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No mention of Ignatius Loyola? DJ Clayworth 13:57, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
Meditation is currently a nominee on WP:IDRIVE. If you would like to see this article improved vote for it on WP:IDRIVE.-- Fenice 15:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Does the pope oppose contemplative prayer? I don't think so; if you disagree, please quote something the pope said, instead of falsely giving the impression that some fundamentalist tracts were written by the pope. Thank you. Samboy ( talk) 19:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Mombas ( talk) 08:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Further to above question on Popes views. The section is very vague based upon "some" Christians. It gives claims that Pope John Paul dissaproved meditation without any direct quotation. Conversly, it gives some direct quotations without explaining the relevance of the commenter or anything at all for that matter. One of the quotations is about neither Christianity or criticism but rather is about saying "Meditation is important to New Age". The weblink citation about John Paul certainly does talk about his New Age warnings but nothing about meditation. The section is truly a fine example of the good reasons for WP:Original Research. There may be scope for a section on Christian critcism of meditation, which I doubt, but this section today is improper, has been for some time, and I plan to delete it in the next few days because it spreads funny ideas rather than information. I assume good faith and apologise to the work put in to it. Try again with a little less sermonage and a bit more causality. (?) ~ R. T. G 05:33, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
This article seems to need cleanup and better references. Example problems:
I am going to clean these up in the next few days. In the meantime suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks. History2007 ( talk) 15:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Reviewer: Redtigerxyz Talk 13:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
ON HOLD -- Redtigerxyz Talk 14:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I made some of my own editions. Being Eastern Orthodox myself, I noticed that there was some false or misleading information provided in the section dedicated to Eastern Christian meditation (Section 4.2).
For one, the Christian hesychastic tradition does not use a mantra, and that is even pointed out in Wikipedia's own article on Hesychasm. I edited that part out myself and replaced it with something more accurate and cited some references produced by practitioners of the Orthodox Faith.
Another problem I noticed was that the Jesus Prayer, I think, has been misquoted as being "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of Living God, have mercy on me". I have never heard the word 'Living' used in that prayer in any of the parishes or monasteries I've ever visited. I didn't edit this text, though, since I do not know if this is a direct quote from the author's cited reference.
I also feel that this section is largely lacking sufficient information. I think it should be expanded to investigate possible differences of practice between the Assyrian, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and Eastern Rite Catholics, if there are any. A suggestion to visit the Wikipedia article on Hesychasm would also be appropriate here.
Finally, I do believe a promotion of this article up from mid-importance should be considered, since Christian meditation is actually a very important aspect of Eastern Christianity. While the Western Christians may approach the Christian faith from a scholastic angle, the Eastern Christians take a primarily experiential and meditative approach to gaining spiritual enlightenment. One cannot understand Eastern Christianity properly without engaging in the meditative practices it prescribes to some degree.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nahuatl6 ( talk • contribs) 18:43, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
In section 3, titled "Approaches to Meditation", only Western Post-Great Schism Christian Saints are used in describing approaches to Christian meditation. This is a problem, since meditation plays in central role in the praxis of Eastern Christianity.
I would suggest adding to this section the surviving teachings of such Eastern Christians as St. John Climacus (of the Ladder) and the Ladder of Divine Ascent, St. Gregory of Sinai, St Gregory Palamas, St. Seraphim of Sarov, Evagrius Ponticus, and I would highly encourage paying a lot of attention to the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and St. Anthony the Great, as well as the Philokalia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nahuatl6 ( talk • contribs) 19:23, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The following sentence from this article, "While some non-Christian and mystic meditations use mantras to block thought and erase concepts, most traditions of Christian meditation are intended to stimulate thought and deepen meaning," isn't exactly accurate. John Dunne, in a speech given at Stanford University, available for viewing online here: http://ccare.stanford.edu/node/21 , says that in Buddhism there is a type of meditation where people will repeatedly bring to mind a concept to become more familiar with it, and then to eventually experience the concept in a more, "visceral," way. So then this type of meditation sounds a bit similar to Christian meditation itself, though I am not an expert on Christian meditation. Anyways, John Dunne actually cites as an example of this Buddhist type of meditation, of familiarizing oneself with a concept, the use of "mantra," repetition. Therefore the use of mantras is not for the purpose of blocking thoughts or erasing concepts, but is more akin to stimulating analysis and familiarization with a concept, with the ultimate goal of experiencing that concept more viscerally. Hope this helps. makeswell ( talk) 16:25, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to just change it very quickly right now by taking out the bit about mantras completely. If you want to change it some other way then feel very free to do so. makeswell ( talk) 16:28, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
So "some branches" have de-emphasized contemplation since the 18th century, and they now refuse to call it "meditation". And lo and behold, "Christian meditation" is now free of mantras and physical austerities, completely different from those New Agey Eastern traditions.
