lotusinthemud

Hollowing out is a meditation practice

The practice and process of hollowing out are common to many spiritual paths and traditions, including shamanism (with meditation probably being the most ‘famous’ one).

 

The aim is to disentangle from what, in shamanism, we would call the ‘middle-world self’ — the incessant flow of thoughts, judgements, opinions and middle-world issues that concern us in ordinary reality — and become instead the ‘witness’, the ‘Aware-Self’ who can watch the flow of thoughts whilst not being entangled in them. This enables us to watch the thoughts (the stories) instead, and not be entangled in them.

 

We become aware that there is another ‘I’ who is able to watch the stories. Doing this helps us realise that we are not the stories but something else entirely.

 

This takes practice, and it is never an endpoint that you ‘arrive at’, but something that you continue to get better at the more you do it. It is a process, not a destination.

 

𝚆𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚗 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚎𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚢?

Join Therapeutic Shamanism - the Three Ravens College - for the Next Steps 1 course. This link gives further details:

https://www.therapeutic-shamanism.co.uk/lower-world/

maintaining the habit of spiritual practice

Making any time to sit is better than nothing, but the practice offers the greatest benefits when we meditate consistently. When we regularly take time to be still and listen carefully, we strengthen innumerable wholesome qualities in the heart and mind, lay a foundation for living wisely, and cultivate powerful seeds of insight and compassion.

~ Oren Jay Sofer, “Why Can’t I Get to the Cushion?”

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something old, something new

The Tree of Life sangha are meeting on-line again this evening. I'm finding my own practice has changed recently - my faith having been shaken, I continue looking at what works for me, what can be reclaimed or redefined. Wanting to offer what benefits the sangha and is also authentic. So I'm going to share practice based on the 'Meditation For Relaxation' sessions I used to offer at Newcastle University - phrases from Thich Nhat Hahn's "The Blooming of a Lotus", some walking meditation, Metta meditation, sitting - with some Pureland practice. Followed by sharing time. Let's see how that works for everyone.

Update. January 2024: for the past year we have included more Pureland practice into our sangha gatherings. It is now our primary practice

Amida Samadhi ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya: 

INSIGHT AND CALM

In the approach known now as Insight Meditation, there are two phases to practise. The first is to calm the mind and the second is “looking into the true nature of things as they are”. In other words, calm is a basis for the development of insight. However, in our Amida Shu approach it is the other way around. First we enquire into the state of things and then we offer whatever insight we have to the Buddhas who then bestow their blessing of great peace. So in this schema, insight leads to calm, which is to say to peace of mind, for which the Japanese term is anjin, sometimes translated as “settled faith”.

SETTLING

Why does faith need to “settle”? Everybody has faith, or, in most cases, a variety of faiths, that are, much of the time, at odds with one another, all vying for priority. When we say “faith” here, for practical purposes we can say we are referring to what one puts one’s faith in. It might be financial security, or a political cause, or a relationship, or one’s own cleverness, or good health, or many other things. A little insight reveals all of these to be unreliable. they are all subject to conditions and therefore impermanent. None of them constitutes a true refuge, yet all of these things exercise us in ways that are stressful and demanding.

OFFERING

Insight, therefore, can be unsettling. Seeing into the state of things is challenging. The only reliable way to overcome this disturbance is to admit one’s own incapacity to solve the riddle. In Buddhism, one does this by offering all of this to the Buddhas. This is our prayer: “Oh Buddha, please receive my offering. Please receive all the complicated puzzle that is my life. I give it all to you in confidence that you alone know how to deploy it within your scheme of harmony.”

We do not have to use these words; in fact, it is better to use one’s own words and to be specific about what it is that one is offering today, which might be sorrow, or joy, or anger, or longing, or confusion, or whatever. It might be arrogance, or generosity, or stubbornness, or chagrin, or achievement, or defeat. It might be tears. It might be the unreliability of body and mind. It will be whatever one has discovered in one’s inner search. The point is that it is not a matter of offering the right thing, but rather of being honest about what one has found within and offering it unconditionally.

PEACE

The Buddhas are always offering their peace. Only when we turn toward them and unburden ourselves do we actually receive it. This receiving can be quite physical. One can feel peace and calm descending through one’s body as one offers one’s offering up.

