Subject #16: On prayer and meditation

Prayer and meditation – two very different things but both can be used as tools, as substitutes. When one prays, one usually either requests something or thanks for something – former being more common. Therefore prayer can often be seen as an attempt to move one’s desires into hands of higher power – with hope that by that way one’s desires will become fulfilled. Another function of prayer is to give relief to one’s fears. Prayer is always a tool, it is used mainly to calm down the mind. There are some exceptions when one is no longer asking anything in prayers, then one approaches understanding real joy of life. For example, Saint Francis of Assisi said the following:

When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing - nothing.

Meditation is more complex term because it is used to describe different things. There are many kind of different meditations: buddhist meditation, zen meditation, christian meditation, sufi meditation, vipassana meditation, yoga and so on. They are all general concepts, inside each concept there’s lots of diversity. It seems to me that these are all practices to real meditation, kind of rehearsals. Some of them acknowledge that (for example zen) and some are only tools similar to prayer.

So what is real meditation? Generally meditation practices are about surrendering to ”what is” – subject of yesterday. We are escaping this moment all the time, we’re not really here and now. Meditation practices use different methods to counter that but the main idea is the same. However, all meditation practices are only substitutes because they are treated as a hobby. One can easily get attached into practice itself, to enjoy being in the moment every now and then. Nothing wrong with that but that’s like going out only when it rains. Real meditation covers the whole life, all the moments. It’s not an on/off thing - it’s a constant movement. Alan Watts described real meditation very well:

We could say that meditation doesn't have a reason or doesn't have a purpose. In this respect it's unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.