How tuned in are you to…

One way to experience a sense of freedom is to learn to 'tune in and drop out', or meditate. Over the centuries, many techniques have been developed. What do you know about them?

Short answers.

1. Meditation goes all the way back to primitive hunter-gatherers, but they didn't write anything down. (Too busy chanting.) What Indian scriptures mention meditation techniques from 5000 years ago?
2. What major religious founder is most closely associated with advising his followers to practice meditation?
3. What philosophical system uses the technique of the koan, or meditating on impossible questions?
4. Early Christian philosophers (Church Fathers) were often not too big on meditation. Why did Saint Augustine give it up?
5. What form of Jewish mysticism relies on meditation?
6. What is the branch of Islam that uses meditation called?
7. Hesychasm is a psychosomatic technique practiced by Christian monks on Mount Athos. What does the word esychia mean? (And why is that so hard for humans?)
8. Some meditation practitioners take it to extremes. What do you call a person who meditates by literally walling themselves off from society?
9. What is unusual about Quaker meditation?
10. What form of popular exercise is originally a meditation technique?

Got all that? Then you must be a whiz at meditation. Not sure? Click the picture for answers.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

13.06.16 Front Page

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