What is meditation?

      Meditation can refer to introspection, to mulling over what we have read or to a formal process in which we relate imaginatively to sacred narrative traditions. Meditation may also involve traditional meditative techniques designed to centre and transcend the self.

Forms of meditation

      Meditative approaches we will consider cover a broad range of activities, from attentiveness to yogic practices designed to expand consciousness.

Attentiveness

      Certain forms of meditation are exercises in attentiveness.

      The focus of attention may be ourselves or our world. Attentiveness may involve reflecting on our reactions or squatting beside a rose bush to observe the thorns, the aphids, the eco-culture of the soil, or the shape, colour and smell of the petals.

      A delightful Zen story, "The Sound of the Hollow", illustrates the importance of developing a keen state of awareness.

      An inquirer sought out a Zen master. He wanted to discover how he could pass through the gates of Zen to achieve enlightenment. After travelling through a narrow mountain pass, he came upon a Zen master. He asked the Zen master to show him the way through the gates of Zen. The master paused a moment, and then began: "On your way here, you passed through a hollow, did you not?" "Yes, I did", replied the man. "Did you hear the sound of the hollow?", the master asked. "Yes I did", the man responded. The master then turned to the man and said to him: "The place where you heard the sound of the hollow is where the path that leads to the gates of Zen begins".¹ [150]

      James Broughton explained that he begins every day meditating on the glory of God, on the creation, and on the absurdities of life. He went on to comment that his friend, Alan Watts, welcomed the day on his porch, laughing with God until his body shook.²

Meditative traditions

      Daniel Goleman, after studying the major meditative traditions, concluded that there was an underlying similarity in the different paths.

      The meditator prepares for the experience by a purification ritual. The next stage involves concentrated attention, for which there are three principal approaches. Some traditions suggest concentrating the mind on a fixed mental object. Others encourage the meditator to adopt a state of "mindfulness", in which thoughts and feelings are observed dispassionately. The third approach is a combination of the first two and involves a transition from mindfulness to insight.³

A personal pilgrimage

      I have benefited from meditation. However, before describing practices I have found helpful, it is important that you know something of my history.

      I was born a contemplative. I can remember, as a young boy, constructing a monstrance, a shrine for the "reserved sacrament" (consecrated elements remaining over after the celebration of the Eucharist), on the top of a cupboard. Though my parents were nominally Anglican, they sent me to a Catholic school.

      My first significant experience of prayer was when I was in my late teens. It resulted from a "conversion" experience.

      My father was a dentist who had first trained as a dental mechanic. He did most of the mechanical work, associated with the practice, at home, in a room adjacent to our garage. He worked most nights until midnight. [151]

      For several years after my "conversion", I would wait until my father finished for the evening. With his workroom to myself, I would pray for several hours.

      I would face in the direction of shelving containing books and half-made dentures. I would visualise Jesus in the foreground and begin speaking to him. After half an hour, I was powerfully aware of a presence. At times, I was reduced to silence, even tears.

      At the time, I was articled to a firm of Sydney solicitors. I often spent the time, in the train, to and from the city, praying for the people in the carriage. They would often look around, aware that my attention was on them.

      After four years in theological College, where I continued patterns of prayer developed in my late teens, I entered my first ministry. It was at Kedron, in Brisbane. It wasn't long before I was forced to review the way I approached prayer.

      I remember breaking down in the pulpit one morning. I was sent to a seaside town to recuperate. On reflection, I attributed the breakdown to lack of sleep and disappointment over the fact that my parents, who were visiting, had not attended the service. I was also acutely aware that my mother was unhappy with my relinquishing a legal career for the ministry and I was hoping to gain her acceptance. My expectation that my parents would attend the service was unfounded. They were not church people.

      This experience taught me that much of my praying was driven by motives of which I was unaware. I wanted to succeed in ministry to prove myself to my mother. I also realised how ill-informed much of my praying was. I imagined that God needed to be cajoled into activity.

      It was also around this time that I lost my faith. My theological worldview imploded. It had been immature. It was eighteen months before the foundation for a replacement theology was laid.

      My second ministry was at Hurstville, a southern suburb of Sydney. Because of the mood of the times, this was a difficult appointment. The late 1960s, in the West, were characterised by [152] affluence, turbulence and change. Churches were losing ground and congregations and ministers were involved in mutual recrimination. I felt like giving up. Others had already done so.

      That I didn't leave the ministry, at that time, was due largely to my attending a camp where the focus was on prayer, love and healing. At the time, I felt a failure.

      The experience of the camp taught me that prayer was a matter of being open to God. This openness was facilitated by an attitude of thankfulness. I discovered that the most effective way of praying for others was to hold them in the stream of divine love. As a consequence of this experience, prayer became a matter of practising the presence of God.

