Earlier this semester I had the privilege of going to a Buddhist meditation group in Little Rock. While I am somewhat familiar with Buddhism as my mom is an active participant in sanghas and the Ecumunical Buddhist Society, I have never actually joined her in a meditation group before this. We didn’t end up going to her normal weekly sangha meditation, but instead went to a healing meditation done by Compassion Works for All. We went to the library in Little Rock and only a handful of other people showed up. My experience with this meditation group is one I think I will cherish for some time. It was so peaceful to be able to enjoy the silence and become unfocused on my day to day routine that I spend so much time worrying about. The space …show more content…
The easiest other religious practice I could compare meditation to is going to church and prayer. Simply because that is what I am most familiar with. The two practices are fairly different in my mind. While senses are engaged in both, they are very different senses. In church, it seems to use more concrete senses; smell, touch, taste, sight, sound. In meditation, you are actually battling these senses to gain new ones. Such as a greater sense of self and how you fit into the world. In meditation however, there is a message that is different from the message usually given in church. In church, the message is clear, as it is very literally delivered to you and you accept it at will, for the most part. In meditation, however, the message is somewhere between finding it yourself, a lack of a message, and being able to disconnect from your thoughts and see the rest of the world in a new way. I think for Buddhism it is a combination of the three, as contradicting as they might seem. I think the class really prepared me for this idea of things in buddhism being contradictory but also not at the same time. It really helped me to be at peace with that idea. I loved the experience I got with the meditation group. It really makes me want to practice meditation more often. This encounter with Buddhism makes me appreciate the religion all the