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Meditation, Contemplation, or Relaxation

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
When one says, "I meditate," what does one mean?

I hear others say, "I'm going to meditate on _________." But is this really meditation? If one is going to sit in silence in consideration of a thought, concept, or idea, that's contemplation, not meditation.

When one sits, takes a few deep breaths, and sits in silence for the purpose of calmness and peace, perhaps playing affirmations in the background, that's relaxation, not meditation.

Meditation facilitates and involves a shift in perception, moving the perception from the mundane to something else, usually something transcendent from our daily perceived reality in nature.

This is, of course, my own insufferable opinion. Love it, hate it, or feel free to rip it to shreds.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
In Catholic mysticism, the terminology and semantics are almost the reverse from what you've outlined above.

We employ the word 'meditation' to signify conscious consideration, devotion or absorption in a very specific concept, mental image or audio-visual object.

In terms of relaxation, we would agree with your definition.

'Contemplation' is our word for a state of imageless, perceptual shift in consciousness that gives someone a direct experience of the transcendent, although we differentiate between acquired contemplation which involves a concerted effort on the part of the individual to help bring it about and infused contemplation which is completely autonomous, like an involuntary rapture.
 

crossfire

LHP Mercuræn Feminist Heretic ☿
Premium Member
When one says, "I meditate," what does one mean?

I hear others say, "I'm going to meditate on _________." But is this really meditation? If one is going to sit in silence in consideration of a thought, concept, or idea, that's contemplation, not meditation.

When one sits, takes a few deep breaths, and sits in silence for the purpose of calmness and peace, perhaps playing affirmations in the background, that's relaxation, not meditation.

Meditation facilitates and involves a shift in perception, moving the perception from the mundane to something else, usually something transcendent from our daily perceived reality in nature.

This is, of course, my own insufferable opinion. Love it, hate it, or feel free to rip it to shreds.
I do agree with you that meditation facilitates and involves a shift in perception, but it can involve something as mundane as mindfully mopping the floor or mindfully walking. (The mindful walking meditation is especially useful for triggering lucid dreaming.)
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
I do agree with you that meditation facilitates and involves a shift in perception, but it can involve something as mundane as mindfully mopping the floor or mindfully walking. (The mindful walking meditation is especially useful for triggering lucid dreaming.)

True dat :thumbsup:

Both yourself and @SalixIncendium are correct:


"....The natural, normal, mode of operation of the mind during its present state of union with the body, is by sense impressions, images, concepts, 'intelligible species', reasoning; when it operates in another mode, without these means it is acting mystically. Fr Browne says:

In theory it is necessary, unless we want to be lost in hopeless confusion, to state firmly that, as soon as one ceases to use discourse of the faculties, so soon one's prayer begins to be passive and one is really entering on the mystic road' (op, cit. p. 138). This seems to afford a true and easily applicable discriminant delimiting the frontier between mystical and non-mystical prayer.
ORDINARY AND EXTRAORDINARY. These terms again give rise to much controversy. We have heard Bishop Hedley make a synthesis, almost a paradox: contemplation is extraordinary prayer, but it ought to be an ordinary state for Christian souls. Some writers use 'ordinary' as meaning usual; among them de Besse: his chapter xiii. is entitled 'The prayer of faith [loving attention] a common grace.


He says:

The grace of contemplation is granted with truly divine generosity to souls who devote themselves generously to prayer. It is not a miraculous gift; it is not an indication of a perfect life; it is a means of raising the soul to sanctity. Nearly all generous souls who remain faithful to prayer receive, sooner or later, the grace of obscure contemplation [i.e. prayer of faith]. As soon as these souls have acquired the power of discerning and corresponding with this grace they can practise at will the prayer of faith, which is an ordinary mystic prayer...."
- Dom Cuthbert Butler OSB, Western Mysticism (published 1922)
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
I do agree with you that meditation facilitates and involves a shift in perception, but it can involve something as mundane as mindfully mopping the floor or mindfully walking. (The mindful walking meditation is especially useful for triggering lucid dreaming.)

That’s still a shift in perception from normal waking consciousness, yes? This is why I was careful to use the word “usually” when I spoke of transcendence, but perhaps there a degree of transcendence involved in mopping and walking meditation as well.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
When one says, "I meditate," what does one mean?

As others have noted, the word "meditation" can have different meanings. It could mean the same thing as a cat "meditating" on a bird before pouncing.

And some differentiate associative meditation, identification was an image of perfection, for example, from dissociative meditation, "I am not my desires".
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
For me personally, it's sitting still, spine straight, preferably in lotus. diaphragmatic deep rhythmic breathing, concentrating on nothing in particular until thoughts cease, then seeing what thoughts come from that. There can be a purpose to go into some contemplation. Ultimately the goal is Self-Realisation.

But that's just me. As others have said, definitions vary.
 

Electra

Active Member
There is only two forms of meditation.

Meditation on an object and meditation on nothing.
 
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