promoting meditation and buddhism as secular practices

7/31/2019 Promoting Meditation and Buddhism as Secular Practices

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Promoting Meditation and Buddhism As Secular Practices*

Charles Day(www.DesMoinesMeditation.org / [email protected])

Spiritual teachers from many different religious traditions aroundthe world came together recently in Tokyo, Japan, to share theirunique meditation and esoteric practices for the betterment of theworld.* I shared what I regard as my primarily secular, rather thanreligious, orientation in teaching meditation and Buddhism inorder to achieve this end. Portions of this essay were presentedthere.

I have always taught meditation as a basically universal andhumanistic relaxation practice that leads to profoundpsychological growth, as well as spiritual growth, because it doesso regardless of whether one identifies with any specific religionor even spirituality in general.

And I teach Buddhism as a philosophy, rather than as a religion,without using any of the rites, rituals, doctrine, and esotericlanguage associated with various Buddhist traditions. I considerthe Eightfold Path and its amplification by Buddha in his 45 yearsof teaching to be a quintessential set of practical and secularhumanistic guidelines for learning to live peacefully andharmoniously.

Let me share the reasons why I have adopted this secularapproach to teaching traditional religious and spiritual practices.

The West differs from the East. Immigration has resulted inmultiple religious traditions represented in the West. And whileChristianity remains the historically dominant religion, suchmultiplicity and diversity continues to grow, permitting individualsto identify with a specific religion or denomination within a religion


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as an individual choice rather than a cultural choice. In the East,on the other hand, religion and culture are often indistinguishable.

Individuals in the West appear freer to change religions or to

adopt a second religion without viewing themselves or beingviewed by others as betraying their religion or their culture. Andan increasing number of individuals who have rejected religion asatheists or agnostics or who have simply turned away frominstitutional religions are now developing what they perceive astheir own individual spiritual paths. In the US it is increasinglypopular to identify with "spirituality" rather than with a traditionalreligion. And paralleling a decline in church attendance is a rise in

the number of so-called "New Age" spiritual teachers who don'tidentify themselves as affiliated with specific religions.

In my Midwestern home town an Intentional Eucharist Communitywas formed a couple of years ago by Catholics who openlyrejected the policies of the institutional church and decided toconduct their own lay services. They continue to identify asCatholics while embracing a woman's right to choosecontraception and abortion and to be ordained, as well as theright of individuals to fall in love with and legally marry persons oftheir own gender. Attendance at their Sunday services hasdoubled in the past year and now includes many nuns and non-Catholics. And the local Unitarian Universalist Church, noted forattracting intellectually oriented persons with divergent beliefsystems, has begun a "Wellspring" program for those interestedin studying its "spiritual" origins.

In terms of my own background, I was actively involved in theLutheran Church while growing up but like so many studentsbecame pretty much indifferent to religion during college. It issignificant that much later I discovered a renewed appreciation ofmy Christian roots as a direct result of studying Hinduism andBuddhism and participating in their meditation retreats while


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working in India and Thailand as a psychotherapist in the late1980's and early 1990's. I was especially inspired in India by therevered Hindu master Swami Muktananda and the reveredBuddhist master S.N. Goenkaji, and in Thailand by the revered

Buddhist master Bhikkhu Buddhadasa.

My first introduction to meditation was in 1967 in California whereI learned Transcendental Meditation (TM). I thought it was thesimplest and most effective technique of all the relaxationmethods I'd learned as part of my graduate training in clinicalpsychology. So I began teaching it as a relaxation technique tomy therapy and counseling patients, college students, and

anyone else who wanted to learn to relax. In the 60's there wasonly anecdotal evidence of the value of meditation because itsteaching had been pretty much limited to monastics, and it wasconsidered religious and even a little cultish by some scientificprofessionals. So I called what I taught "relaxation," not"meditation," though now that meditation and mindfulness havebecome buzz words in mainstream culture, I call it meditation.

The early scientific research by Dr. Herbert Benson at Harvard inthe 1970's, and summarized in his classic book, "The RelaxationResponse," demonstrated just how powerful meditation was,regardless of whether it was learned in a quasi-religiousTranscendental Meditation (TM) context or in a purely secularcontext. His results showed that meditation/relaxation, rather thanaffecting everyone similarly, tends to normalize an individual'sphysiological measures related to heart rate, blood pressure,body temperature, and moisture rate. These measures increased

if individuals were below normal and decreased if individuals wereabove normal. Other studies showed that psychological patternsrelated to anxiety, depression, aggression, shyness, and othermeasures also tended to normalize. Individuals showed similarincreases in the brain patterns typically associated with relaxation.


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Both the TM group, asked to mentally repeat a Hindu Sanskritmantra provided by a qualified teacher, and a volunteer group,asked to repeat the word "one" provided by a research assistant,showed equal and statistically significant more relaxation than a

group asked simply to sit quietly with their eyes closed but givennothing to focus their attention on. The results demonstrated thatequal relaxation benefits were attained, even when the practicewas not called meditation, did not involve a sacred mantra, andwas not taught in a quasi-religious context by a credentialedteacher.