      After a five-year stint as lecturer in a theological college, I re-entered pastoral ministry. I was invited to a church in Ballarat, a provincial City in country Victoria.

      Part way through my time in Ballarat, I came to the conclusion that I was unsuited to ministry, largely as a consequence of my introversion. I inquired about alternative employment. While I didn't follow through on this initiative, the experience highlighted the degree to which I was captive to others' expectations. It challenged my capitulation to these expectations.

      It was also during my time in Ballarat that I realised that my marriage was in trouble. The distress associated with the breakdown of the marriage preoccupied me for the next fifteen years. Nevertheless, while formal prayer was abandoned, the trauma, therapy and introspection that were a consequence of this development taught me much about myself.

      I had left Ballarat, and was again lecturing, when the marriage finally broke up.

      During this period I was working on a thesis on spirituality, which introduced me to rich, contemplative traditions preserved in the Catholic Church. I was drawn to the hesychastic (prayer arising [153] out of the heart's stillness [hesuchia] unbroken by any thought)⁴ experiences of medieval mystics. I also came to realise that I prayed, most authentically, by the way I lived. I adopted an increasingly contemplative lifestyle.

      It may also be important for me to indicate that I have been working on the interpretation of my dreams for the past twenty years. Jung has been my guide.

      Seven years ago it was indicated to me, in dream after dream, that I should engage in meditation more intentionally. It was some time before I did anything about this.

      During the first six months of 1995 I lectured at a seminary in Oklahoma. A student in one of my classes, who had been a therapist for twenty years, introduced me to Kundalini Yoga.⁵ I have since experimented with a range of other meditative traditions. I have found Tibetan Buddhist meditative practices particularly helpful.

Kundalini

      Kundalini is a form of yoga that seeks to awaken the energy centres in the body.⁶

      The chakras, or energy centres, were first associated with the goddess, Kundalini, who was depicted as a serpent coiled three and a half times around the first chakra, at the base of the spine. Kundalini yoga is designed to arouse the libidinal, serpent power, and to draw it up through the chakras, until it reaches the highest chakra, the thousand-petalled lotus, at the crown of the head.

      Tradition suggests that there are two forces involved in the practice of kundalini, the male, represented by the god Kali, and the female, associated with the goddess Shakti. In kundalini yoga, the female serpent power is aroused at the base of the spine. After this energy reaches the crown chakra, it descends, as male energy, from the crown, returning eventually to the navel, to the chakra associated with the solar plexus. [154]

      While different systems list a different number of chakras, the favoured number is seven. Each of the chakras is associated with a different colour, which, it is argued, can be identified by those who claim to read auras. Certainly, the energy at each chakra gives off a certain vibration, which may be reflected in different colours.

      The first chakra is located in the area of the coccyx, at the base of the spine. Focused on the anus, and faecal matter, it is listed as red. The second chakra, the orange chakra, is connected with the genital organs, and sexuality. The third chakra, the gut chakra, is associated with emotion, power, and vitality. It is located in the solar plexus. This yellow chakra focuses on the will. The fourth chakra is the heart chakra, which is green. The fifth chakra, which is connected with the discursive intellect (with inductive reasoning rather than intuition) and communication, is the throat chakra. It is centred in the larynx, and is blue. To sixth chakra, often referred to as the third eye, is the vision chakra. Its connection is with the higher mental and psychic powers of the neocortex. It is indigo. The seventh chakra, the crown chakra, often referred to as the thousand-petalled-lotus, is either violet or white.

      You will notice that the colours are the colours of the spectrum. You may also have detected that the colours of the lower chakras are earthy, while those of the higher chakras are ethereal. This represents a progression. The energy at the base of the spine is dense, earthy energy, while that of the crown chakra is light, transparent.⁷

An adaptation

      My version of kundalini is an adaptation, rather than a faithful replication of the traditional practice.

      If you are serious about exploring a more traditional expression of kundalini, you should seek out a competent [155] practitioner. There are certain dangers associated with this form of meditation. In some people it has induced psychotic episodes.⁸

      I employ my version of kundalini yoga to clean out the energy centres of my body and to energise them. At the same time, I open my bodyself to the Spirit.

The process

      I begin with the first chakra. I draw in my breath, at least imaginatively, through the base of the spine. I float that energy around my legs, and through the anal area, inviting the Spirit to flush out dislodged emotional effluent, and to work on deeper material. I do this three or four times. On each occasion I visualise the expulsion of the effluent through my knees, which are resting on the floor.

      I go through each chakra in a similar way, except that I divide the heart chakra in two. The lower half I associate with psychological boundaries. I recognise that boundary violations need attention. I next open the upper section of this chakra, which is associated with relational openness. I visualise the folding back of a set of French windows, symbolic of the opening of my heart to the world.

      When I'm working on the throat chakra, I give myself permission to reconnect with constrictions in my throat resulting from my having choked on and swallowed my words.