Such peace comes because when we take refuge in Buddha, or, we can say, in Buddhadharma, all our faith is reunified. The reunification of faith is samadhi. This makes one into a suitable channel for the descent of the Buddha light into the heart. This, therefore, is the Amida Samadhi, the samadhi without measure, without limit, that is completely centred, yet boundless. This is what Honen means by “gazing upon the moon”. Here “the moon” represents the spiritual light. Standing outside on a summer’s night and gazing at the physical moon in the sky gives one a sense of peace. This, therefore, has become a way of representing the act of taking refuge. In taking refuge one gazes upon a moon that is eternally present, outside of time, always shedding its benign light.

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Dhyana: What is Real Meditation? ~ Dharmavidya

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT MEDITATION
We should ask ourselves, what is meditation, really? Meditation is surely not sitting still and silent while one’s mind wanders all over, even if, from time to time, one achieves some self-consciousness of what is happening. Indeed, one must question whether any kind of self-conscious can really be a Buddhist goal, other than the kind involved in restraint when one desists from a harmful action. Even then, the true mind is the one that desists because one envisages the harmful consequence, not because one has pride in ones ability to rise above temptation.

TRUE MIND
We can see that the question what is meditation quickly leads us into the question what is a true mind, whether one is sitting on the meditation cushion or not. We can immediately understand that the true mind is the mind of refuge, or, as we can say, the mind of nembutsu. We can call this "nembutsu samadhi". Samadhi means concentration. When our mind is concentrated on refuge, we partake of the true essence of Dharma.

When our refuge faith becomes settled, nembutsu samadhi resides in our unconscious. It is the taken for granted foundation of all our thoughts, words and deeds. It only erupts into consciousness from time to time.

REFUGE AS THE CORE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
Refuge is not something one can contrive, but it is something one might realise. When we realise our own hopeless state, then we feel that refuge is the only hope. It is a kind of gamble, just as a refugee gets onto an overcrowded boat hoping to cross the Mediterranean and arrive safely in a country where he will not starve, being completely at the end of his resources.

Some people may say that they have other forms of meditation that do not fit this frame, but, in fact, all forms of true meditation come down to the mind of refuge in the end. Attempting to visualise this or that sambhogakaya figure is a way of taking refuge. The Zen adept struggling with a koan is seeking his nature. When he realises that his nature is no nature yet karmic passion is beginningless, he might be told he has experienced satori, but this will only be true if, in deep contrition, he takes refuge. All true Zen masters understand this.

On Not Underrating The Dharma ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya writes:

Buddhism is a mystical religion.It is noumenal. It does not fit within the common paradigm, but soars far beyond.

Those who turn their hearts and attention to what is beyond this world are called mystics. Buddha was one. This is why he is called a muni. This is why he is called Buddha. Buddha is one who has awakened to what others fail to see. Muni is a sage who comprehends holy things.

In many religions, the mystical aspect is fringe or secondary, whereas in Buddhism it is central. The vortex of Buddhism is the experience of enlightenment that transformed the life and impelled the teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha. This experience was not ordinary, not simply a matter of arriving at an intellectual conviction, not just deciding on a method of meditation. It was a profound “turning round in the foundation of consciousness”, a liberation of faith and entry into an unconditional life of spirit.

Buddhism coming to the West has gone astray in portraying itself as “not a religion”, as a here and now, self-help, technique based, humanistic path to happiness that can be added on to ordinary life, as a kind of ultimate consumer bargain. Such a pursuit of short term popularity will blows away as soon as the social mood changes. The aim of Buddhism is not simply the ability to taste a grape with greater sensual clarity, nor is it the ability to reduce stress in such a way as to make one’s participation in the rat race of materialistic life more effective. This is a complete travesty. Nor should it be a range of competing meditation shops.

Buddha taught a Dharma that is the fundamental meaning of life and, indeed, of all great religions; a faith that transcends worldly attachments, that brings nobility and meaning in the midst of the existential plight, that imbues life with mindfulness of holy being and sacred space, nirvana, the Unborn, the Deathless, the ultimate beyond.

