Who Meditates?
The body is a label for a complex array of sensations and experiences. The mind is synonumous to thoughts, although some ancient teachers see the mind to be a substratum of an all encompassing Mind at Large. Nevertheless my mind and my thoughts are not two. Then, who actually meditates? To answer that we have to first establish, what is meditation? Nearly all meditation techniques require you to concentrate on something; the breath, a candle, a thought, a deity etc. Patanjali delineates meditation from concentration. He teaches a system of three limbs; dharana or concentration, dhyana or mental absorption and samadhi or complete self absorption. This he calls samyama. Zen teaches concentrating on your breath to let thinking subside. Most religions ask you to concentrate on God or Divine. So to answer the question we must now look at concentration, which mostly requires focusing your attention on the chosen object. Which means ignoring all other objects and br