Meditation and religion
What’s the connection?
The New Mindscape #5–4
Nowadays, all kinds of yoga and meditation are becoming more and more popular. They are usually marketed as ways of being healthy or relaxed. Mindfulness meditation has become increasingly popular in the past decade or so. Although this form of meditation originated in the various spiritual traditions of Asia, notably Buddhism, Hinduism and Daoism, it became increasingly popular in the West beginning in the 1960s, and is now entering the mainstream of culture. Partly as a result of this Western popularity and to indigenous factors and movements, mindfulness meditation is also becoming more popular and mainstream in modern Asian cities such as Hong Kong. Many scientific and academic research centers now conduct research on the practices and therapeutic effects of mindfulness meditation.
The popularity, and even what some people might call the fad of mindfulness, is an example of the transformations of religion and spirituality in modernity. Yoga and mindfulness meditation are only a few techniques among the vast and complex system of Hindu, Buddhist and Daoist doctrines, practices, and rituals. However, in the modern context, they are often decontextualized — removed from their Hindu or Buddhist context, and turned into a practical technique that does not necessarily have any Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, spiritual, or religious connotations. While, in the Hindu or Buddhist context, mindfulness meditation is part of a system of practices designed to lead to a complete transformation and transcendence of the self, in the modern secular context, it can be practiced for simple relaxation, that can be helpful for worldly success. Or it can be used as part of a personal spirituality that has no formal religious structure. Some writers criticize the superficiality and self-centeredness of this trend. Having been extricated from its traditional Hindu, Buddhist or Daoist contexts and transplanted to Western and other countries, mindfulness meditation is now often even practiced by Jews, Christians and Muslims.
This triggers debates among people who identify with those religious traditions. For some, it helps them to become better Christians or Muslims. For others, because it comes from a non-Christian origin, it is a dangerous temptation of the devil. And for others, the popularity of mindfulness has inspired them to dig into the Christian and Muslim past, to discover that similar meditation practices have long existed within the Christian and Muslim traditions, but had been forgotten in the mainstream religious communities. Then they compare how a Christian approach to mindfulness is similar or different from a Buddhist one.
We can see how, under the processes of modernity and globalization, religious practices and ideas circulate between the religious and secular worlds, and between different religions, undermining rigid boundaries between them. In these practices, the original purpose is not to seek for relaxation, although they do have that effect. In fact, the purpose is to acquire an awareness and consciousness that will transform our minds; to clear out the clutter in our mindscapes, so that a pure consciousness of spiritual reality can emerge.
The Relationship between Mindfulness and Religion
So what is the relationship between mindfulness, spirituality, and religion? This is an important question because mindfulness and meditation are becoming more and more popular. Lots of people practice yoga, but if you do yoga it doesn’t need to have anything to do with religion. Anybody can practice mindfulness and meditation techniques, without being a Buddhist. Mindfulness is often taught by Buddhists, but you don’t need to study Buddhism to practice mindfulness. So what, then, is the connection between mindfulness and religion?
Meditation techniques have effects that people seek after, like relaxation or self-knowledge, which do not require anything religious. But these practices were often developed within religious traditions, and it is only in the past four or five decades that they have been taken out of religion so that anybody can do them.
But when anybody can do it, it remains superficial. For many people, it’s enough to just relax, to overcome stress, or to be more clear-minded. But within the religious tradition, the purpose is much deeper. The aim is for a higher consciousness, a consciousness of the ultimate reality. The aim is spiritual transformation, as defined in my essay on Defining Spirituality.
The mindfulness exercise of observing your thoughts coming and going, as described in my essay Observe your mindscape, is just a very basic technique. It’s just the very beginning of getting to understand who you are to understand your true nature, in order to reach a higher level, beyond your ordinary self. So, within a religious tradition, let it be Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, or similar meditation traditions in Christianity and Islam, basic meditation is just the first stage for advancing much further and developing your consciousness.
But it seems that lots of religious people don’t seek that spiritual consciousness or transformation! People go to Buddhist temples and pray for very materialistic desires. There are many Buddhist meditation exercises about becoming aware of your desires, letting them go, discovering how all the things of this world are impermanent, and learning that you should not be attached to them. But most people who go to Buddhist and Daoist temples are obviously very attached to worldly desires! They are praying for money, for their career, for their business, for their exams… They are praying for very worldly and material needs!
