Saturday, February 13, 2016

Learning to Meditate

For over five years I have been taking advantage of a series of meditation classes and book study with a teacher who lives "just down the road" - that is, about ten miles distant. I am not very disciplined to meditate every day though I have meditated enough that I have noticed some of the emotional and mental benefits of it. The most intriguing thing about meditation has been the merging of two interests: quantum physics and those major existential questions I have lain awake pondering my entire life.

I do not pretend to understand quantum physics. I have only read layman's explanation books for the theory of relativity and for quantum physics. I do not hope to ever understand but it is fun to attempt to understand. Little did I know those books were actually laying the groundwork for an entirely new synthesis of thought born into the world via the tragic Chinese invasion of Tibet. The knowledge of centuries of sustained Buddhist inquiry fleeing the genocide unavoidably met with Western science, thus providing a dizzying array of validations for what the Buddhists already knew.

It is far too complicated and I am certainly not qualified to explain any of it. There are excellent, well written books by numerous exiled Buddhist monks who have learned English and have focused their well trained, analytical minds on the findings of Western science in various disciplines. Perhaps this is the new road for humanity - a new vision born of two schools of incredibly disciplined inquiry into the reality of, well... reality. Consciousness and the nature of reality. Maybe there is still hope for us.

"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." Buddha

No comments: