Talk:Meditation

Changes to Buddhist Meditation section

Up until today, the Buddhist Meditation section contained the following text:

Broadly speaking, Buddhist Meditation is a way for a person to relax and not think about their problems so that they can allow their mind to see more deeply into the nature of reality. Every form of meditation uses some object on which to focus their attention. Buddhists can use the sensations of the breath, the emotional connection with the self and others, the physical sensations of the body, sounds, visualized images, etc.

This kind of meditation has been shown to have many medical and psychological benefits, such as promoting a sense of wellbeing, boosting the immune system, lowering blood pressure, reducing stress and slowing aging.

There are a number of concerns about this text including:

1. It significantly resembles text at http://www.padmaloka.org.uk/meditation.html creating the possibility of a copyright violation.
2. The claims about medical benefits are not cited or well known (although they may be commonly believed).
3. It uses some sophisticated language such as "to see more deeply into the nature of reality."

To address these concerns:

1. I wordsmithed the basic text
2. I reduced the medical benefits to those identified (and cited) at, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_psychology.
3. I attempted to make the language simpler.

The result is the following:

In Buddhism, three things are very important: understanding why people are in pain, being a good person, and making our mind stronger. Meditation is the main way that Buddhists make their minds stronger.

Buddhist meditation is not just used for spiritual reasons. In general, Buddhist meditation can help anyone calm their body and mind. Research shows that Buddhist meditation lowers stress, anxiety and depression.

For Buddhists, meditation is used to calm the mind so that the mind can better see the cause of pain. Buddhists believe that this type of seeing can end pain.

Most types of Buddhist meditation focus on something. The most popular things to focus on include the breath, love, other emotions, and religious images and sounds.

I hope these significant changes do not upset or dismay anyone and I apologize if they do. If someone would like to revert any part of these new changes while still address the three aforementioned concerns, please do so. I would also of course be happy to address this further. May all be happy and well, Larry Rosenfeld 02:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I have edited this section, as it seemed confusing and a little biased towards modern secular Buddhism; the section should be nonsectarian in vocabulary and concepts, with all sections on a similar reading level. I hope the contribution is an improvement, and straightforward speech. CLAUnderwood (talk) 07:06, 8 February 2020 (UTC)