One of the fruits of meditation is the gift of discernment. Discernment about what the media is doing and saying to us, about when to switch off the screen. By creating the space of solitude through daily practice, meditation protects the dignity of individual privacy. As a result, it also develops the social values of personal liberty and responsible participation in society’s decision making. The passivity and fatalism that media-saturation can create is challenged by meditation, if only because people of wisdom are less easily misled.
We meditate in this world. Our decision to meditate represents a commitment to participate responsibly even in a world going mad. It trains discernment and limits intolerance. It teaches faithfulness to the community of the true Self thus protecting human dignity. Each time we sit down to meditate we carry our own and the world’s baggage into the work of attention. It is a way of loving the world we are part of and contributing to its well-being. Precisely because it is a way of letting go of ourselves, meditation helps us recognize and share the burden of humanity.
An excerpt from Laurence Freeman OSB, “Meditation,” in JESUS THE TEACHER WITHIN (London: Continuum, 20000), p.. 210.