On his enlightenment, Buddha declared that he had seen dependent arising both forwards and backwards. Modern people readily grasp the idea of the forward progression of cause and effect, of things arising on the basis of conditions, of the flow of time and of consequence following from deed. However, they do not comprehend and generally do not even pay any attention to the backward turn that was the crucial point. Buddha not only saw impermanence, he saw behind it. He not only saw how human nature rises and falls according to intentional action, he also saw how there was an escape, a liberation, a transcendence, or, perhaps we should coin the term scendence - a going down into the depths - that liberates from this surface existence in which we live like pond skaters, unaware of the profundity beneath.

We must ask, what did the great seer see? What was it that grasped hold of his life and turned it so comprehensively? What is the vidya beyond avidya? What is the backward turn that reverses all common assumption?

Buddhist “meditation” should be such a scendence. It is not a postural yoga, not an exercise, not a pose, but an enquiry into the mystery, into the Cloud of Unknowing, the divine depths that underpin life, love and meaning. It is not a procedure, nor a protocol, nor something to buy and sell. It is what is seen by “the divine eye, purified and surpassing the human”. Mystics of all faiths have reflected upon holy things and found a refuge therein and Buddhism is just such an awakening. Religions arise out of the report of those who have tasted the living water and thereby opened eyes that see glory in the darkness. It is transmitted by those who have faith, not by those who have ideas and techniques alone.

Buddhism is the attempt to live a holy life. Its aim is “the holy life fulfilled”. It is not about worldly success, but about living where “there is nothing left for this world” - no attachment to ephemeral fame and gain - because something altogether more full of wonders has come to sustain one’s being, far beyond all ego investment.

Individually, we may well feel that the noble goal of the Tathagata’s way is beyond our reach, and it is good to feel that, because it is a foundation for the kind of necessary self-humility. This should not lead us to worldly skepticism and short-termism, but rather to a realisation of the vastness of the Tathagata’s vision that completely liberates from all woe. Being in the midst of life as we know it and contemplating such things gives rise to a profound awe and sense of exile and it is the energy of such longing that is the ground of faith.

Buddhism is a mystical religion. The Buddha was the great seer. We can have faith in what he brought to us and we can contemplate our own poverty of spirit as well as the boundlessness that his Dharma displays. We can make faltering steps in the holy life and trust that whatever sincerity there may be in our hearts will not be fruitless. When Buddhas are enlightened, spiritual flowers fall from the sky and we live in their midst even now - not merely when we arrive in the Pure Land.

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How the West likes to misread Buddhism ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya writes:

I have recently read an essay about Theravada meditation. Of its type it is an excellent essay. It decribes samatha (calm meditation) and vipassana (insight meditation) and the relations between them, showing how in some schools samatha provides a foundation and basis from which viapassana develops, either naturally or as a result of additional exercises, whereas in other schools, vipassana is the basis but cannot be complete or final without some samatha dimensions and methods. It also shows how it was the traditional way for most adepts to base their practice in samatha, but how, over the past two hundred years viapassana schools have assumed some dominance and finally how now the whole movement is having to come to terms with the recent growth of interest in mindfulness.

I say, “of its type”, that type being Western academic studies of Buddhism, and my reservation lies in the fact that these studies take it as a foundation that Buddhism is fundamentally all about meditation, even though the vast majority of faithful Theravada Buddhists probably meditate rarely, if ever.

What do they do? They worship the Buddha with prayers, offerings, and prostrations and they attempt to live their lives in a Buddhist spirit such as will give rise to merit here and hereafter. They support and feed the monks and in return receive teaching, inspiration and blessings from them. They chant and recite creedal formulas and sometimes longer texts and listen as the monks do so for them. These and other similar practices are the substance of what it is to be a Theravada Buddhist, or, more or less, any kind of Buddhist. In particular, Buddhists take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. This is their fundamental act of faith, rather similar to the way that Christians might say “I believe in God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.” However, in these studies all of these things are classified as ancillaries to meditation. They are either preparations for it, protections of it or adjuncts to it.

It would be less of a mistake to present Christianity as essentially a practice of prayer, involving a certain kneeling yoga and designed for the purpose of stress reduction in which certain traditional but non-essential preliminaries like affirming belief in God can be take on as extras by those who want to do it in the old fashioned way. After all, most Christians do pray and it does reduce stress.

