Meditation & Prayer

I’ve gone to a few guid­ed med­i­ta­tion ses­sions at The Black Mar­ket down the street from me. Typ­i­cal­ly they play doom & drone dur­ing, but tonight the med­i­ta­tion was replete with crys­tals, sage burn­ing, herbal teas & the atten­dant, unavoid­able neo-hip­pie clap­trap. The first time I went, I was able to com­fort­ably get into a med­i­ta­tive state thanks to the Elec­tric Wiz­ard that was play­ing, although the guid­ed med­i­ta­tive imagery of a lush gar­den was a bit incon­gru­ous. That same sort of imagery was present this time too, but the incon­gruity was­n’t there due to the change in atmos­phere.

I don’t med­i­tate to align my chakras, fill myself with light, or root my spir­it into the earth. I won­der if that wellness/imagery focus is the med­i­ta­tion for the super­sti­tious crowd. Noth­ing I’ve read or heard of in East­ern med­i­ta­tive prac­tice seems so noisy. I med­i­tate to emp­ty myself of myself & just stay emp­ty for a bit. The goal is to escape all inten­tions, not replace the ones I have or look for oth­ers. Tonight, I real­ized that the men­tal state I get into now is essen­tial­ly the same one I used to end up in back when I was Catholic & engaged in deep prayer. The vig­il on Maun­dy Thurs­day was always a good day to get to that empty/beginner’s mind.

Fun­da­men­tal­ly, I don’t sup­pose there’s much dif­fer­ence between med­i­ta­tion and prayer.