      When I reach the vision chakra, located low on the forehead, midway between the eyes, I flush out the effluent that clouds insight.

      I next invite the Spirit to clear effluent, in turn, from the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, the personal unconscious, the collective unconscious, and finally, the bodymind.

      At the crown chakra, I first draw down any surface effluent into what I visualise as a sink drainer. I then blow it out of the drainer, from beneath, and puff it away. Having done this several times, I invite the ethereal energies of the Spirit to float down through my system, through each of the chakras. [156]

      When involved in this meditation, I can tell when I hit pay-dirt. My eyes water and my body gasps for breath. This gasping is not excessive, or life-threatening.

      There have been times when I have age-regressed myself through each chakra, dividing my life into ten-year periods. These experiences have been enormously beneficial, though the process takes far longer.

      Having flushed out the emotional effluent, I repeat the process, though slightly differently. This time I draw in the energy to invigorate me, rather than to flush the muck from my body.

      At the first chakra, my visualisation differs from that which I engaged in during the first phase. I breathe in the energy, the dense energy of the Spirit, expressed in materiality, from the earth, through the base of the spine. I draw it through my body, releasing it through the top of my head. As I am drawing it up, I visualise roots, reaching down from my legs into the earth, which give me grounding, stability and purchase.

      I also take the energy, ingested through each of the others chakras, up through my body, and out through my head.

      At the end of this process I draw in the dense energy of the Spirit, from the earth, through each of the chakras, where further energy is added, and out through my head. I do this a number of times. I then draw the ethereal energy of the Spirit in through the crown chakra, and let it float down through the body, until it exits through my legs. I next perform both processes concurrently.

      I find this meditation relaxing, and calming. It earths me, giving me poise and balance, and leaves me feeling enveloped by the invigorating energies of the Spirit.

Tibetan Buddhist meditation

      While my preferred meditative technique is my adaptation of kundalini, I have also benefited from meditative exercises associated with Tibetan Buddhism. Akong Tulku Rinpoche, in [157] Taming the Tiger, describes a range of meditative exercises.⁹ I will briefly describe three.

      The first is called "Feeling". It involves relaxing and centring oneself. The person meditating is then encouraged to experience the various parts of their body, beginning with the toes. They ascend slowly, through the body, until they reach the top of the head. They are then encouraged to imagine that the body is filled with fluid. It gradually empties through a plug at the base of the spine.¹⁰

      The second exercise is "The Golden Light of Universal Compassion". This meditation begins, as do the others, with an initial centring. The person meditating then observes the moods and feelings that arise spontaneously within, whether good, bad, or neutral. They then imagine themselves in a completely open space. They visualise a door directly in front of them. The feelings, emotions and thoughts, which have arisen and been observed, are then breathed through the door, beyond which is a golden light, the golden light of universal compassion. This light transforms the thoughts and feelings into compassion. This compassion begins to fill the empty space and to reach out to encompass the world. In the midst of this process, it re-enters through the door, enveloping the meditator.¹¹

      The third exercise, "The Mirror", involves sitting opposite a mirror, in which we can see our reflection. Following an initial centring, the person meditating pays attention to their thoughts, emotions and sensations. They then look at their image in the mirror. With the out-breath, they breathe their thoughts, feelings and sensations into the image in the mirror. This transference creates a sense of transparency, a separation between the meditator and their thoughts, feelings and sensations. After fifteen or twenty minutes, the person meditating draws back, with each in-breath, from the image in the mirror, those thoughts, feelings and sensations they want to reclaim. Eventually the meditator settles back into the relaxed, centred state in which they began the exercise.¹² [158]

      Another form of Tibetan meditation that I have found helpful is Tonglen Yoga, which, in Christian terms, is a form of intercessory prayer. There are a number of tonglen exercises in Taming the Tiger, which are designed to take suffering from parents, relatives, enemies, friends, animals, and one's country. This form of meditation, which draws suffering like a thick black mist or tar from individuals, communities and animals, and dissipates it in the fire of universal compassion, needs to be handled carefully. Akong Tulku Rinpoche offers excellent guidance.

Spirit as ineffable and personal

      Formal meditative techniques, and traditional religious approaches to God, generally take one of two forms, both of which co-exist in religious traditions.¹³

      The first views God as an ethereal, universal Spirit. This Spirit is not conceived of as a person or identity separate from us but as the Ground of our being. Certain meditative techniques are designed to enable the meditator to experience this aspect of God.

      The second view pictures the Spirit in personal terms. In meditative exercises, based on this perception, the deity is experienced as overwhelmingly loving. The meditator reciprocates this love. As a result of the experience, the person meditating reproduces the dynamics of this reciprocal loving in their relationships with others. This devotional approach is described, using Hindu terminology, as Bhakti.