From a religious perspective, this is because there are also many levels of understanding. In some religions like Buddhism, anybody is welcome. Your level of understanding does not matter — even if your level of understanding is very low, it’s fine, just come. Nobody will stop you, and nobody will tell you that you were wrong. This is compassion.
You have a very material desire, and you want to burn incense for that. In the Buddhist teachings, there is the idea of “expedient means” (方便). This means that Buddhism should be presented to people at their own level of understanding, so that, by becoming thus exposed to the Buddhist teachings, their understanding may thus grow. Thus, the temple will have compassion for you, no matter who you are and what you want. You won’t be excluded; nobody will tell you, “No, don’t pray for that!” If you are suffering and have a lot of worries, and you come and pray for those worries, that is fine. But if you want to overcome your worries by transcending your worries, and detach yourself from your worries through your spiritual enlightenment, that is even better.
We can see this in virtually all religions. In any religion, you can see many people whose behaviour has nothing to do with the religious teachings, and whose level of understanding is very low. It’s just like when you attend university: some students are more talented than others. For a high-ranked university like HKU, there is a higher threshold for getting admitted. Some religious traditions only admit people with the right training and understanding, and other traditions only admit those who are members of a specific culture or ethnic group. But the major world religions don’t exclude anybody. That’s why they’re often called “universal religions.” They welcome anybody in, even those who don’t know anything about their teachings. That’s why, when you visit a religious community, you might find people who don’t really understand or even know the religious teachings.
Form and Ritual in Spiritual Practices
In meditation, prayer and religious rituals, is it really essential to have all those formalised gestures, like sitting in this way, breathing in that way, or saying this and that at precise times?
Meditation seems to be very precise with a very clear technique, but is that really necessary? And how about religious rituals? There are so many different forms. Maybe you have to cross your legs, or maybe you have to kneel down, or stand in a particular way — there are many different ways of praying or meditating.
This is a profound question in religion, because most religions want to go beyond superficial appearances — what matters is the state of your heart and soul. At that level, it doesn’t matter whether you are standing, sitting, or lying down — all that matters in religious traditions is the state of your heart, which is emphasized far more than the superficial form.
But at another level, all religions also have their forms, and they do stress the importance of these forms. When I was doing research on Daoism, I spent time with Daoist monks living in monasteries and caves at Huashan, in northern China. I also studied Americans who practice Daoism and qigong, and who went to Huashan to learn from the monks. Many of the Americans thought that the form doesn’t matter — the most important thing is how you feel. As long as you do what feels good for you, the form doesn’t matter at all. But the Chinese monks said no, and argued that the form is very important.
Within the same religion, you often find different positions on this question. In Christianity, Protestantism tends to emphasize that the faith in your heart matters much more than the form, but in other forms of Christianity like Catholicism, the ritual forms are more important. In Buddhism, we find Chan or Zen Buddhist masters emphasizing that the only thing that matters is your heart. But others will say that Buddhist discipline and the rules are more important.
It might be easy for us to understand the idea that what matters is your heart. So why would some religious people say that the form is more important? They would say that by following a certain form, or putting your body in a certain way, whether in meditation or in the ritual, it it helps to put you into a certain state of mind. For example, sitting down in meditation will help you to concentrate. If you follow the strict rule, it helps you to avoid your mind scattering around. Following the meditation procedure exactly will help one to be focused. Or if it is a ritual that requires you to bow down and present yourself in special clothes, it helps you to acquire the virtue of humility and avoid being so proud, arrogant, and egoistic.
Thus, there is a connection between your internal motivation and your outward expression. Confucius emphasized the outward expression of ritual propriety or li, but also emphasized the state of your heart. Confucius believed that both are very important, and they reinforce each other.
See the next essay, on Materialist dualism: Things exist, and you have thoughts about them.
See the previous essay, on Let go. You are nothing, and you are so much more.
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This essay and the New Mindscape Medium series are brought to you by the University of Hong Kong’s Common Core Curriculum Course CCHU9014 Spirituality, Religion and Social Change, with the support of the Asian Religious Connections research cluster of the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
