Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Pass Me the Elephant Gun I Need to Meditate

There was an advertisement the other day for Buddhist meditation techniques.  Apparently these are an ideal way of solving all your problems.  That's great news, somebody should inform the Dalai Lama he doesn't seem to have been having much luck getting his country back from the Chinese by other methods.  Perhaps some Buddhist meditation techniques are what he needs.

It's always struck me as amazing that ineffable wisdom relating to peace, health and happiness tend to originate from those parts of the world most notable for their absence.  Apparently these regions have two major exports, the aforementioned ineffable wisdom and a crowd of desperate refugees prepared to do anything to get away from the homeland of such enlightenment.

On second thoughts I suppose it isn't really that surprising.  If your life was an unremitting hellscape with no possible hope of relief I would suggest that developing a philosophy that helped you cope with it wouldn't be so much an indulgence as an essential survival tool.  After all we in the west had something similar for quite a long time too.  We called it Christianity.  At the time it probably helped a lot of desperate people get through their day.

Nowadays people claim that the church has lost its relevance.  Well of course it has!  The church was created to help people feel better about short, wretched lives full of misery and toil naturally its at a bit of a loss trying to explain Kim Kardashian's divorce (or indeed her entire existence).  Come to think of it I wouldn't bet that Buddhist meditation techniques could help much with that one either.

So, can Buddhist meditation techniques (or any other form of esoteric philosophy or religion) solve your problems.  I would say "yes" for a certain type of person and a certain type of problem.  But if you are that type of person and you have that type of problem then you might as well just go to church.  You'll probably find that they can help you out as well.  Just don't expect either of them to be of much use if you encounter a Kardashian on a rampage.  For that I recommend an elephant gun.


1 comment:

  1. Some great lines as usual, Neil. 'The church was created to help people feel better about short, wretched lives full of misery and toil naturally its at a bit of a loss trying to explain Kim Kardashian's divorce (or indeed her entire existence).' Although I haven't a clue (fortunately, it seems) who Kim Kardashian is, and I don't agree with you about India (where meditation techniques were originally perfected) it's very telling that Christianity seems not to value meditation at all. I don't recall anything in the Bible that bears on it, do you?

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