Sometimes you have to start a little before the beginning.
You’ve heard the phrase “coming to terms.” Sometimes we have to spend a little extra time ahead of a conversation to make sure we agree on what important words mean.
It just so happens that we can’t really talk about any of our upcoming topics if we don’t wrestle the slippery term “meditation” into something we can rely on.
So, let’s consider what it is trying to mean.
meditation is a translation attempt
First, we can definitely agree that “meditation” is an English word, but a very common usage these days points to the inner practices of the mind developed simultaneously and cooperatively by Buddhist and Hindu traditions 3000 years ago, long before the English language existed.
So right away we know that meditation is often a translation of some other culture’s word. And translations are usually a best attempt to convey meaning, they are not always exact — translation is an art, not a science.
saudade
The Portuguese word saudade means a longing or nostalgia for someone or something that is no longer there, and it also indicates an uncomfortable knowledge that the person or thing will not return. No single English word conveys the full meaning of saudade. This is sometimes translated as “nostalgia” but doing so leaves out the nuance of the original meaning.
hygge
The Danish word, hygge is usually translated as coziness. But hygge means a lot more than coziness, it carries a sense of comfort, togetherness, and well-being that is a defining part of Scandinavian culture. It is not mere “coziness” because it includes an emotional state as well as a physical state, and beyond both of these, it carries a sense of finding joy in the simple, everyday things in life, enjoying good things with good people.
choosing the right word
Meditation as it is used in Buddhist and Hindu contexts has layers of meaning that no English word can duplicate. When we try to translate it we run into the obstacles and biases of the English language, things we don’t usually notice because we are so used to them.
Until the 1990s almost everything we heard about meditation was framed in Western religious frameworks. In the 1990s, a second framework became popular: that of psychotherapy and the wellness movement. These may appeal to us because they are familiar, but that doesn’t mean they accurately communicate what meditation is. In fact, we may be missing out on something important. And in order to find, out, we can bypass the Western frameworks of religion and psychotherapy, and look into the words and practices as they exist in their own world.
To do this, we can look at the Sanskrit and Pali languages, which are the source for most of the information on what we call meditation practice. And by source, I don’t mean “way back a long time ago”. These terms are still in active use all over the world, they mean what they mean in a fresh, everyday way.
“meditation” is a lazy translation
As mentioned, “meditation” is a single English word that tries to do the work of many technical, specialized words from the cultures that developed meditation.
Some of the important Sanskrit words used for this practice are dhyana, jhana, samadhi, smriti, and vipashyana. None of these words mean the same thing in their original language, all hold shades of meaning that are important to the overall picture. In fact, there are cause-effect relationships between these words: dhyana results in jhana and samadhi. Smriti can mature into vipashyana. The single word “meditation” doesn’t even hint that such a dynamic exists. It’s a shallow word that hides meaning. In my book, that is a bad translation.
In Sanskrit, there is no single term that tries to unify all these words. But in English, we have “meditation” and that really is just about all we have. Imagine if we only had a single word for all the creatures that live in the forests and jungles and savannas. What if they were all simply called “animals” with no further detail? Your parents took you to the zoo, and you saw animals. The tiger was just “animal.” The elephant was just “animal.” What kind of conversation could follow that trip?
The way this has played out in the west is that many new students think the practices they learn at first are the whole thing, they are “meditation.” And when they hear that somebody else is practicing meditation, they assume that person is doing the same thing they are. People think the Dalai Lama sits with his hands in a yoga posture and follows his breath, because that’s what they think meditation is, because that’s what they were told.
But they aren’t. They are one or another technique from a rich collection of mind trainings. And when you learn “meditation” properly, what you do in the first year is probably different from what you do after that. And as you advance, the things you do as “meditation” are far more profound and impactful. Your practice changes.
In more knowledgable circles, people ask one another “what practice are you doing these days?”. That reflects a knowledge that the term meditation is far, far too general to be useful.
this English word is under a lot of pressure
Want to do a little history diving? Let’s give it a few minutes: we’ll take a look at how a profound collection of practices, most of which take years to learn coupled with a lifetime of continual study, were collected into a single one-size-fits-all word and handed over to the mainstream.
When we talk about “meditation,” we referr to practices that engage the mind to lead it out of fear and confusion. Once again, loud and clear: for us, in this series, meditation means the practices that lead one out of fear and confusion.
There is more than one “practice” that fits into this category. And the easiest way to reach the goal of being free of fear and confusion is to combine, at the right time and with the right frequency, a combination of these practices. It is exceedingly rare that a tradition tries to push one technique, one style of practice as the single thing one needs. It’s a bit like physical exercise: you benefit from varied training.
What are some of these practices?
shamatha: the practice of bringing the mind into stillness and peace. vipashyana: the practice of stimulating the deep faculty of meditative intelligence to spark insight into the world and oneself. mahamudra: a combined method of the two previous practices (shamatha & vipashyana). Mahamudra develops stillness through holding to a meditative insight made accessible through working with a mahamudra teacher. bodhicitta: the generation of an extremely powerful, directed energy of mind that aims for a meditative breakthrough with the clear intention to be useful to others. Sometimes this is translated as the altruistic mind.
Those are just four. There are many more than this. But my point is that all of these, shamatha, vipashyana, mahamudra, bodhicitta, etc. are all Sanskrit words that mean specific things. There is no single word that means all of them. There is no equivalent to our term “meditation”. And that brings up a funny, maybe obvious parallel.
The English word “meditation” never meant those things.
