Meditation for Thursday 17th October 2024
The word meditation stems from the Latin term meditatum which means to ‘ponder’.
Most practitioners agree that by practicing meditation we become more connected to our feelings and behavior. The history of meditation, broadly defined as a contemplative practice that focuses the mind, is fascinating. It has been a spiritual practice for as far back as history records. Some scholars talk in terms of 200,000 years ago when ‘fire-gazing’ made us human by rewiring our brains so that symbolism became possible and language developed.
We have written records of meditation from the Hindus Vedas around 1500 BCE. The Jewish Torah has Issac going to a ‘lasuach’ in a field; a kind of Jewish meditation practiced 1000 BCE. Between 600 and 400 BCE we learn of meditation within Taoist China and Buddhist India. Some scholars claim that meditation in the Hindu tradition could go back as far as 3000 BCE.
Indigenous forms of meditation have existed in many cultures and in the West we see that there were a variety of early practices including Christian. In Christianity these practices were established by the Desert Fathers and Mothers in Egypt, in the Eastern Orthodox Church from the 5th century and developed further by the Catholic Church from the 14th to the 18th century. Buddhism has always placed a strong emphasis on meditation since the time of the historical Buddha, (Siddartha Gautama) 6thcentury BCE to the present day.
If we place store in the definition of meditation as ‘to ponder’ then the Carmelites, John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila practiced meditation. Today meditation has been adopted by many spiritual traditions and none. It is a popular secular practice although ironically even secularist would acknowledge meditation as a spiritual practice.
Meditation
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