Bobby Miller
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Meditation around the World: New Research on Old Traditions
1,000 words
At its core, meditation involves deep concentration to achieve tranquility and insight. In the 1960s, Americans usually associated the practice with hippies, who openly acknowledged meditation’s connections to Eastern religions.
However, in the 1970s, medical researchers began examining the therapeutic effects of meditation, such as stress relief. According to Adiba Osmani, who dubs himself a “novice meditator” on his website Bidushi.com, the amount of scientific inquiry concerning meditation has grown dramatically since then. Studies have shown that meditation can make people more compassionate and creative while relieving the symptoms of depression and anxiety. Because of these practical benefits, people now perform meditation for a variety of reasons, whether spiritual or secular.
Recent research has emphasized, though, that to say meditation is an Eastern concept that eventually travelled over here is oversimplifying the story tremendously. In fact, numerous cultures and religions—including those outside of Asia—have practiced meditation in various forms for thousands of years. Halvor Eifring, a professor of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo, has investigated the different meditative traditions of the world, noting their similarities and differences.
Professor Halvor Eifring (Credit: HF.UiO.no)
In the last three years, he has edited three books on meditation, according to ScienceDaily.com. Some of the essays he has compiled, such as those found in Hindu, Buddhist and Daoist Meditation, focus on the traditions with which we usually associate meditation. Other essays, such as those compiled in Meditation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, look at how monotheistic religions define meditation.
As Eifring explains, we usually do not associate the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam with meditation, but they have practiced it for thousands of years. In fact, the word meditation even comes from Christian traditions. These religions tend to view meditation as a means of growing closer to God. Eifring explains that their meditation is more “content-based” than those of other religions. For example, while a Buddhist may recite an undefined sound while focusing on a geometric shape to achieve a deep state of concentration, Christian meditation involves reciting significant prayers or scriptures. Visualizing the crucifixion or even one’s own death are other means of putting one’s life in perspective. Such practices are still prevalent in monasteries.
Although meditation is not a common focus of Judaism, Christianity or Islam for laypeople today, it is still practiced in some forms. For example, in Catholicism, using rosary beads to concentrate on prayer is a meditative tradition still found today. As TheCatholicRosary.com explains, using the Rosary for effective prayer involves “contemplating the twenty mysteries central to the lives of Jesus Christ and Mary.” Concentrating on a certain image to gain insight and a form of inner tranquility is, in essence, a form of meditation.
Notice, however, that the body is not involved in this practice. In fact, most forms of Abrahamic meditation focus on the mind and spirit as opposed to the body, as Professor Eifring explains in his research. This is a significant difference from Buddhist, Daoist or Hindu meditation, where the body is considered essential to achieving full concentration, insight and tranquility. After all, meditation often calls to mind a person sitting cross-legged with their eyes closed in the Lotus Position.
Buddhist meditation emphasizes the connection between a disciplined body and a concentrated mind. (Credit: ChanCenter.org)
In fact, as Professor Eifring has found in his research, what we might call “Eastern meditation” has actually become more popular here in the United States than traditional Jewish and Christian forms of the practice. As he explained in an e-mail, “Eastern” meditation, such as that of Buddhism, is less focused on content and more on technique. That is why a person can recite a nondescript mantra rather than recite a prayer and why a person can focus on a shape rather than visualize a scriptural passage.
This makes Eastern meditative practices “easier to pull out of their traditional contexts and to place . . . within various modern worldviews, including scientific investigations. It also, of course, makes them better suited to be practiced within other religious settings than they were originally designed for.” After all, while a Christian could practice Zen meditation by reciting nondescript sounds and focusing on a simple image, a Buddhist would have no reason to recite Christian prayers or focus on stories shared in the Bible.
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As Eifring explained in the e-mail, people of any faith—or lack thereof—could benefit from the technique-based Eastern meditative practices since they focus on relaxing the mind and body rather than drawing a person closer to the divine. Since Eastern meditation can be used in a variety of contexts by a variety of people, it has grown quickly here in the US. While Eifring believes “it’s a good thing that meditation . . . can be practiced with an eye to down-to-earth effects on health and well-being” by all people, he believes it is a challenge to retain the full potential of various meditative techniques while pulling them out of their original context. “Instant relaxation is good,” he explained, “but the psychological and existential reorientation that these techniques can bring about may have much deeper and more long-term effects on one’s life.”
The possibility that Americans are losing their full appreciation of meditation’s benefits is particularly clear in yoga—which is, indeed, a form of meditation. As Richard Corliss explained in an article for Time magazine, the popular view of yoga has changed numerous times since it first became widespread in America. “First it signaled spiritual cleansing and rebirth, a nontoxic way to get high,” he said. “Then it was seen as a kind of preventive medicine that helped manage and reduce stress.” And now, many people view it mostly in a physical light, as a means of increasing flexibility. Practitioners may benefit most, though, if they recognize yoga as a form of meditation that seeks to blend the mind, body and soul. It does not need to limit itself to just one of these areas.
This could be true of meditation in general. Eifring’s research goes beyond the medical gains of meditation, which have been the subject of numerous investigations. He gives us a fuller perspective of meditation across all cultures, religions and eras. This can allow us to recognize it as more than an instant relaxation technique; perhaps it has benefits that cannot be measured in a laboratory.
Bobby Miller originally wrote this article for the digital magazine Nvate in June of 2014. Due to its age, some of the information or links in the article may be outdated.