The core and centre of gravity of Buddhism is taking refuge. This is then expressed in devotion of various kinds. Next to that in importance is understanding and applying the Buddha’s teachings which are about living a spiritual life ethically and psychologically, personally and socially. Meditation is mostly an extra for specialists who want to attain certain special states. It is practised regularly and systematically only by a minority of mostly renunciant ascetics who wish to extinguish all worldliness, as well as by Westerners of all kinds who mostly want worldly benefits. The latter see meditation as a pathway to exotic states of mind - a kind of cheap drug - and often have little interest in the religious basis from which it comes.

The real purpose of meditation is to deepen one’s refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. These three are called mindfulnesses because they are what the devotee should keep constantly in heart and mind. Samatha is the peace that comes when one is deeply devoted to this refuge and receives its blessing in all aspects of life. Vipassana is the understanding that one attains to when one sees this refuge in every situation, experiencing the influence of Buddha and Dharma everywhere one looks, in every direction, in every breath, in every movement, in every impulse. When one is so devoted then one understands the Dharma deeply.

With such an outlook, one readily understands the significance of the great teachings - the hindrances, the skandhas, the six internal and external bases of sensory life, the seven factors of enlightenment, the four truths for noble ones, the eightfold path, and so on. As in any religion, the purpose of contemplation is to deepen one’s familiarity with the things that that religion deems holy. What is special about the Buddhist way of doing this is that it shows how these holy things are validated by examination of the minutiae of life as we actually encounter it. If, with mindfulness of refuge already established as foundation, one examines bodily activity or emotional or mental process, one finds that it is all subject to the same unreliability, that there is no basis in self for refuge, and so that already established refuge beyond self is thus reaffirmed and one’s understanding of it is deepened and made more urgent.

If, however, one does the physical and mental exercises with no prior established refuge, then one may go off in any direction and reaffirm whatever prejudice one started with. One will see in it what one wants to see, but what the worldly westerner wants to see is generally a long way away from what the truly Buddhist devotee is seeking and devoted to.

The Satiaptthana Sutta, now so favoured, actually starts by saying, that the first thing to do is to set one’s mindfulness before one and it goes on to say that all the exercises described in the sutra are to be done with that mindfulness present. Westerners take mindfulness to mean some kind of neutral awareness. It is not. Mindfulness is keeping Buddha, Dharma and Sangha in mind. The Satipatthana is not telling us how to cultivate such neutral awareness, it is telling us what happens when we investigate life on the basis of refuge, with that mindfulness already established as our foundation.

The influence of Western faith in science with its creed of neutrality and doubt and praxis of technology as the solution to all problems has led to a reformulation of Buddhism that started about two hundred years ago under colonialism. We now tend to see Buddhism as a technology concerned with establishing skeptical, secular mental neutrality. This, however, is substantially a Western import. It is the appropriation of Buddhist procedures in the service of a popular Western non-Buddhist creed.

Meditation is certainly a significant part of Buddhism. It provides a bridge between conduct and understanding. It is useful. It is not the be all and end all. True liberation does not come as an outcome of technique. It comes through having the heart-mind take refuge. Only thus does one transcend this life of dependence upon ephemeral conditions and enter the Deathless. All else is elaboration and expression.

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Meditation with Nembutsu ~ Dharmavidya

:: Dharmavidya writes:

Meditation is a natural expression of spiritual liberation. When we are swimming in grace, the heart lifts and sings. In following the Dharma one is filled with joy and gratitude that Buddha’s appear in the world. The traditional way to express this is through one or other of the formulas of Refuge, and especially nembutsu.

Meditation in Buddhism reaches its full form in keeping Buddha ever in mind and the nembutsu is a simple way to express this. The actual form of words varies a little from culture to culture - “Namo Amida Bu”, “Amitabhaya”, “Namo Omito Fo”, and so forth.

A most natural form of meditation, therefore, is to, as they say, mount the words upon the breath. Thus one can sit for a time and be aware of the breathing and with each in-breath and each out-breath, say the words… Namo Amida Bu;  Namo Amida Bu.

To sustain this for a period one needs to maintain a certain balance. The mind is such that other thoughts, images and feelings will arise. Thus it is possible for the mind to wander or even for sleep to supervene. If you are happy to fall asleep, no problem. In fact, this can be a fine way to end the day, entering slumber with the sacred words in mind.

However, if you want to maintain your practice, it is important to learn to let the intruding mental impulses enter but not dominate. To do this one should not let them get a grip upon the mind, but allow them to fragment even as they are forming. Then the nembutsu remains centre stage and other thoughts become like a background of white noise, gently pulsing in and out of awareness, but never so strong as to carry one away.

