Meditation is one of the practices that many religious and non-religious people use today. In Christianity, meditation is looked at in a form of prayer. When someone prays to God, they are meditating on their thoughts towards God. In Islam meditation is similar with Christianity. Meditation to them is reciting the Qur’an five times a day, which helps them to become closer to God. In Hinduism, they practice meditation by sitting down and reciting mantras, or in other forms is known as yoga. The Hindu meditation focuses more on physical needs and becoming closer in touch with the Brahman. All these meditations practices seems to all center on focusing to become closer to a higher being. This is what makes meditation in Buddhism much more unique. When they meditate they put all focus one think like their breath. In this sense, they hope to achieve mindfulness and freedom from the circle of life and death. This is what makes Buddhist meditation so unique (www.news-medical.net).
Some might say that meditation was what truly kick started the Buddhism religion. It all started with a prince by the name of Siddhartha Gautama who had never even seen all the bad things that the outside world had in store for him. One day he went outside the palace to see what the outside world was like and came a crossed four signs that shook him with fear (old age, disease, death and a religious mendicant). After seeing these signs he ran away from his palace to go seek a way that he could escape his fear of this worlds suffering and death. He met with many wise religious teachers and practiced all of their teachings. He was not pleased with his results so he went to try and find his own methods of finding enlightenment. He tried holding his breath for ...
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...hings of The Buddha, and those who are just looking to better improve their lives (Bishop 2004, 230-41).
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Bishop, S. R. "Mindfulness: A Proposed Operational Definition." Clinical Psychology:
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However, meditation is not as common within Buddhism as most believe. There is a large assumption “that Buddhism and meditation go hand in hand”, but the majority of Buddhists have focused on “cultivating moral behavior, preserving the Buddha’s teachings (dharma), and acquiring good karma”(Braun 2014, p.1). Meditation and Buddhism are often assumed to be one and same, but this is also not true. As Buddhism has gained popularity among lay people it’s practices have changed Buddha’s teaching of the middle path has adapted to meditation being “possible in the city” rather than with monks in jungles and caves (p.4). As seen in Burma, in less than 75 years Buddhism and meditation were able to grow “from a pursuit of the barest sliver of the population to a duty of the ideal citizen” (p.5). While meditation is not the core of Buddhism it has encouraged the growth of Buddhism as it’s practice of mindfulness has been inspiring an approachable model (p.6). Meditation and mindfulness are easily manipulated to secularization, but still have significance in Buddhism and following the patterns of your
Meditation is an important psychological practice that protects the brain against aging as well as enhancing an individual’s ability to learn new things. This practice achieves this through sharpening focus, lessening stress, lowering blood pressure, and relieving chronic pain. Generally, it helps a person to experience greater calm, connect with deepest feelings, and challenges tendencies of self-judgment. Consequently, meditation leads to open doors for actual and accessible happiness for an individual. According to Salzberg (2011), meditation is basically training an individual’s attention in order to become more aware of inner workings and external incidents (p.7). After becoming more aware of inner workings and external incidents, a person can choose his/her actions towards things that are visible. While each global religion incorporates some kind of thoughtful exercise, meditation in today’s world is usually practiced separately from any belief system.
Meditation allows for you to relax, slow down, and become more aware of yourself and your environment. By meditating in a quiet place with no distraction, you are able to greatly limit the information that is constantly entering into our brains. This information gives us a train of thought that is very difficult to be halted, because it is in the nature of our brains to analyze any information that we have coming in from our senses like what things we are seeing with our eyes and what we are hearing with our ears. By limiting the amount of information that is entering into the brain, we are able to separate ourselves from the mind that is analyzing all of that information and to become aware of it.
According to Communication between cultures by Larry A.Samovar, Richard E. Porter and Edwin R.McDaniel, Buddhism was originated in Indian by the prince named Siddharth Guatama in about 563 B.C. Siddharth was born into a great luxury. He was married and by the age of 29 disillusioned with his opulence and ventured out of his palace. For the first time, the prince was encountered old age, sickness, and death. He was so moved with the painful realities of life that he left his wife and comfortable home to search for an end to human suffering. For the next six years, the prince discovered the way to overcome the suffering of life. He engaged himself in deep meditation and lived an austere life. It was the completion of calm and sense of serene confidence. He emerged from his self-imposed seclusion and became Buddha. (139)
Plant (2014) describes Christian Spiritual writings as texts that help Christians in deepening or discovering their relationship with God. The mysteries of God are spiritual facts known by people only by the exposure of those mysteries. God reveals His unknown to only the people who are obedient to the Gospel (Intellectual Reserve, 2014). The Gospel is the revelation or the teaching of the unknown of Christ, but some of God’s mysteries have not been shown to the world yet (Oxford University Press, 2014). Meditation helps Christians form a deeper relationship with God. Christian meditation is a different type of prayer where the meditator makes the effort to become more alert of and in which there is an attempt made to be able to become aware of and reflect upon the exposures of God (Zanzig & Kielbasa, 2000).
Meditation is a private devotion or mental exercise consisting of a number of techniques of concentration, contemplation, and abstraction to heighten spiritual awareness. It has also been defined as, “Consciously directing your attention to alter your state of consciousness.” Meditation has been practiced around the world since the ancient times. It was used back then and still used today for spiritual growth (becoming more conscious). Meditation is mostly concerned about your attention, where it is directed to, and how it alters or changes a person’s consciousness.
