Meditation, Eastern style vs Western style (#120; Topic D)

In a day-long workshop on Living Well With Cancer I attended yesterday (#119) was a concurrent session on meditation. The room had subdued lighting, which I thought fitting, but it also had a DVD beaming some nondescript music -- neither classical nor modern, neither Eastern nor Western. I thought the leader would turn it off when the session began, but she did not. She merely used the remote control to lower its volume. The type of meditation she practiced is concentrative, which places emphasis on breathing -- paying attention to breathing is said to banish negative thoughts, increase feeling of well-being, enhance inner strength, and such -- benefits valuable to a cancer sufferer. Well and good. Still, I was puzzled that, throughout her talk -- and, later, during short periods of meditation -- the music was on. When she invited questions, I said that I thought meditation is supposed to be practiced in absolute silence -- I mentioned that, a few months ago, I attended a session sponsored by the Library of Congress with Dalai Lama as the featured speaker, which included a segment on meditation, done with absolute silence in an auditorium seating some 800 people. This was also so in a meditation demonstration by a yoga master from India. While I did not mention it, one of my Tai Chi teachers and a follower of meditation, when he saw fit to include meditation, he did it in absolute slience. Indeed, in meditation related to Tai Chi, the emphasis is not on breathing per se, but on directing one's attention to the inner workings of one's body -- specifically, to directing the flow of energy to identify areas that are not functioning properly. Thus, to my way of thinking, having music or whatever is disruptive rather than contemplative. But I did not pursue the matter, charging it to the difference in approach between East and West.
Posted at 11:33 am, Sunday, April 9, 2006