no Right kind but only practices with different consequences
One of the little boys in my Aikido class at the Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center today asked what kind of meditation is the Right kind to do before class. Yes, he is a kiss-up but also very bright and gifted. The following was my obviously incomplete and appropriately brief response (more or less), based on a certain amount of personal experience and comparative mythological/religious graduate study. I'm looking for adult reaction/ response/ elaborations here.
Since there is no Right kind but only practices with different consequences, it may be useful to imagine that there are basically three kinds of mediation, categorized by objective:
1) focus on a particular idea/mantra/theme, as in prayers of gratitude, supplication, etc.
2) focus fully on each experience/thought/feeling that becomes clear, in order to fully receive it, as soon as it becomes distinguishable from background noise.
3) focus on breath and clear/release the mind of/from everything that enters it as much as possible in order to be simply present.
I suggested that the last, since it is most closely related to Zen and nearest to the kind of approach most find helpful when learning to work with conflict, is the kind most often recommended by Aikido practicioners of my experience, but that each would change the kind of training that followed, energetically speaking.
He followed the explanation with rapt nine-year-old attention but the first grader down the line from him ended up davining and playing with her neighbor's hair, so she may not have taken away a conviction to try all three at her earliest opportunity. | posted by Unknown @ 11/29/2005 11:28:00 PM
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One of the little boys in my Aikido class at the Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center today asked what kind of meditation is the Right kind to do before class. Yes, he is a kiss-up but also very bright and gifted. The following was my obviously incomplete and appropriately brief response (more or less), based on a certain amount of personal experience and comparative mythological/religious graduate study. I'm looking for adult reaction/ response/ elaborations here.
Since there is no Right kind but only practices with different consequences, it may be useful to imagine that there are basically three kinds of mediation, categorized by objective:
1) focus on a particular idea/mantra/theme, as in prayers of gratitude, supplication, etc.
2) focus fully on each experience/thought/feeling that becomes clear, in order to fully receive it, as soon as it becomes distinguishable from background noise.
3) focus on breath and clear/release the mind of/from everything that enters it as much as possible in order to be simply present.
I suggested that the last, since it is most closely related to Zen and nearest to the kind of approach most find helpful when learning to work with conflict, is the kind most often recommended by Aikido practicioners of my experience, but that each would change the kind of training that followed, energetically speaking.
He followed the explanation with rapt nine-year-old attention but the first grader down the line from him ended up davining and playing with her neighbor's hair, so she may not have taken away a conviction to try all three at her earliest opportunity. | posted by Unknown @ 11/29/2005 11:28:00 PM