Throughout the early years in many East Asian countries, there were many people who were looking for answers to this world’s, and otherworldly, questions. When Gotama became enlightened, and began preaching the practices of Buddhism, it came at such a time when the Han dynasty was collapsing, citizens were tired of Confucianism and looking for a new ideology that they could put there hearts and souls into. Over the years, Buddhism proved to be much more than just a religion; it became a way of life. But over time, the powerful orthodoxy transformed, and many different Buddhist sects emerged. One of the more popular sects, Ch’an, or Zen, Buddhism, has become one of the most influential religions in China and Japan, and is still flourishing today.
The purpose is to investigate the following; “Meditation in Christianity and Buddhism are different pathways leading to the same destination.” Buddhism is a philosophy than a religion was originated about 2,500 years ago in India and about 376 million followers worldwide. Prince Siddhartha Gotama (Buddha) worshipped for years to enlighten himself and found a “middle way” between his two lives, meaning finding moderation and balancing life’s extremes. Whereas, Christianity has about 2.4 billion followers worldwide and based on his teachings of Jesus, who lived about 2000 years prior. In Christian meditation, metaphysics and transcendentalism are used as philosophies because individuals think during their prayer to reflect on unseen things in a spiritual way, including Holy spirit and are observed to connect with God intellectually and spiritually. Nevertheless, Buddhist meditation is to focus on relaxing the brain by forgetting about the meaningless things.
Buddhism is considered as one of the three most widespread very important world religions. Buddhism was founded by the historical Buddha Gautama, in the 5th century B.C.E. Buddhism begun around 2,500 years ago by a young prince named Siddharthe Gautama. Living as a prince, he went on a religious endeavor seeking to improve human suffering. Gautama earned the title Buddha meaning “The Enlightened One”, when he found the answers to life's suffering. Buddhism rotates around the teachings of the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path. The Buddha addresses that if these beliefs are followed, Buddhists will reach enlightenment called nirvana, and thus freed from the worries of the physical world.
Meditation aims to develop and master mindfulness, insight, and equilibrium. It allows its followers to obtain indifference to worldly attachments, experience the mind as it is and its original nature. The mind continuously engages with internal and external stimuli, constantly at work. Meditation is a way in which one can gain control over this constant flow of stimuli, by focusing the mind. Within the practice of Theravada Buddhism, meditation is seen as the most crucial way of reaching enlightenment, escaping samsara, and gaining the full understanding of what nature is. Whereas Mahayana buddhism utilizes mantras and incantation as a form of buddhism that also allows its practitioners to use this form of meditation to reach enlightenment. Despite its origination in religious practice, it has been loosely defined as a self regulating technique of having control over one's physical and mental
Buddhist religion in general is mostly about overcoming the desire of the body. Just like Buddha left his home and abandoned all that he had to experience the real life and lived like everyone else, Buddhists accomplish this in the form of meditation. Meditation in Zen Buddhism reflects the belief that focusing on inner self is one way to calm your mind down and shut out the world and all the other distractions. There are a lot of people who use meditation, such as practicing yoga, and this would include Christians and other people as well. In visiting this meditation center I saw that the Buddhists practice meditation because both meditation and listening are an important part of their beliefs.
Meditation is an age-old practice that has renewed itself in many different cultures and times. Despite its age, however, there remains a mystery and some ambiguity as to what it is, or even how one performs it. The practice and tradition of meditation dates back thousands of years having appeared in many eastern traditions. Meditation’s ancient roots cloud its origins from being attributed to a sole inventor or religion, though Bon, Hindu, Shinto, Dao, and later, Buddhism are responsible for its development. Its practice has permeated almost all major world religions, but under different names. It has become a practice without borders, influencing millions with its tranquil and healing effects.
Buddhism prevailed as a religion indigenous to west India and comprises of varieties of traditions, beliefs and practices based on the teachings of Buddha. There are many reasons why Buddhism became so popular and entered into many civilizations. Buddhism began to be popular throughout Asia alongside India. Buddhism has blossomed in the contemporary world, especially in the West. It is an issue to wonder what Buddhism offers that other religions cannot and has become so significant worldwide. Buddhism has become an idea that is widespread and the teachings of Buddha have made a real difference in many civilizations like India, China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea and surprisingly Buddhism has come to make a significant difference in American culture.
Buddhism descend from ancient India, the creator is Sakyamuni. Historically, the Buddhism is established around the 700 Before Christ era. Sakyamuni gives speeches to the local people. Gradually, Buddhism is spread to all around the world. As author illustrates in his writings," The history of Buddhism spans almost 2,500 years from its origin in India wi...
Buddhism as a religion began in India between the 5th and 6th centuries (Dehejia, 2007). A young prince by the name of Siddhartha Gotama, born in Lumbini, which is the modern day Nepal, came to the conclusion that worldly positions and monetary riches would not ultimately bring him true happiness. Siddhartha spent the next six years meditating and studying different philosophies in search of enlightenment. In his studies, Siddhartha came to what he called “the middle path”( Lowenstein and Bently,2006). According to, Lowenstein and Bently, after his enlightenment Siddhartha was then known as the Buddha, which is derived from the word budhi that means to awaken. The Buddha then spent the rest of his life, until his death at age 80, teaching his principles. He called these principles the Dhamma, or Truth. Even though today it is known as Buddhism, it’s founder referred to it as Dhamma-Vinaya, which means “the doctrine and discipline”.