      The different aspects of Spirit, reflected in the two meditative approaches, are complementary.

Guru yoga

      Hindu and Buddhist guru yoga, involving a master-disciple relationship, is a form of bhakti. The disciple responds to the divinity discerned in the master, a recognised exemplar of a [159] particular lineage. The disciple does not worship the egoic personality of the master, but the god-presence discerned in the master. While the master may exhibit idiosyncrasies, the disciple will distinguish this egoic element from the divinity they discern in the deeper self.¹⁴ Christians engage in a form of guru yoga with Jesus as the focus.

      I was introduced to a form of bhakti yoga at the camp I attended early in my ministerial career, though it wasn't given that name. It is a powerful form of intercessory prayer.

Channelling divine love

      I have described this form of meditation as the channelling of divine love. It is suitable for individual or group practice. If used with a group, it is best to have the group seated in a circle, though this is not necessary.

      Where participants are tense, which is often the case, they may need help to relax. To receive love we need to be receptive. We can't be receptive if we are not relaxed.

      As I am involved mostly with Christian groups, I encourage them to imagine Jesus seated in the middle of the circle. This involves the sensing of a presence, rather than the visualising of facial or bodily characteristics. Participants are not imagining something that is not there. The God, whom Christians honour in Jesus, is present in all reality. This reality, like quantum reality, has no empty spaces. Imagery is used to sharpen awareness.

      Members of the group are then encouraged to maintain their openness, while experiencing love radiating from Jesus. We take in this love in a manner similar to that in which our bodies absorb the sun through our clothing. We allow that love to penetrate every element of the bodyself.

      I next suggest that each member in the group direct the love they are in the process of receiving, through their bodies, first to the person on their right, and then the person on their left.

      Then I ask people to channel the love to someone for whom they have a deep affection. I suggest they visualise this love cascading over the friend and permeating through their body. I [160] then suggest they think of someone they find difficult to love and repeat this procedure. In each instance, I indicate that they should not be tempted to tense themselves up to generate and transfer energy. It is a matter of opening themselves up to receive a love streaming towards and through them. They offer themselves as the conduit through which this love can enter the lives of others.

      There are other ways in which this process can be conceptualised. You can ingest love with your in-breath, and, in the process, draw it through the body of the person you visualise in front of you. This variation can be taken further and become a form of tonglen yoga. In this instance, you draw out the negative effluent, the pain, the distress, like a thick dark cloud of black tar, which is then burnt up, as it comes towards you, in the intense love and compassion of the Spirit Presence permeating your being.

Influence!

      This form of meditation raises moral issues, related to the fact that we subliminally influence others. While this is not the place to address the issue, it nevertheless needs to be recognised that we are subliminally influencing others every moment of our lives. This influence is mostly negative. We contaminate them with our emotional effluent; we imprison them in the ambience of our anger; we poison the atmosphere around them with gossip; we send hate mail via our thoughts. How much better to bathe them in the healing, refreshing energies of the Spirit of God.

Dangers

      There are at least three dangers associated with meditation. First, in some of the higher states of consciousness one can encounter unusual visual and auditory experiences.¹⁵ Second, like every other phase of human development, there are pathologies associated with the different levels of meditative experience.¹⁵ Third, certain forms of meditation should not be undertaken by people whose egos are not sufficiently developed. Many [161] meditation techniques are designed to deconstruct, or take apart egoic experience. This process is inappropriate for those whose egos are underdeveloped or fragile. What they need are therapies that develop and strengthen the ego.¹⁷

Transpersonal development

      Meditative experience facilitates the development of transpersonal dimensions of the self. Wilber, comparing different religious traditions, has outlined these levels, together with the pathologies associated with them.¹⁸

Action

      It has been argued, by those suspicious of meditation, that it promises an "out" for those who want to avoid life's challenges. It certainly has an attraction for these. However, it can also be contended that it has the potential for evoking profound compassion in those who are looking for a way forward, rather than a way out.

      Wilber has argued that there is an essential connection between the upward path of meditation, and the downward path of material engagement. The one is an ascent, via eros (love as desire and longing), to wisdom, and the other, a descent, via agape (self-giving love), to compassion, a compassion that finds expression in one's dealings with the self, with the community, and in concern over institutional injustice. He further argues that either ascent, or descent, taken alone, is destructive. Where ascent is fuelled by phobos (fear), rather than eros, it is escapism. Where descenders dismiss the need for ascent, the result is thanatos, or death, the death of the soul or spirit and eventually of the landscape.¹⁹

      Meditation informs action and keeps it on track. Meditation also leads to action. As Wilber contended, the more we engage the Higher Self, the greater our concern for the world.²⁰ Andrew Harvey similarly contended that contemplative transformation leads neither to passivity nor narcissism, but to a passionate commitment to making the world a better place, a zone of love, harmony and justice.²¹ [162]

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