That's probably because you have just removed these elements, which are extremely prevalent in Christian history, simply by redefining the word "meditation" to include only what you would like people to do, and excluding anything you didn't like.
I am sure some people have done this. But that's an opinion, viz. a theological position, not a fact. As an encyclopedia, we report on this opinion, we don't structure our article so that it appears as the only possible view. See also WP:TIGERS, and our poor old idea of WP:NPOV.
As the contemplative prayer article makes clear (as well as the theoria one), the concept opposed to contemplative prayer is methodical prayer. You want to write an article about methodical prayer? Please knock yourself out. But the "Christian meditation" article should obviously take the broad view and discuss meditation practices throughout Christian history, in all Christian denominations. As opposed to being simply based on the most recent communication that came out of the Vatican. Come on, I know we can do better than this. -- dab (𒁳) 09:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
May I suggest a reading of WP:CALM and avoiding a revert cycle as we are discussing this. I am going to stop for a while now, but per the BRD and WP:CALM items, please discuss before dramatic actions. Thanks. History2007 ( talk) 11:21, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
why do you keep citing books called Christian Meditation? I do not dispute that Christian Meditation is a technical term advocated by some for exactly what you are saying. The problem is that this article isn't called Christian Meditation, or Christian Meditation (Western Christianity), it is called Christian meditation, which I take to mean Meditation in Christianity. If you really want to focus on a tiny sub-topic, the technical term Christian Meditation as used since the 18th century (according to the referenced claim made in this article), I think you have some disambiguating to do.
If you insist that "methodical prayer" is the primary meaning of "Christian meditation", you will need to propose that all material which does not concern methodical prayer must be removed and delegated to an article which actually discusses meditation in Christianity. The claim that "Christian meditation is as different from eastern meditation as God the Father from Krishna" is still unbelievably disingenious, because it suggest there is Christian Meditation(TM) and then there is Eastern or New Agey Meditation, with nothing in between, completely ignoring a millennium of Christian meditation that did indeed use mantras, postures, mortification of the flesh and what have you. There can be no debate about such propaganda taken from devotional literature presented in Wikipedia's voice, and your restoring it puts you on the far end of tendentious editing. If there is anything "dramatic" going on here, there you have it: I spotted a piece of blatant denominationalist propaganda and removed it, then you came along and restored it for no indentifiable reason, and when challenged did not even bother to defend your action. This isn't "dramatic" in my book, it's just regular bad or agenda-driven editing which makes up about 90% of religious stuff on this website, and I am not throwing a fit over it, I am merely pointing out that this is a problem, and you do not seem to be inclined to be part of its solution. -- dab (𒁳) 11:34, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
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Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 05:47, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
I have added a template to the section that should actually describe what Christian meditation is. So far, this is not happening. The article circles around an empty center. It‘s like describing soccer without ever mentioning that people kick a ball in the act of playing. What are Christian meditators actually doing? Please also consider that for non Christians words like God and Holy Spirit do not hold objective truth so using these to explain the performance of meditation may not be very helpful. Reading further into the article it might make sense to merge the sections „Context“ and „Approaches“ or at least present the approaches earlier in the text to present the reader a lively definition of what CM is before the bulk of other sections follow. ElisabethGeuten ( talk) 06:21, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
Christian meditation has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | ||||||||||
|
This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
No mention of Ignatius Loyola? DJ Clayworth 13:57, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
Meditation is currently a nominee on WP:IDRIVE. If you would like to see this article improved vote for it on WP:IDRIVE.-- Fenice 15:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Does the pope oppose contemplative prayer? I don't think so; if you disagree, please quote something the pope said, instead of falsely giving the impression that some fundamentalist tracts were written by the pope. Thank you. Samboy ( talk) 19:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Mombas ( talk) 08:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Further to above question on Popes views. The section is very vague based upon "some" Christians. It gives claims that Pope John Paul dissaproved meditation without any direct quotation. Conversly, it gives some direct quotations without explaining the relevance of the commenter or anything at all for that matter. One of the quotations is about neither Christianity or criticism but rather is about saying "Meditation is important to New Age". The weblink citation about John Paul certainly does talk about his New Age warnings but nothing about meditation. The section is truly a fine example of the good reasons for WP:Original Research. There may be scope for a section on Christian critcism of meditation, which I doubt, but this section today is improper, has been for some time, and I plan to delete it in the next few days because it spreads funny ideas rather than information. I assume good faith and apologise to the work put in to it. Try again with a little less sermonage and a bit more causality. (?) ~ R. T. G 05:33, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
