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Introduction
journey--the process, the experience of the meditative life-turns into a very dry and lifeless affair indeed.
Meditation in its fullest sense encompasses the whole of life—what one hesitates to characterize as "nonmeditative" activities. In fact, it reaches well beyond the perimeters of a daily sitting meditation practice. Meditation helps develop the right attitude of mind toward the events of life. It seeks to balance contemplation and action, or being and doing.
The conversations discuss the essentially complementary roles of teacher and student in the practice of meditation; the need for community; and what the good life and the good death are. The meditative consciousness moves us to alleviate the suffering of Tibet that Wayne Teasdale invokes. It embraces the feminine dimension in the Christian trinity that Edward McCorkell explores; the easily doable one-minute meditation Bhante Gunaratana offers; the problem of the media culture which Swami Satchidananda analyzes; the dangers of spiritual materialism Swami Shankarananda warns about. Also, Laurence Freeman assures us children are born meditators. Tenzin Wangyal elucidates the Bon approach to death. Shree Chitrabhanu looks beyond formal religious institutions, as the Jain way seeks to contribute to the peaceful transformation of the world.
In the course of these conversations, it becomes clearer to us how these meditation guides are so well grounded in their own tradition. All genuine meditation masters bring an open hearted, friendly approach—call it one of "spiritual humanism"-in the encounter with the world religions and wisdom traditions. Their main work is to set us on the road to self-mastery.
The student's role is to learn to see by way of the clear meditative prism. So that we begin to enter into that silent inner conversation, as we move through a concentrated observing, waiting, listening, and witnessing to our innermost being. A meditation practice brings us into a deeper understanding of what it means to be human beings. We are spiritual beings who are learning how to live well in a human incarnation. Still, the wisdom teachers advise us that it is a very gradual process. They help us to begin and stay the course. We ourselves must walk the meditation road. Even the great spiritual masters cannot save us from ourselves and our cherished illusions. As we practice meditation, the ego must daily let go of even its subtlest, most rarefied, even spiritual, pretensions.
I have my own personal testament in light of these perennial truths. For me, it was literally an uphill climb to see Bede Griffiths seven years ago in
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