Of course, for this to be successful, one must not deem anything more important than the nembutsu itself. This can mean that a very slight effort is required as each thought or image enters, to let it drop down in importance. This is because one has already established many habits of prioritising certain ideas. If something that seems particularly important comes into one’s mind, one might need to inwardly smile and say, “Later,” and set it aside just for now. Meditation is substantially a matter of giving the object of meditation absolute priority for the time of the exercise.

I was recently a subject in a piece of research in which measurements were made of the wave patterns in my brain while meditating, and I was using this method. I am told that the results showed an unusual degree of stability in my concentration and in the presence of a steady rhythm of alpha waves. I was very interested in this. It seems that the repetitions of nembutsu do not show up in the way that thought does, but serve rather to stabilise the contemplative exercise.

I find this much more satisfactory than such methods as counting the breaths. Counting has no devotional element and is merely mechanical, whereas the nembutsu is essentially a love song and its repetition is like the beating of the heart.

Many people like to meditate and find it beneficial. We should not, however, regard it purely as a psychological self-help technique. If you meditate, do it in a way that deepens your spirit and connects you with the universal grace. I, therefore, recommend this practice. A period of sitting quietly centring all upon the nembutsu is a beautiful way to deepen one’s life.

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Tell me again how to meditate ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya writes: I am at Vajra’s. Here the day starts with meditation. I sit. How does one meditate? I have been doing it for decades. I must have sat thousands of hours now - but how really should one meditate? I feel even more ignorant now than when I started all those years ago. Much more ignorant, in fact. Then i was proud of my so good lotus posture, which my doctor now no longer allows me to do! In those days I thought I knew what I was doing.

I reflect upon this and offer my history and my ignorance up to the Buddhas. They always receive everything happily. I feel emptied and refreshed. I hear a car drive past outside. My mind turns to all the people getting ready for the day, hurrying to work, often full of stress and worries. I embrace them with my thought and offer all this mental stress again to the Buddha. He takes this great bundle in his hands so delicately and lovingly and I realise that in the core of every worry there is a nub of love, a little jewel sparkling. The Buddhas are collecting these jewels to decorate their lands of bliss. The sparkling light cascades down and I am filled with rainbows.

Yet even in the midst of this great grace I notice there is a pain in my shoulder. Bodies are such. Yesterday it was a sore eye, today a stiff shoulder, tomorrow it will be something else. Even the good food I have eaten in the last couple of days is now quietly complaining in my stomach. And so it is for everybody. Not only do they have so many worries about work and relationships, goals and losses, they also have bodies that are never completely at ease. I offer all this physical pain and suffering to the Buddhas. Again they receive it with such wonderful delicacy for in the heart of every item there is life, like a diamond hidden in the mud. Such radiance.

The rainbow light again descends, deepening my peace. I sit in the calm, the, as-we-say, “tranquil abiding”. I feel deeply at peace, yet I also feel tears of joy. I can feel them in my throat and pricking at my eyes. These too I offer up, and I hear those words from the end of the ordination ceremony when the bodhisattvas say, “If this is so, then you are the same as we…” and I know that this is a universal truth of life, that we are touched and moved by love. However much it may be submerged by seeming troubles, there is a truth that endures which is the truth of love and compassion, and this is the Dharma.

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Meditation, Mysticism and Moral Development ~ Dharmavidya

I recently read an article that argued that (a) there is no necessary relationship between meditation and mysticism and that (b) the purpose of meditation is purely the cultivation of positive moral traits. Given in support of this was the observation that there have been "mystical gurus" whose morals have been lamentable and also the logical reasoning that there are people who meditate who do not get mystical experience and people who have mystical experiences who do not meditate. The article said that meditation is a deliberately undertaken activity whereas mystical experience is always "accidental", though it did admit that in this sense meditation might make one "accident prone".

I wish to suggest that these contentions are open to complete reversal - that an opposite view is perfectly possible and preferable. People have probably been motivated to meditate by the prospect of mystical experience just as much, perhaps more, than by that of moral development. I am sure that one of the big spurs to the sudden popularity of meditation in the mid-twentieth century was the publication of Philip Kapleau's book Three Pillars of Zen whose main feature was reports of mystical experiences apparently brought about by meditation. There have been plenty of reports of "moral leaders" who went off the rails. There are people who meditate whose moral traits remain (or even become) weak and moral people who do not meditate. The whole argument, therefore, can be turned against itself.