This article seems to need cleanup and better references. Example problems:
I am going to clean these up in the next few days. In the meantime suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks. History2007 ( talk) 15:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Reviewer: Redtigerxyz Talk 13:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
ON HOLD -- Redtigerxyz Talk 14:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I made some of my own editions. Being Eastern Orthodox myself, I noticed that there was some false or misleading information provided in the section dedicated to Eastern Christian meditation (Section 4.2).
For one, the Christian hesychastic tradition does not use a mantra, and that is even pointed out in Wikipedia's own article on Hesychasm. I edited that part out myself and replaced it with something more accurate and cited some references produced by practitioners of the Orthodox Faith.
Another problem I noticed was that the Jesus Prayer, I think, has been misquoted as being "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of Living God, have mercy on me". I have never heard the word 'Living' used in that prayer in any of the parishes or monasteries I've ever visited. I didn't edit this text, though, since I do not know if this is a direct quote from the author's cited reference.
I also feel that this section is largely lacking sufficient information. I think it should be expanded to investigate possible differences of practice between the Assyrian, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and Eastern Rite Catholics, if there are any. A suggestion to visit the Wikipedia article on Hesychasm would also be appropriate here.
Finally, I do believe a promotion of this article up from mid-importance should be considered, since Christian meditation is actually a very important aspect of Eastern Christianity. While the Western Christians may approach the Christian faith from a scholastic angle, the Eastern Christians take a primarily experiential and meditative approach to gaining spiritual enlightenment. One cannot understand Eastern Christianity properly without engaging in the meditative practices it prescribes to some degree.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nahuatl6 ( talk • contribs) 18:43, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
In section 3, titled "Approaches to Meditation", only Western Post-Great Schism Christian Saints are used in describing approaches to Christian meditation. This is a problem, since meditation plays in central role in the praxis of Eastern Christianity.
I would suggest adding to this section the surviving teachings of such Eastern Christians as St. John Climacus (of the Ladder) and the Ladder of Divine Ascent, St. Gregory of Sinai, St Gregory Palamas, St. Seraphim of Sarov, Evagrius Ponticus, and I would highly encourage paying a lot of attention to the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and St. Anthony the Great, as well as the Philokalia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nahuatl6 ( talk • contribs) 19:23, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The following sentence from this article, "While some non-Christian and mystic meditations use mantras to block thought and erase concepts, most traditions of Christian meditation are intended to stimulate thought and deepen meaning," isn't exactly accurate. John Dunne, in a speech given at Stanford University, available for viewing online here: http://ccare.stanford.edu/node/21 , says that in Buddhism there is a type of meditation where people will repeatedly bring to mind a concept to become more familiar with it, and then to eventually experience the concept in a more, "visceral," way. So then this type of meditation sounds a bit similar to Christian meditation itself, though I am not an expert on Christian meditation. Anyways, John Dunne actually cites as an example of this Buddhist type of meditation, of familiarizing oneself with a concept, the use of "mantra," repetition. Therefore the use of mantras is not for the purpose of blocking thoughts or erasing concepts, but is more akin to stimulating analysis and familiarization with a concept, with the ultimate goal of experiencing that concept more viscerally. Hope this helps. makeswell ( talk) 16:25, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to just change it very quickly right now by taking out the bit about mantras completely. If you want to change it some other way then feel very free to do so. makeswell ( talk) 16:28, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
So "some branches" have de-emphasized contemplation since the 18th century, and they now refuse to call it "meditation". And lo and behold, "Christian meditation" is now free of mantras and physical austerities, completely different from those New Agey Eastern traditions.
