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> Meditation in the eastern religion sense is to not think about anything.

I'm not completely sure about this. Certainly it is to do with letting go of ruminations, worries and distracting thoughts. But there is a lot of talk about focus and insight, and this seems similar to the western concept of meditation.



I'm using coarse / imprecise language for brevity. Certainly in eastern meditation there is a lot of reflection being done on the meditative experiences and their import or significance, which can lead to perceived insight. However, such reflection (as the word implies) is post hoc.

Similarly, the focus that meditation requires is a discipline of not getting distracted by the outside world or by the sea of thoughts and emotions that resides in our mind, but it is not a focus on any particular idea or concept. Rather, it is a focus on (achieving) a certain state of mind or experience.

Meditation in the Biblical sense is deliberative, logical, active and always involves freely thinking about a certain topic or set of ideas. It does not seek to constrain/limit itself beyond the level of focus required for reading a book, for example. Meditation in the eastern sense seeks to 'transcend' logic and emotion and does not require or depend on any logical or emotional processes. Actually, logical and emotional processes hinder meditation.




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