Why Meditate?
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JoeUser Forums
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning I want to talk about why we might take up a practice of meditation. When we go to synagogue we don't typically think that we are practicing meditation, and most of us do not, in the specific sense. Yet, meditation is really about disciplining the mind, so as we train our minds through any sort of repetitive activity, we are, in that sense, practicing a form of meditation. Our attention is often very porous, that is to say, easily interrupted.
At synagogue, we recite prayers and blessings. We stand and sit. We bend our knees and bow. If we do these with kavanah, concentrated intent, we are, in effect, practicing various forms of meditation. That "If" however, is very large and significant. Many of us at Temple go through the motions, read as quickly the siddur, as possible, as if "getting through" it was the most important thing. But true practice is not to get through, but to reside in.
Rabbi Kaplan talks about the factors that get in the way of us truly experiencing something. Our mind's distractibility is one factor, but another factor is that our mind often already has an image of what we are experiencing and that image competes with reality. He uses a rose as an example. If you try to experience a rose, you might be distracted by the sight of a bee. But even if that were not the case, your mind's eye, which has an understanding of "rose" will often compete with the image being received through your eyes. Kaplan argues that the practice of meditation helps in both cases: it teaches us to deal with the distractions and to "turn off the spontaneous self generated images" of our mind's eye. (see Chapter Two of Jewish Meditation, a Practical Guide)
Kavanah is an equivalent, in my opinion, to what Buddhists call mindfulness. Mindfulness means being completely present in the moment on the one hand, and open to that moment, on the other hand. So we must develop an ability to focus our attention and exclude distractions at the same time and do so with a loving, generous heart.
Why meditate? Our practice of hitbodedut,(often referred to as Jewish Meditation) is a separating of oneself from others and at the same time, an introspective journey. It is the discipline of this practice that prepares us to be fully present with others and with God. With this practice we can come to the siddur with an open eye and heart. We can sit and stand mindfully. We can make our prayer meaningful.
Shalom,
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