{"id":80,"date":"2013-10-01T17:51:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T00:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/?p=80"},"modified":"2014-03-18T10:12:39","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T17:12:39","slug":"meditation-is-useless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/2013\/10\/01\/meditation-is-useless\/","title":{"rendered":"Meditation is useless! But it has its benefits &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zen teachers have always maintained an uncompromising view on the uselessness of sitting meditation (zazen). Here are two of them, <a title=\"Norman Fischer | Wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zoketsu_Norman_Fischer\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Normal Fischer<\/strong><\/a> (1946- ) and <a title=\"Hui-neng | Wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Huineng\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Hui-neng<\/strong><\/a> (638-713), separated by 1200 years of practice and yet still arriving at pretty much the same conclusion:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Zazen [sitting meditation] is fundamentally a useless and pointless activity. &#8230; You just do it because you do it.&#8221; <em>from<\/em> <a title=\"A Coin Lost in the River ... | Norman Fischer\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mro.org\/mr\/archive\/18-4\/articles\/river.htm\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>A Coin Lost in the River is Found in the River<em>, N. Fischer<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;To concentrate the mind on quietness is a disease of the mind, and not Zen at all. What an idea, restricting the body to sitting all the time! That is useless. &#8230;&#8221; <em>quoted from<\/em> Zen and Zen Classics<em>, Volume 2, Chapter 3, R.H. Blyth at <a title=\"Zazen is Silly | Understand Zen blog\" href=\"http:\/\/oldschoolzen.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/zazen-is-silly-and-meditation-is.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Understand Zen<\/strong><\/a> blog<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But there&#8217;s a flip side to everything. Early last month, Robin sent me a link to the Work Smart | Fast Company web site. A nice article there, <a title=\"From OM to OMG | Fast Company\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/3016649\/work-smart\/from-om-to-omg-science-your-brain-and-the-productive-powers-of-meditation\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>&#8220;From OM to OMG: Science, Your Brain, and the Productive Powers of Meditation&#8221;<\/strong><\/a> by B. Cooper, described several scientifically-established benefits of regular meditation: better focus, less anxiety, more creativity, more compassion, better memory, less stress, and more gray matter. The article also gave several tips on how to establish a regular meditation practice.<\/p>\n<p>So &#8230; who&#8217;s right about meditation? Useless? Beneficial?<\/p>\n<p>Why not drop by our silent meditation period at Eliot chapel some Wednesday and tell me what you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zen teachers have always maintained an uncompromising view on the uselessness of sitting meditation (zazen). Here are two of them, Normal Fischer (1946- ) and Hui-neng (638-713), separated by 1200 years of practice and yet still arriving at pretty much the same conclusion: &#8220;Zazen [sitting meditation] is fundamentally a useless and pointless activity. &#8230; You [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}