A Master of Zen says that meditation is like washing your cloth; it does not make you an illuminated person but you need to clean your mind again and again in your life from the dirt. Washing your cloth does not guarantee that you will be healthy and cleaned forever. When you use your cloth in daily life, it will be dirty and you need to wash it again for your health. In meditation, we feel comfort, peace and happiness inside for some period of times. However, when we face the real life, we experience so many stresses and temptation. Negative thinking and low emotion that creates bioplasmic waste in our mind. One of many ways to overcome this problem inside is meditation.
In Christian tradition, Lord Jesus taught “ Lord Prayer” to His disciples. In the “ Lord Prayer”, we ask for “daily bread”. “Bread/ food” in the Lord Prayer is English translation from “Manna” (Aramaic word). As we know, the language used in Bible is Aramaic language. In Aramaic language, "Manna" does not only mean "bread" or “prosperity” but also bread of heaven or energy/ love from heaven. It may be interpreted as "Prana" in Indian tradition, "Ki" in Japanese and “Chi” in Chinese language. So, it also means spiritual abundance and prosperity. We need bread or food everyday because in daily activities we will get hungry again. That is why we should eat again. In daily live, to make us strong enough to overcome the obstacle, we need to eat bread from heaven daily. It gives us energy to be channel of God's peace, joy, and love. That is why we need praying, fasting, meditation, and other spiritual exercises as supplements to our life.
Meditation exercise exists in various religions and traditions. In Islam, there is dzkir or dikir or zikir. Five-times daily praying ritual in Islam is also the way to manage daily awareness. In Catholic tradition, rosary and contemplation of the prayer of St.Francis of Assisi is also meditation. People also do meditation with movement and gesture to synchronize body, mind, and spirit, such as: Kuji-in in Ninja tradition, Mudra in Buddhism, and Yoga in Hindu. Tai Chi from China, Pentjak Silat Martial Arts and Javanese Traditional Dance, Sufi Whirling Dance are examples of walking meditation.
Why are all of them categorized as meditation exercise? Because meditation means space between two event. In our daily life, we experience many events that can stimulate our anger and other lower emotions so we need the space for inner peace. We can get into the space by relaxation. Many people describe the space as emptiness and inner peace. However, it is difficult to keep our cloth always cleans in our daily activities and the most difficult thing in spirituality is to bring meditative mind into meditative life (topo ngrame).
Meditation exercise really helped friend, who lived in Jakarta, a big and crowded city in Indonesia. He had got depressed and easily flew in a rage before someone introduced him meditation exercise. He attended pranic healing and pranic psychotherapy workshop, presented by World Pranic Healing Foundation and Institute of Research and Inner study. Once a week, he practiced pranic psychotherapy by cleansing his chakra and meditation of Twin Heart, that contains citation: "Let me the channel of your peace" by St.Francis of Asisi. Psychologically, he got improvement and his relationship grew better.
The paragraph above is just one of example of the benefit of meditation in our life. You can choose the other types or methods of meditation that can be useful for your life.