The findings also demonstrated that the critical elements

producing the relaxation were focusing the attention on a specificobject (mental repetition of a word/mantra) and returning it to thatfocus when becoming mindful it had wandered away. Bothfocusing (concentration) and, perhaps even more significantly,learning to "let go" of distractions to concentration were beinglearned. Herbert Benson later wrote a book entitled "Beyond theRelaxation Response" when further studies showed that thosewho continued to regularly practice the meditation or relaxationtechnique showed increasingly substantial psychological,emotional, and spiritual growth.

We now have more than 60 years of scientific research validatingthe benefits of practicing various forms of meditation inphysiological, neurological, and psychological growth. Recentresearch by Dr. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsindemonstrates significant neurological changes associated withthe practice of lovingkindness and compassion meditations by

Buddhist monks.

I first started teaching meditation to a group in 1994 and taughtthe breath meditation technique, just as I taught it earlier toindividual patients and others. While I now call it meditation, I


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continue to describe is as a profound psychological relaxationtechnique compatible with all religions or no religion.

I personally enjoy studying various religious and mystical

traditions and greatly appreciate the spiritual growth that I'veexperienced as a result of regular practice, but in my teaching I'minterested in attracting everyone's attention. And I've observedthat many individuals are still resistant for various reasons toexposing themselves to the rites, rituals, doctrines, and esotericlanguage that accompany the teaching of meditation in a religiouscontext.

On the other hand, I'm happy to report that many of those who dodevelop a regular practice are quite delighted to discover, as I did,spiritual feelings and aspirations that spontaneously arise withregular meditation practice, and I meet individually with them tofurther their spiritual growth. There are also those who practiceand experience increased relaxation in everyday life, as well asincreased acceptance of whatever happens in their lives, thoughthey do not identify such as spiritual experiences.

In summary I'm advocating that for the betterment of the world wereach beyond our already receptive religious constituents andthink about ways in which we can promote meditation,mindfulness, and other contemplative practices as profoundsecular and humanistic growth techniques to those who don't goto churches, synagogues, ashrams, and temples. Theseextraordinarily beneficial practices which we've all benefited fromand are sharing with each other at this retreat have finally grown

beyond their monastic roots and are now being regularly taught tothe laity who are part of different religious traditions. It is now timeto recognize the value of meditation practices to all humanity andto promote them outside of a religious or spiritual context.


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In this regard, religious and spiritual beliefs and experiences canbe seen as the fruit of a meditation practice and not asprerequisites to learning it. This is happening, as I've alreadypointed out, by the fact that meditation and mindfulness are now

mainstream buzz words. Let us accelerate the progress and lookfor ways to promote meditation as a secular practice. Let usencourage and offer our support for the teaching of meditativepractices, not necessarily as religious leaders, but as experiencedmeditation practitioners. And let us train lay persons to teachmeditation in schools, counseling centers, social serviceprograms, and nonprofit organizations and, yes, even in for-profitbusinesses.

In suggesting that we focus on promoting meditation as a secularpractice, I'm not at all intending to minimize the spiritual value ofmeditation or the profound value of the rites, rituals, and doctrinesof different faith traditions. These clearly facilitate growth towardthe attainment of what has variously been called realization,enlightenment, Christ-consciousness, or the ultimate reality. I amnot trying to trivialize the spiritual. On the contrary, I am trying tospiritualize the trivial.

One final observation in this regard: Meditation and mindfulnesspractices are being introduced in the West primarily for purposesof developing a healthier, happier, more productive individual,what I call a "new and improved ego/self." This and regardingmeditation as a secular practice run the risk of strengtheningrather than dissolving the ego and obscuring Buddha's primaryteaching - namely that realization of the illusory nature of the

ego/self is ultimately necessary to end suffering, to realize one'salready enlightened nature, and to spontaneously experiencewhat Buddha considered our innate capacities for lovingkindness,compassion, appreciative and altruistic joy, and equanimity.


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We should view the new and improved secular self that resultsfrom the practice of meditation and Buddha's teachings as alaudable step in the right direction of both psychological andspiritual growth. But we should not lose sight, for either ourselves

or those interested in pursuing spiritual development, of theultimate goal of realizing the non-dual mystical oneness or pureawareness that manifests as our interdependent, impermanent,awe-inspiring universe and is mediated and experienced throughour illusory sense of a separate and personalized self.

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*Portions of this essay were presented at the Inter-Religious

Retreat, Sept. 16-19, 2012, in Tokyo, Japan, co-sponsored by theU.S. Global Peace Initiative of Women(www.gpiw.org) andJapan's Shinnyo-en Buddhist Center(www.shinnyoen.org),entitled "Sharing Meditation Practices and Esoteric Rituals For theBetterment of the World Community."
http://www.gpiw.org/http://www.gpiw.org/http://www.shinnyoen.org/http://www.shinnyoen.org/http://www.shinnyoen.org/http://www.gpiw.org/

promoting meditation and buddhism as secular practices

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