Sturgeon’s law reminds us that 90% of everything sucks, but not in the fun, tingly way. This includes humanity, including those who fancy themselves teachers of meditation. According to Buddhist mythology Gautama (who was known as the Buddha) was rather: flexible, loving, rational, laid-back, lucid, egalitarian, cooperative and kind. This is why many people are enthusiastic to emulate his example. Many people (that is) other than his foolish cousin Devadatta. What was he like? Devadatta was: rigid, fearful, superstitious, controlling, cryptic, elitist, competitive, and cruel. Gautama’s path could be described by many terms including: yin or spiritual matriarchy and Devadatta’s as yang or pseudo-spiritual patriarchy.
Statistically the majority of meditation teachers unwittingly follow in the footsteps of the Buddha’s foolish cousin. Therefore it should come as little surprise that these individuals implore their students to actively focus and analyze. They might even use labels like analysis, contemplation, Vipassana, Samatha, concentration, focus, or even mindfulness (but that final term is woefully misapplied). The ONLY way to practice either active focus, active analysis (or both) is to rely upon disparate mechanisms such as those found in our medial prefrontal cortex or our dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Overuse of such regions triggers our amygdala (the seat of anxiety and aggression). This is clearly antithetical to the peace, love, and joy that lure us into what we hope is the Buddha’s path of meditation.
Far better it is to practice mindfulness and meditation in reliance upon our autonomic nervous system. For doing so could calm our amygdala’s anxiety and aggress as well as excite our anterior cingulate gyrus’ empathy. With consistency it could even cause our choices, utterances, and deeds to habitually flow from the effortless effort of love’s centered spontaneity. This is why the Buddha taught meditation.
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