That's probably because you have just removed these elements, which are extremely prevalent in Christian history, simply by redefining the word "meditation" to include only what you would like people to do, and excluding anything you didn't like.
I am sure some people have done this. But that's an opinion, viz. a theological position, not a fact. As an encyclopedia, we report on this opinion, we don't structure our article so that it appears as the only possible view. See also WP:TIGERS, and our poor old idea of WP:NPOV.
As the contemplative prayer article makes clear (as well as the theoria one), the concept opposed to contemplative prayer is methodical prayer. You want to write an article about methodical prayer? Please knock yourself out. But the "Christian meditation" article should obviously take the broad view and discuss meditation practices throughout Christian history, in all Christian denominations. As opposed to being simply based on the most recent communication that came out of the Vatican. Come on, I know we can do better than this. -- dab (𒁳) 09:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
May I suggest a reading of WP:CALM and avoiding a revert cycle as we are discussing this. I am going to stop for a while now, but per the BRD and WP:CALM items, please discuss before dramatic actions. Thanks. History2007 ( talk) 11:21, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
why do you keep citing books called Christian Meditation? I do not dispute that Christian Meditation is a technical term advocated by some for exactly what you are saying. The problem is that this article isn't called Christian Meditation, or Christian Meditation (Western Christianity), it is called Christian meditation, which I take to mean Meditation in Christianity. If you really want to focus on a tiny sub-topic, the technical term Christian Meditation as used since the 18th century (according to the referenced claim made in this article), I think you have some disambiguating to do.
If you insist that "methodical prayer" is the primary meaning of "Christian meditation", you will need to propose that all material which does not concern methodical prayer must be removed and delegated to an article which actually discusses meditation in Christianity. The claim that "Christian meditation is as different from eastern meditation as God the Father from Krishna" is still unbelievably disingenious, because it suggest there is Christian Meditation(TM) and then there is Eastern or New Agey Meditation, with nothing in between, completely ignoring a millennium of Christian meditation that did indeed use mantras, postures, mortification of the flesh and what have you. There can be no debate about such propaganda taken from devotional literature presented in Wikipedia's voice, and your restoring it puts you on the far end of tendentious editing. If there is anything "dramatic" going on here, there you have it: I spotted a piece of blatant denominationalist propaganda and removed it, then you came along and restored it for no indentifiable reason, and when challenged did not even bother to defend your action. This isn't "dramatic" in my book, it's just regular bad or agenda-driven editing which makes up about 90% of religious stuff on this website, and I am not throwing a fit over it, I am merely pointing out that this is a problem, and you do not seem to be inclined to be part of its solution. -- dab (𒁳) 11:34, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to one external link on
Christian meditation. Please take a moment to review
my edit. If necessary, add {{
cbignore}}
after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{
nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}}
to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
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have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
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source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 05:47, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
I have added a template to the section that should actually describe what Christian meditation is. So far, this is not happening. The article circles around an empty center. It‘s like describing soccer without ever mentioning that people kick a ball in the act of playing. What are Christian meditators actually doing? Please also consider that for non Christians words like God and Holy Spirit do not hold objective truth so using these to explain the performance of meditation may not be very helpful. Reading further into the article it might make sense to merge the sections „Context“ and „Approaches“ or at least present the approaches earlier in the text to present the reader a lively definition of what CM is before the bulk of other sections follow. ElisabethGeuten ( talk) 06:21, 29 March 2024 (UTC)