Is meditation necessary?
QUESTION: Yours was the first book I ever read on Buddhism - The Feeling Buddha. It served as a great introduction to the subject and some 3/4 years on, I still maintain a very large interest in 'it' as a way of life; a path. I write to you now in the hope of a response to quite a serious question I have in relation to meditation. The question basically is: do you need to meditate to be a Buddhist? Basically I ask the question in relation to the practise of insight meditation. Over the last few years I feel I have discovered something of a way of life, a noble path which I feel I would like to try to aspire to. It's just in the area of mediation I find a problem. Many years ago I did suffer from an acute anxiety episode; I was very young at the time and did feel like I was going mad - as many anxiety sufferers do. This, coupled with the experiences I have had meditating bring this email back to my opening question: do you need to meditate to follow the path. I guess one does; it is after all the bedrock of the buddhist faith. I just would like to know if meditation can be unhealthy in terms of mental health because if there are any such risks attached to it, I think I would rather pass on it!
DHARMAVIDYA: The simple answers to your questions are: is meditation necessary? No; and, does meditation have any mental health risks attached to it? Yes, but they are not great. The Buddha clearly taught many forms of meditation but, even in the Pali literature, he repeatedly says that the various samadhis do not provide enlightenment, but only peaceful abidings or particular powers.The message seems clear that there are things to be gained from meditation, and the Buddha taught it, but it is not essential. Particular meditations provide antidotes to particular spiritual diseases, but here diagnosis is indicated, so while some self-administered spiritual disciplines may prove useful, a teacher plays an important part.
What are the risks? Well, I would not recommend meditation to anyone with major psychiatric illness as what people in that condition generally require is not more introspection but more reality contact. I would be wary of offering meditations that involve attention concentrated upon bodily processes, such as the breath, the heart beat, or other body functions, to people prone to anxiety states or currently experiencing major grief since this may well make them worse rather than better. For the great majority of people, however, meditation is valuable and the worst that can happen through the use of it is that it just does nothing for you.
Meditation is certainly not the bedrock of Buddhism. Buddha taught different meditations to different people and did not teach meditation to everybody. What he did teach to everybody was refuge. It is refuge that creates the condition for enlightenment, not meditation. People do not get enlightened by meditating. They get enlightened by sincerely taking refuge. All schools of Buddhism practise refuge. Not all practise meditation. If a person becomes enlightened while meditating it is not a result of the meditation, it is a result of taking refuge. All schools of Buddhism have formal ways of expressing taking refuge. In the Pureland tradition, one recites “Namo Amida Bu” which means that one takes refuge in the Tathagata that is in every time and every place. Other schools have other formulas. What matters, however, is whether one can really take refuge with all one's heart, not just whether one can say the words - though saying the words is more powerful than one might think. What stops us from taking refuge truly is attachment to self.
Because of this, there are all sorts of Buddhist practices that serve to loosen one's attachment to self. Correctly prescribed meditations can play a part in this. However, none of these remedies leads directly to enlightenment. They simply clear some obstacles out of the way. However, in principle, even a person with innumerable obstacles can instantly take refuge and fall into enlightenment and even a person who has eliminated thousands of obstacles may still fail to truly take refuge. This is because the person with many obstacles may be more motivated and the person who has supposedly “made progress” may, for that very reason, be afflicted with spiritual pride.
DHARMAVIDYA: The simple answers to your questions are: is meditation necessary? No; and, does meditation have any mental health risks attached to it? Yes, but they are not great. The Buddha clearly taught many forms of meditation but, even in the Pali literature, he repeatedly says that the various samadhis do not provide enlightenment, but only peaceful abidings or particular powers.The message seems clear that there are things to be gained from meditation, and the Buddha taught it, but it is not essential. Particular meditations provide antidotes to particular spiritual diseases, but here diagnosis is indicated, so while some self-administered spiritual disciplines may prove useful, a teacher plays an important part.
What are the risks? Well, I would not recommend meditation to anyone with major psychiatric illness as what people in that condition generally require is not more introspection but more reality contact. I would be wary of offering meditations that involve attention concentrated upon bodily processes, such as the breath, the heart beat, or other body functions, to people prone to anxiety states or currently experiencing major grief since this may well make them worse rather than better. For the great majority of people, however, meditation is valuable and the worst that can happen through the use of it is that it just does nothing for you.
Meditation is certainly not the bedrock of Buddhism. Buddha taught different meditations to different people and did not teach meditation to everybody. What he did teach to everybody was refuge. It is refuge that creates the condition for enlightenment, not meditation. People do not get enlightened by meditating. They get enlightened by sincerely taking refuge. All schools of Buddhism practise refuge. Not all practise meditation. If a person becomes enlightened while meditating it is not a result of the meditation, it is a result of taking refuge. All schools of Buddhism have formal ways of expressing taking refuge. In the Pureland tradition, one recites “Namo Amida Bu” which means that one takes refuge in the Tathagata that is in every time and every place. Other schools have other formulas. What matters, however, is whether one can really take refuge with all one's heart, not just whether one can say the words - though saying the words is more powerful than one might think. What stops us from taking refuge truly is attachment to self.
Because of this, there are all sorts of Buddhist practices that serve to loosen one's attachment to self. Correctly prescribed meditations can play a part in this. However, none of these remedies leads directly to enlightenment. They simply clear some obstacles out of the way. However, in principle, even a person with innumerable obstacles can instantly take refuge and fall into enlightenment and even a person who has eliminated thousands of obstacles may still fail to truly take refuge. This is because the person with many obstacles may be more motivated and the person who has supposedly “made progress” may, for that very reason, be afflicted with spiritual pride.
posted by Dharmavidya at 9:20 AM
1 Comments:
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