“Lama Surya Das, the “Buddha from Brooklyn,” is one of the handful of Westerners who have been teaching meditation for decades.
And yet, he says we’re doing it wrong.
Lama Surya Das says there are other ways to meditate besides those that are currently popular: “So many people seem to be moving narcissistically into self-centered happiness-seeking and quietism, not to mention the use of mindfulness for mere effectiveness,” he says.
“True meditation generates wisdom and compassion, which may be very disquieting, at least in the short term.”
“‘Quiet your mind’ or ‘calm and clear your mind’ are instructions I hear way too much,” he says. “Some teachers actually encourage people to try to stop thinking, when in fact meditative awareness means being mindful of thoughts and feelings, not simply trying to reduce, alter or white them out and achieve some kind of oblivion.”
“The anti-intellectual meditators, thought-swatters and imagination-suppressors have long ruled meditation-oriented circles in the West,” he says. “But authentic meditative practices can enhance and even unleash the creativity and imagination.’
You don’t have to quiet the mind to do many of the types of meditation he proposes. They don’t involve trying to find a quiet “moment of Zen” apart from the messy, noisy world of work, family and children, but rather inviting all of the noise into meditation.
These thoughts are from an article by Jay Michaelson in huffingtonpost.com. More here: https://tinyurl.com/o8yl9jcLama Surya Das’s book: https://tinyurl.com/ooltqx2
