Meditation and its increasing popularity in the Western Culture

Frances O. Ponce

"When your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life." - Wu Men  

Meditation and yoga nowadays have gained an increased attention throughout the world especially in the Western Culture where people don't even bother to stop and be still once in a while in their lives. In industrialized countries, most people cannot afford to let time pass without doing some job that will add up to their net worth. However, this kind of "Western Mindset" has created lots of pain and turmoil in the lives of many people. Scientists and doctors and even business professionals struggled to find a way to create a sense of respite in their lives and they found meditation.

Meditation has lots of great benefits. It can transform you not only your spiritual life but also your emotional, physical and mental aspects. Jon Kabat Zinn, the founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic beautifully defined mindfulness (or meditation) as paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally. He emphasizes that meditation nurtures greater awareness, clarity, and acceptance of present-moment reality. 


As a student of meditation, I always tried my best to at least be still once for thirty minutes a day. I know that it is very hard to meditate especially when noise is everywhere and the seemingly unending workload is always piling up. However, as Jon always emphasizes that practicing meditation requires daily discipline. He even requires those who practice meditation to have a vision-- so that they will have a sense of purpose why they meditate in the first place.

Our lives nowadays are filled with struggles and stresses. Everyday people always work for their daily agenda without knowing whether those agenda are still in line with their values. Sometimes when we got ourselves running into a path that leads us to destruction and so much pain, we realize that there is something wrong and we eventually search for answers out of those painful moments.


If we are just strong and disciplined enough to look deeply in our experiences without trying to change them, maybe we can put more value in our lives; maybe we can see more clearly out of the decisions we ought to do; maybe we can keep track in our lives whether we are still going in the right path-- that is our daily activities and thinking are still in line with our values.

Real transformation and learning are realized through sustained awareness of the daily experiences we encounter. If we are out of touch with those experiences and our feelings of the moment, we will not experience the beauty that life is offering us-- that we are writing our own story in a book, significant in every moment.