1 Meditation and Therapy

Zen is therapeutic, not therapy A recent report says, “Studies have shown that regular practice of meditation can lower blood pressure, heart rate and respiration and reduce anxiety and anger and help alleviate insomnia and mild to moderate depression as well as lead to other benefits ” (Los Angeles Times Syndicate: quoted in an Indian newspaper). Diet, exercise and meditation are the three basic things recommended to heart patients and other such seriously ill people. There seems to be a meditation boom (along with alternate medicine, yoga and their like) in the West. Meditation is dragooned in service of health and well-being by the consumer culture. On Buddhist meditation National Geographic magazine for December 2005 notes (p. 124): Buddhist “meditative, ‘mindful ’ approach to living offers a way to deal with the everyday turmoil of the 21st century….Recent studies suggest that stress-related illnesses like cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure can be helped by meditation….While meditation is one aspect of Buddhism, compassionate social engagement is another.” The form of meditation usually recommended and practiced is mindfulnes