Of course, a great deal turns upon definitions. Is meditation always a deliberately undertaken activity? Surely not. In fact, is it not the case that when a person is having a mystical experience, they are in a state of rapt attention to a "transcendental object" and, therefore, meditating? And is not the meditation that spontaneously occurs at such a time actually the epitome of meditation and the actual model and inspiration for all the deliberately undertaken spiritual exercises that people follow? When Mary sees the angel who says "Blessed art thou among women," she is surely in a state of religious rapture. Similarly Queen Vaidehi in the Contemplation Sutra when she sees the vision of all the Pure Lands of all the Buddhas. Such rapture is real meditation. Deliberately sitting still for long periods facing a wall or whatever may be an attempt to approximate such a condition, but it is in most cases only a preparation or an imitation. This is made particularly clear in the Contemplation Sutrawhere, after Ananda has witnessed the transformation in Vaidehi, the Buddha gives him a "do-it-by-numbers" account of how to have an experience that roughly approximates what Vaidehi experienced. Meditation is thus presented as an imitation of true mystical experience.

We can say, therefore, that mystical experience is the root of all meditation. In our modern technical world we are in danger of losing connection with such roots. Nowadays it is possible to think that meditation is purely a mental keep-fit or a moral development exercise disconnected from its sacred purpose, root and origin. This is how we are cutting ourselves off from the spiritual source of our being and turning ourselves into robots that can be programmed.

For sure, real meditation, which is mystical experience, does lead to moral development, since one who sees the Unimpeded Light is filled with joy and walks lightly upon the earth, but there is no guarantee that sitting for long periods counting one's breaths will have similar effect. A million hours sitting like a sack of rice is just so much wasted time. Mindfulness of the "here and now" is only transformative if the here and now comes alive and, at least in some tiny degree, begins to dance with divine light.

Many people nowadays undertake meditation or mindfulness motivated by a search for a kind of secular "moral development" defined as a greater ability to "cope with stress". This is how people who want to distance themselves from anything that could be thought of as an association with religion have re-clothed the issue. The real antidote, however, is inspiration. If people are inspired by enthusiasm for such a practice or by those who teach it, there will be some benefit. These welcome benefits are, however, small compared with the original from which these ideas ultimately derive.

Meditation exercises have developed in Buddhism and other religions as people have seen the effects of mystical transformation and then thought upon such things. Meditation begins with such thinking. In Buddhism, the first dhyana is such applied and sustained thought. Sometimes, a person thinking upon holy things might be carried into some degree of rapture. In such contemplation, thinking falls away for a while and experiences of joy arise. These are the second or third dhyanas. In some cases this might lead to a state of vast and deep tranquility, the fourth dhyana. Persons who have had such experiences repeatedly, like Siddhartha Gotama, might even be able to enter such states at will. Certainly they will be unforgettable to them and will provide a basis for the real "mindfulness" (sati/smriti) that is spoken of in Buddhist texts, which is not the de-stressing exercise of modern usage, but reflection upon remembered experience of transcendent truth. It is notable that most modern "meditation methods" omit the first dhyana and try to plunge the person into a state of non-thought, which is like trying to have fruit without first growing the plant, an attitude unfortunately typical of the modern attitude.

So, there is a necessary relationship between mysticism and meditation, the latter being reflection upon or direct effect of the former, either at first hand or, as in the case of Ananda, vicariously. Meditation is not just an activity deliberately undertaken according to a protocol. It is primarily a natural occurrence and only secondarily a contrived exercise. It is natural for people to reflect upon what inspires and such contemplation occurs in all cultures. Mysticism takes us beyond our humdrum ordinary existence - it makes life deeper. Meditating upon such deepening has some relationship to moral development, but moral development is better seen as a symptom than a primary motive. Moral development ultimately means living within a more inspiring morale, and this is a natural effect of encounter with the Measureless. When one is "seized by Amida, never to be forsaken" one's life does begin a long process of inner transformation and this provides much food for thought and reflection, although mostly it goes on secretly and silently in the hidden life that we sometimes call soul.

 

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