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Christian Meditation
speaking within that great wisdom tradition that says: our life is very much a preparation for the way we die. Meditation trains us to die well. Because in meditation itself, we are entering into a death and resurrection process. For a Christian, this is the uniting of our own dying and rising with the central death and resurrection experience of Christ.
Every day has its own death: things we have to let go of. At certain crucial moments in our life, we may have to let go of people we would rather possess or control. We may have to let go of images of ourselves; we may have to let go of status and material wealth we have gotten used to. And letting go of these things is dying. I think when you are meditating every day, you are able to face those little deaths more peacefully. They still hurt. Nobody wants to die. You may still put up a fight. But meditation grounds you in the life of the spirit. And that grounding in the life of God gives you the confidence to look death in the eye. And to accept it as part of life.
That is why meditation reduces the fear of death. I don't say that it takes away the fear of death altogether. Because the fear of death is inherent in us, deeply. But it certainly reduces the fear of death, and prevents us from becoming a neurotic about death. Because we learn that every time we go into death with faith—always, always, and always—there is new life. We learn that on the pulsebeat of our own experience. Meditation highlights that and makes us conscious of that at a very deep level. And from that deep level, we are able to recognize the meaning of death on the ordinary physical and material levels as well.
We learn that death is not the end of life. It is a point of transformation.
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