Is Meditation The Best Medicine? – Analysis

By Murray Hunter  January 1, 2014

Millions of people in ‘the developed world’ visit therapists for all sorts of emotional and psychological problems they find difficulty in coping with by themselves. People who visit psychiatrists are usually very quickly diagnosed with some form of psychosis and treated with a mixture of cognitive therapies and antipsychotic medications. Various health insurance schemes around the world have greatly encouraged this growing practice.

One major question that should be asked is whether the enormous growth in psychology based therapies are just a case of supply to meet a demand, and more importantly, should anxiety and alienation always be treated with psychiatric intervention, without looking at alternatives where individuals take on more self-responsibility for coping with their own emotions.

Meanwhile over the new year break, hundreds of thousands of mainly women took time to attend prayer and meditation retreats in Buddhist temples across 
Thailand. In a prayer hall one could hear the anticipatory silence while waiting for the monk to take his place in front of the congregation. This air of serenity would occasionally be interrupted by the ring of a mobile phone which would prompt a lady to dash out of the hall and answer a call.

New Year Message by Bhikkhu Sanghasena

Kek Lok Si temple, Penang, Malaysia

The Kek Lok Si Temple (simplified Chinese: 极乐寺; traditional Chinese: 極樂寺; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ki̍k-lo̍k-sī; Penang Hokkien for "Temple of Supreme Bliss" or "Temple of Sukhavati" or "Jile Si") is a Buddhist temple situated in Air Itam in Penang facing the sea and commanding an impressive view, and is one of the best known temples on the island. It is said to be the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia.This entire complex of temples was built over a period from 1890 to 1930, an inspirational initiative of Beow Lean, the Abbot. The main draw in the complex is the striking seven-storey Pagoda of Rama VI (Pagoda of Ten Thousand Buddhas) with 10,000 alabaster and bronze statues of Buddha, and the 30.2 metres (99 ft) tall bronze statue of Kuan Yin.

In 1930, the seven storey main pagoda of the temple or the Pagoda of "Ban Po Thar", the Ten Thousand Buddhas, a 30 metres (98 ft) high structure, was completed. This pagoda combines a Chinese octagonal base with a middle tier of Thai design, and a Burmese crown (spiral dome); reflecting the temple's amalgam of both Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism.It represents syncretism of the ethnic and religious diversity in the country. There is a large statue of Buddha donated by King Bhumibol of Thailand diefied here. King Rama VI of Thailand laid the foundation for the pagoda and it is hence also named as Rama Pagoda.

Tim Parks on meditation’s pros and cons: ‘This is more than medicine’

Mindfulness, it was reported this week, can have harmful side effects. But for novelist Tim Parks, meditation offered an escape from pain – after an initial struggle. Here is his advice to beginners, and an account of his first ‘buzz’

 Tim Parks The Guardian, Saturday 30 August 2014

I came to the practice of breathing relaxation out of desperation. It was 2008. A book had suggested that the constant abdominal pain and urinary problems I had been experiencing were due to chronically tense muscles in the pelvic floor. I needed to learn deep relaxation. The book gave instructions for achieving this, but warned me it was hard to do alone. At the time I didn’t connect the practice with mindfulness or meditation, about which I was extremely sceptical. I was hardly confident about this approach either. On the other hand, my problems had been going on for years and official medicine had got me exactly nowhere. Anything was worth a whirl.

We all live together

Mindfulness therapy comes at a high price for some, say experts

Much-hyped therapy can reduce relapses into depression – but it can have troubling side effects. MBCT courses are proliferating across the UK – but research in the US found some who practised were assailed by traumatic memories and impairment in social relationships

By Robert Booth The Guardian, Monday 25 August 2014

In a first floor room above a gridlocked London street, 20 strangers shuffle on to mats and cushions. There's an advertising executive, a personnel manager, a student and a pensioner. A gong sounds softly and a session of sitting meditation begins. This is one of more than 1,000 mindfulness courses proliferating across the UK as more and more people struggling with anxiety, depression and stress turn towards a practice adapted from a 2,400-year-old Buddhist tradition.

Enthusiasm is booming for such mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) courses, which an Oxford University study has found can reduce relapses into depression by 44%. It is, say the researchers, as effective as taking antidepressants. It involves sitting still, focusing on your breath, noticing when your attention drifts and bringing it back to your breath – and it is surprisingly challenging.

Why the Future of Religion Is Bleak

Religious institutions have survived by controlling what their adherents 
know, argues Tufts Prof. Daniel C. Dennett, but today that is next to 
impossible
By DANIEL C. DENNETT April 26, 2015
Religion has been waning in influence for several centuries, 
especially in Europe and North America. There have been a few 
brief and local revivals, but in recent years the pace of decline has 
accelerated.

TODAY ONE OF THE LARGEST CATEGORIES OF RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION  IN THE WORLD—WITH MORE THAN A BILLION PEOPLE—IS NO RELIGION AT ALL, THE “NONES.” ONE OUT OF SIX AMERICANS IS ALREADY A NONE; BY 2050, THE FIGURE WILL BE ONE OUT OF FOUR, ACCORDING TO A NEW PEW RESEARCH CENTER STUDY. CHURCHES ARE BEING CLOSED BY THE HUNDREDS, DECONSECRATED AND REHABILITATED AS HOUSING, OFFICES, RESTAURANTS AND THE LIKE, OR JUST ABANDONED.

If this trend continues, religion largely will evaporate, at least in the 
West. Pockets of intense religious activity may continue, made up of 
people who will be more sharply differentiated from most of society 
in attitudes and customs, a likely source of growing tension and 
conflict.

Could anything turn this decline around? Yes, unfortunately. A global 
plague, a world war fought over water or oil, the collapse of the 
Internet (and thereby almost all electronic communication) or some 
as-yet unimagined catastrophe could throw the remaining population 
into misery and fear, the soil in which religion flourishes best.

That life as you understand.....

"That life as you understand, it really is uncertain that where you are putting your certainty may well one day let you down..

"So we start with seeing yes the body is uncertain, it’s not sure. We see that people get old and sick and although we know it’s going to happen to all of us, but we don’t know when.

Dhammapada 42

Beyond true and false

Western philosophers have not, on the whole, regarded Buddhist thought with much enthusiasm. As a colleague once said to me: ‘It’s all just mysticism.’ This attitude is due, in part, to ignorance. But it is also due to incomprehension. When Western philosophers look East, they find things they do not understand – not least the fact that the Asian traditions seem to accept, and even endorse, contradictions. Thus we find the great second-century Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna saying:

The nature of things is to have no nature; it is their non-nature that is their nature. For they have only one nature: no-nature.One can hear similar sentiments, expressed with comparable ferocity, in many faculty common rooms today. Yet Western philosophers are slowly learning to outgrow their parochialism. And help is coming from a most unexpected direction: modern mathematical logic, not a field that is renowned for its tolerance of obscurity. An abhorrence of contradiction has been high orthodoxy in the West for more than 2,000 years. Statements such as Nagarjuna’s are therefore wont to produce looks of blank incomprehension, or worse. As Avicenna, the father of Medieval Aristotelianism, declared: