to transmit the means of transformation.
Mystical spirituality requires some sort of contemplative method of prayer or meditation, and these methods become the way to break through to the other side, to part the veil in order to see where everything comes from, and to where it will all return. They are ways to deepen our knowledge of reality, others, God, and ourselves. They are roads to explore the inner life of the spiritual journey, the mystical quest for the Absolute, as Hindus would have it.
Mysticism, or mystical spirituality, existed long before any of the religions, the oldest of which is not more than seven thousand years old. Mysticism may be as old as fifty to one hundred thousand years. Both yoga and meditation are extremely ancient, even timeless, in their origin. The religions are attempts to institutionalize and thereby hold on to the moment of mystical realization. It seems only natural and appropriate that the religions would return to their roots in mysticism and spirituality, that they would be renewed and refreshed in their common source. In a very real sense, the great religions exist not as ends in themselves, but as different means to reach the same goal: transformation of consciousness, will, memory, imagination, and, most important, the heart. Each tradition possesses a direction to ultimate consciousness, methods to arrive there, and countless guides to the way.
The goal in each tradition of spirituality is differently conceived, depending on the historical experience and the influence of this experience on its founder or founders. There are roughly three possibilities, or three models, of spiritual development, and they can be outlined as the Hindu, the Buddhist, and the Judeo-Christian-Islamic. These resolve themselves into three models of God: you are God, and only have to realize it (Hindu); you become God (that is, an enlightened being) through your own hard effort (Buddhist); and you unite with God by participating in the divine nature (Judeo-Christian-Islamic). These goals can be expressed in two ultimate experiences: personal, intimate relationship with God, as in the theistic traditions; or a nonrelational realization of Ultimate Reality, as in Buddhism and Jainism.
Each form of meditation is about awareness, but each tradition has its own understanding of this quality of mystical awareness. Awareness requires transformation, and each school of meditation leads to this transformation. It can be observed that awareness and transformation culminate in holiness, and holiness of life is the same in all the traditions. If the fruit of the mystical journey is the same, then the Source of this delectable fruit must also be the same.
The universal interest in meditation and mysticism may well be pointing the way in our evolution. Meditation is highly uniting of persons from various traditions. People commune with the Divine and with one another. I have witnessed this phenomenon on numerous occasions, especially in centering-prayer groups. Members of these groups often come from diverse religious traditions, but when they sit together centering, they become one beyond words, beyond the words and concepts of their traditions.
There are many forms of meditation corresponding to the final goal of each of the traditions, and Marcia Z. Nelson examines each of them in this valuable book, Come and Sit: A Week Inside Meditation Centers. She gives us a good sense of the nature of meditation by visiting centers where the various forms it assumes in the great world religions are practiced and taught. In doing so, she makes a significant contribution to the Interspiritual Age and to the hunger for genuine spirituality.
This book will prove to be profoundly beneficial to all those seeking the deeper life of contemplation in any tradition. It meets a genuine need in our culture, and I predict that it will have a long, long life.
Wayne Teasdale Author of The Mystic Heart
Acknowledgments

Many patient, wise, and generous people helped me put this book together, sharing time, resources, knowledge, and personal histories. I am grateful first of all to all the meditators who let me walk a little way with them on their wonderfully diverse paths. I am particularly grateful to those whose expertise I drew on to set me straight on the path and those who lent photos, books, and background materials. Sister Benita Jasurda of Sacred Heart Monastery offered a wealth of encouragement and resources. Sister Joyce Kemp of the Cenacle opened doors. Mary Doolen was a generous reader. Sensei Sevan Ross of the Chicago Zen Center and Margaret McKenzie of the Chicago Kwan Um Zen community straightened my Zen arrows in looking over what I wrote about Zen meditation. Zen student Barth Wright was kind enough to spend a lot of time on getting details of photo work right. Eric Lindo and Ajahn Sompoch Thitayano at Buddhadharma Buddhist Meditation Center provided pictures, instruction, and some cross-cultural consultation. Gen Kelsang Khedrub of the Vajrayana Buddhist Center taught me a little Tibetan history. Peter McLaughlin of the Shambhala Meditation Center of Chicago reviewed my work and opened the archive of his memory, and Meredith Dytch opened her photo archive. Paul Numrich, Ph.D., of the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics, was my guide to Buddhist Chicago, looking over material dealing with the Chicago-area Buddhist centers, his field of expertise. Laleh Bakhtiar, Ph.D., of Kazi Publications was a most knowledgeable and generous guide to Sufism and Islam, offering helpful correctives to my work. Jagdish P. Dave, Ph.D., at Governors State University imparted knowledge of Sanskrit terms