Meditation

Much has been made of meditation in pop American culture in the last 40 years. There was the craze of Transcendental Meditation, sold to a young intellectual crowd in the 1970s by the Beatles and their guru, who became a multimillionaire on it. There was Insight Meditation, another intellectual movement, inspired by meditative Buddhism. There were various self-actualizing New Age meditation gurus whose self-help books were eagerly adopted by the addiction-recovery industry. Zen meditation has been a constant path for those who turn their backs on frenzied, urban materialism. And, Tibetan Buddhist meditation has been popularized by the Free-Tibet movement. Thomas Merton wrote about Catholic monastic meditative traditions.

My question: Meditation or medication?

I have had some of exposure to all the meditative disciplines mentioned. I accept the validity and efficacy of meditation as a worthy behavior, regardless of the methodology. However, I do take issue with the concept that meditation has any cumulative effect if used only as a treatment in reaction to a psychic headache or worldly stress.

As I understand the traditions that developed meditation as an effective tool to expand consciousness, relax the body and calm the static interference of obsessive thought, their prescription for the use of meditation, based on centuries of its application to millions of lives, is the daily use of meditation as an exercise to build psychological strength and focus.

Therefore, when a regularly stress-polluted mind infrequently yields to meditation like taking an aspirin, its headache may temporarily be mollified, but the root causes of the problem are untouched. As occurs with the person who runs to the gym in May to feel comfortable in a swinsuit in June, backache is a more likely result than fitness.

Meditation of any kind, when practiced routinely, is both restorative and cumulatively empowering. Its restorative effect, in my opinion, becomes secondary to its strengthening of sustainable vision and focus in daily life situations. Like muscular exercise, meditation as habit eventually leads to greater emotional and intellectual fitness.

Haiku

narrow middle way
footpath parting darkest wood
forest voice beckons

Practice

Some years ago, while I was adjusting to living and working in Manhattan, I was involved with a sect of Japanese Buddhism, whose mission was to bring its brand of world-peace-oriented practice to Western lives through direct person-to-person contact. During one of our meetings, I voiced my frustration with my own inability to perform my role in the group to my own perfectionist standards. The Japanese leader of the meeting smiled benignly as I ranted. When I stopped, he broke the ensuing silence by saying, "Relax, Paul. It's only practice."

I was stunned. Nothing about my experience with that Buddhist group seemed at all relaxing at the time. Each of us individually chanted sutra at home every morning before going to work and every evening. We attended group chanting twice a week. We spent weekend evenings on the streets of lower Manhattan talking with whomever would listen about Buddhism, happiness and world peace. We sometimes brought these people back to my apartment to chant and discuss Buddhism.

It has taken many years and a lot of hard-road mileage for me to catch up with my Japanese mentor. I smile now whenever I think of his kindness and my ignorance.

Now I see that practice is what I am doing right now. That's it. The quality of this practice, this moment, is dependent on how seriously I consciously fill each preceding and following moment with mindfulness, compassion and right action. My practice is the constant, unrelenting commitment to be fully at peace with all humanity, while acting in the world for justice and truth. My practice is practice, because it will never be perfect. It is the process of my life.

Creativity

What can be considered creative? Paintings, writing stories, design, sculpture, these are traditional creative forms. Creativity in a capitalist society is driven by money, marketing and celebrity. In the post-Warhol age, people create to be noticed, to be lauded, to be acknowledged, to be paid.

Creativity is a part of Buddhist practice. It is not often labelled as such, but it is a necessity. This is the creativity of keeping the quest for positive human change alive, despite the inertia of the Universe.

Creativity is required to make one's immersion in the necessary routines of practice a worthwhile and renewing process for personal evolution. This is the creativity which stems from mindful observation of minute details of life. This creativity is aided by meditation. This creativity brings the mundane to another level, where it is cherished and honored as a great gift, the gift of being. With this gift, one can continue the creative process of becoming a compassionate human being.

Righteousness

Right action is seldom easy and hardly ever popular. This is ancient wisdom. Last evening I was reading a memoir by Nichiren Daishonin (1222-1282AD), a revered Japanese Buddhist itinerant monk. The passage detailed his persecution by the local Japanese authorities of his time. He was being harassed and abused by the authorities for advising peace instead of war. Things have not changed much, have they?

Nichiren's advice is simple and clear: Do not set aside righteous action and thought for any excuse. Excuses are many and quite easy to adopt.

I agree with Nichiren's belief that all human beings, with the possible exception of the mentally ill and drug addicted, are instinctively motivated to right action. I have tested this at risk to my own health and well being as a nurse. More often than not, people respond to the message of righteousness. But, I have been kicked, punched and bitten enough times to know that the practice of right action has its risk at all times.

We may be leaving a period of darkness, in which our mentally ill and power addicted leaders have turned the whole American nation's back against right action in the world. I hope so. However, each individual must take daily right action as a practice for the human species to advance toward peace and survival. This is the ongoing challenge of mankind.