Month: March 2020

Meditation–General

There are two main types of meditation. The first and easiest is analytical or reflective meditation which uses logical thought exercises to comprehend reality in order to effect changes to beliefs, attitudes, and emotions. The second and more difficult type of meditation is called stillness, stabilizing, or calming meditation. Its function is to gradually eliminate discursive thought, quiet the mind, and focus the attention. This is also known as mind control.

Western monastics call the first type meditation and the second type contemplation, and they call themselves “contemplatives.” Western popular culture confuses the word “contemplation” with thinking, discursive thought, the voices in our head. Western popular culture also uses the word “meditation” to refer to both of the two main types of meditation, and calls anyone who does these practices “meditators.”

To avoid confusion, Western Tantra will use the popular term “meditation” to refer to both types. But we will use “analytical/analysis or reflection” to refer to the meditations which use the voices in our head. We will use the words “stillness, stabilizing, calming, or mind control” to refer to the meditations which silence the voices in our head.

An example of analytical meditation is reflecting on the inevitability of death and the uncertainty of when it will occur in order to overcome laziness. An example of stillness meditation is concentrating on one’s breathing to stop discursive thought and calm the mind. We will post more meditations under this Meditation category. We invite you to also post meditation techniques that work for you, and tell us what they do.

Karma

As explained in my book, Western Tantra, another “blind spot” for Westerners is how karma works. We understand the concept and recognize its appearance when it affects others over a short time span. But we generally don’t recognize it as a universal law, nor do we understand it well enough to avoid its consequences in our lives. The Western equivalent is the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Expressed this way, it sounds like a guide for ethical behavior, what we should do or avoid doing, and the result is under our conscious control.

In the Eastern religions, karma is a law. What we do for good or ill will come back to us as a natural consequence, whether we want it or not. It’s the law of cause and effect. If we create the cause, we will eventually experience the effect, either in this life or in a future life. Harm or benefit we experience in our life are effects we created by our prior conduct toward others. If we are currently innocent of causing harm or are undeserving of benefits, then the causes for these effects occurred in a prior lifetime. If we do not understand karma and reincarnation, then what happens to us appears unjust.

In its simplest form, what goes around comes around. What we sow we will harvest. It happens in a cycle, and the connection between a cause and its effect may not be obvious, because of the time it takes for karma to come full circle. My personal observation is that the intensity of an intention to harm or benefit seems to determine how quickly the result comes back to us. So the hateful terrorist who kills is often immediately killed by police. But the person who heedlessly belittles others may not be abandoned by others until their old age.

Less simply, karma is as complex as life. I remember several of my past lives, and I can tell you that I absolutely deserved all of the bad things that have happened to me, even though I’m something of a “boy scout” in this this life. In fact, I deserved worse that what I received. What seemed to mitigate the negative karma was regretting the harm, trying to atone, and doing unintentional harm when trying to help others. So often our intent to help goes terribly wrong. My experience says that regret, atonement, and redemption can mitigate the consequences. Sincere confession and purification practices can erase negative karma. Mercy and forgiveness are possible.

Also, I’m sure random events happen. One or two people in an aircraft crash may have been negligent mechanics, but the rest may have been undeserving of that consequence. Here the manner of death may be relevant. When I was in the Air Force, a friend came to me distraught because an entire inspection team was in an aircraft crash, and he knew all of them. He was especially upset that the only one who survived the crash was an asshole. “So he survived okay?” I asked. “No,” my friend answered, “Everyone else was killed instantly, but he was burned over 80% of his body and died in agony three days later.” I thought to myself, “Karma’s a bitch!” When someone dies, we really don’t know what they experienced from their own side. Death is not necessarily a punishment. With reincarnation in mind, undeserved harm is probably compensated in the next life. Personally, if I’m met by angels or buddhas and taken to God when I die, I’ll be okay with that.

Intention is king with karma. Just as intention to harm comes back to bite us, I know that intention to help brings us benefits, or at least mitigates negative consequences. This is supported by personal experience and Buddhist dharma teachings.

Certain actions have mixed consequences, helping some while hurting others. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one,” as Spock once said. Harming one person to help many may generate positive karma in balance. Police are faced with this daily. But watch out for the kind of thinking where the action hero kills dozens of “bad guys” to rescue his daughter. In real life, even people we see as enemies have loved ones who depend on them.

Thinking and speech also affect karma. We all know that hateful speech and writing can cause harm, even kill. Kind words can help in many ways. But Westerners generally believe they can think anything they want. The Eastern view is that even thoughts can generate karma. So try not to wish people dead or rejoice when bad things happen to those you dislike. I’ve noticed that when I wish for benefits for others, benefits come to me, so the reverse is probably true also. Be mindful of your thoughts.

So I’ve said that we harvest what we sow, for good or ill, and it’s a law of the universe regardless of belief. Karma can span our past and future lives. Intent to help or harm is key. I said that regret and atonement can erase negative karma. I’ve noticed that thoughts and words generate consequences, just as actions do. What are your thoughts and experiences of karma?

Messages to Your Next Life

Like its Eastern counterpart, Western Tantric belief is that we reincarnate. Rebirth can take many forms, but the most beneficial rebirth for learning to be fully human is to return as a human during a time when spiritual writings and training are available. Hopefully we can return here to resume the progress we have made here on earth. It would be nice if we could leave our future selves some of the wisdom we learned from our struggles during our lives here.

The intent of this website is to fund it long enough that future generations can read what we put here. The intent of this blog topic is to place here what we would like our future selves to know, so that if our future rebirths find this website, we don’t have to start entirely from nothing, relearning what we once knew. So this is where we tell future humans and hopefully our future reincarnations the best of what we learned here in this life.

As the author of the Western Tantra series of books, my hopes are that enough of my books will sell that I can find a copy in my next life, and that my future self will study them. That is what I want to tell my future life. I’ll post the best responses from you here also. What wisdom do you want to pass on to your future reincarnation?