Saturday, April 7, 2012
Meditation and YOU MUST BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION
People seem to equate various practices with beliefs. I was once meditating in my room when my father entered and saw me there. Now, I had only recently informed him that I no longer wanted to practice Catholicism. In response to seeing me meditating he informed me that it was absolutely crazy to believe in reincarnation. At that time I had not known that the rebirth that Buddhism speaks of is not a literal transferring of souls. I was, however, meditating for more practical reasons, so I found it slightly far-fetched to see that he had equated mediations so hastily to believing in reincarnation. I don't particularly believe or disbelieve in reincarnation and I was only meditating to relax. People do often tend to assume that partaking in certain activities must necessarily have been caused by some ideological opinion change.
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That's a useful distinction -- between practices and systems of belief. You will have noticed that in general I have focused the course less on weird things people profess than on what they do, and what implications that has. Clearly, meditating by itself does not entail subscription to an Upanishadic worldview.
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