Meditation is a good, solid English word that means its own thing. It had its own history, and it’s own usage once upon a time, but that history has been overshadowed by our demand that it hold these ancient Sanskrit meanings, and hold them all at once. Let’s dive deep for another minute to understand what the original English word meant.
ye olde meditation
Once upon a time, in the year 1250, the Latin term meditari meant “to reflect, to contemplate, to think over.” Somehow, and I don’t think we know how, it made an appearance in Middle English for the first time as “meditation” within a rule-book for nuns (the Ancrene Wisse, or Anchoresses' Guide).
Here it is for your reading pleasure, the nearly 800-year old first known use of the term meditation in English (albeit translated from Middle English):
Whatever other devotions you use in private, as Pater nosters, Hail Marys, psalms, and prayers, I am quite satisfied that every one should say that which her heart most inclines her to, a verse of her psalter, reading of English or French, holy meditations. (Translated by: Robert Hasenfratz)
That’s a significant little bit of literary history right there. But my eyes glaze over with this stuff. Yours probably do too. (Curious: did you actually read it? No blame if you didn’t.)
Now, this instruction to the nuns most definitely is not what we mean by “meditation.” The nuns of 1224 were not engaging in the practice of sitting cross-legged and following the breath, or doing any of the other stuff “meditators” do.
Still, it is a powerful indication that “meditation” had an exalted purpose in its English context. That qualifies it, somewhat, to represent the exalted practices of the ancient world. But to put 3000 years of practices into one single English world makes nuance unlikely.
So if we were trying to preserve access to these valuable practices, we didn’t work very hard. We have one word, not several, and it partly reveals, and partly obscures what it tries to represent.
Yet that isn’t even the worst of it.
but hold up. here comes the Instagram crowd
But nowadays (thanks, Instagram) the term meditation is used for things which have no “exalted” purpose at all. Just look at Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, or Youtube. There, you will find meditation to help you…
- “Magnetize” money through harnessing a universal money vibration
- rapidly improve your health and wellness (and maybe younger skin)
- increase your focus to optimize job performance
- “manifest” the life you were born to live
And on. And on. Not exalted, not the stuff of nuns, and not the stuff of Buddhists.
When you see what people are willing to call meditation, you’ll see how unrelated the meaning can be.
It’s a luxury of the modern world that we use language almost however we want. Freedom of speech gives us freedom to use our discretion to either preserve or degrade the access points our language gives us to rare and valuable ideas. Right now, meditation is losing its meaning.
If someone creates a sound recording of a specific frequency guaranteed to magnetize one million Instagram followers, or shed unattractive wrinkles to attract romantic partners, there’s not much I can do about that.
Still, I wonder: why did they have to park their cars in a spot already used for an authentic 2500 year old tradition? Why call “manifesting” your ideal life a “meditation?” How misleading, and frankly, how rude to the thousands of years of people’s hard work that came before — work that had nothing to do with getting a new car or a moment in the spotlight.
I think the problem is that it was a lazy and unserious translation in the first place. It’s like a Jerry Lewis impression: one dimensional, cheap, and eventually, offensive enough to be buried.
coming to terms anyway: a definition
So how do we solve that problem? By coming to terms.
Meditation, once you see what it is, becomes really, really valuable. You’ll have long moments of jawdropped amazement when you start to see what is possible to you through taking up an activity that develops you from the inside out.
So let’s come to terms with the word “meditation”.
That is the basic meaning of meditation (at least here, and most places that teach classical styles).
So now that we have a meaning, we should also be clear about what is not included in that meaning.
Meditation does not mean:
- A way of optimizing your life for better performance.
- A way of tricking the universe into giving you what you want.
- A practice aimed toward a really good feeling.*
- A relaxation or concentration exercise for its own sake.*
*It’s possible to press classical instructions to serve these goals, but good luck finding a genuine tradition willing to help you do so. And it’s far too involved (time consuming) to try this on your own. You need instruction.
These uses of the term meditation are all restricted to trends dating no further back than the 20th century. They have little (probably zero) track record, they’re just fads. Or to be blunt, they’re ads. Ads for some product that you probably don’t want.
something real for a change
The classical practice of meditation has the most substantive track record for any undertaking with a traceable lineage. It is taught today in almost identical manner to the way it was 2500 years ago. It is tried and true, reliable, and peer-reviewed.
We shouldn’t confuse this with less serious, more fantastical practices that show up on social media and use similar sounding language. They are not the same. They aren’t even similar.
The problem arises when a 2500-year-old tradition is used to sell things that have no serious purpose. It’s a misrepresentation that obscures the real value of having such a deep tradition in our world.
Having images of traditional meditators in your advertisements when all you are trying to do is get people to buy your recordings of “space vibrations for love & money” is deceptive. If we want to cheapen things in our attempts to market our wares, I guess that is legal. But to cheapen something that took 2500 years to develop seems reckless. Meditation does not exist to make people rich, it exists to make people free. Like the Redwoods, like the oceans, it is something worth protecting.
And true meditation is not deceptive, it is the opposite of deception: it is reality revealing.
Tomorrow I’ll be back for the next installment, and we’ll talk about another humdinger, “mind.”
Take care my friend, I am glad we are spending these minutes together!
Jeffrey
PS - The word meditation is so generic that many meditators don’t even use it. Usually we say “practice.” When I talk to friends, we don’t use the term meditation very much. We might say “I’m doing some mahamudra,” or “sorry I couldn’t come to the phone, I was practicing.” The word meditation is just one of convenience, it’s what muggles understand, but wizards use their own language.