Benefits of Meditation
Meditation indeed has a very long history behind its uses in the BC ages through today and its community are composed of millions of practitioners around the world as meditation evolves and expands throughout the west and the world. It all first started from India where it was all recorded in the Vedas (Ancient Hindu scriptures) approximately from 5,000 to 3,500 BCE where it is shown that practitioners practiced in their meditative postures with their eyes half closed. It has to be passed down as oral tradition and memorised before it's written on paper 2000 years later in 1500 BCE. During its ancient time, it was celebrated mostly for religious and spiritual purposes where they sought to transcend the limitations of human life, connect with universal forces (personified as deities), and union with the transcendental reality (called Brahman in the Vedas). The Hindu tradition of meditation of yogis and sages (rishis) in Vedic culture is dated to be the oldest meditation tradition in the world. It will later layer the foundation for Yoga which I won't bother going further in detail. Later in the 6th century BCE, Siddhartha Gautama is said to abandoned his life as a prince and achieve enlightenment but that is seeking out the best yogis to learn meditation and philosophy. He rejected the methods behind their meditation and philosophy and instead created his own meditation techniques and philosophy and eventually achieve his own enlightenment. He would later become Buddha and teach his own meditation and spiritual philosophy to thousands of people where it would be widespread all over Asia and where later his meditation styles would be popular in the West. In the same century of Buddha's time, it would later adapt to the three newly born religions Jainism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Its influence on the west (Mostly Europe centuries before the New World began) did not really last for long as it would have when influence flows on all over Asia due to Christianity which would get a bad name in the middle ages (Sorry fellow Christians). But it highly influenced Greek Philosophers where they would be navel-gazing ( omphaloskepsis) and other philosophers Philo of Alexandria and Plotinus will later create their own meditation techniques mostly involving concentration. Contrary to Christianity's impact of the Ancient Western world, Christian mystics would later form their own Christian meditation called Jesus the Prayer developed between the 10th and 14th centuries in Greece, in the Hesychasm Christian tradition. It would be speculated that the origin of their meditation would be either from the Sufis (Islamic mystics) or the Indians. Then Zen Buddhism would later be created by Indian/Persian monk Bodhidharma, who in the 8th century traveled to China to teach meditation. His teachings would later develop lineages in China to Korea and to Vietnam where they would all be collectively called Zen. It would also be practiced by Sufis to worship their God Allah under Islam (Early stage?) and it would be practiced by Jews during the 13th century where people would develop their own forms of meditation. Basically, almost most of the religions around the world are based on meditation. Not only ancients philosophers are greatly influenced by meditation, but it would also influence Western intellectuals like Schopenhauer and even Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Eventually, one of the last pioneers Dr. Herbert Benson would later revolutionize meditation by not only being used for spirtual and religious purposes, but for scientific purposes. Today, meditation is mainstream and greatly secularized around the world.Live and Dare is my source for all of this if you are interested in more.
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The Top Ten
1 It eases anxiety
2 It eases stress
3 It reduces depression
This is helpful while playing The Witcher 3 xD
meditation makes you astral project more frequently, I taste sound each time I meditate
4 It improves focus
5 It increases grey matter in the brain
6 It boosts memory
7 Copes with ADHD
8 It improves productivity
9 It fosters creativity
10 It promotes longevity