Meditation and Me

There's a really interesting article about meditation in the New York Times from last Sunday.  It's called "The Meditation of Morality"  and focuses on the ways that meditation has been used to increase compassion.  Here's a nice little quote:

So take heart. The next time you meditate, know that you’re not just benefiting yourself, you’re also benefiting your neighbors, community members and as-yet-unknown strangers by increasing the odds that you’ll feel their pain when the time comes, and act to lessen it as well.

I love this.  Wonderful.  Perhaps we could chat about this in class a bit--the differing "benefits" of meditation?  I'm curious now what other claims have been made.

Also, I'm fairly excited about this, so I thought I'd put it on my blog: I meditated yesterday, in public, at the park, in the shade, by a waterfall.  And it was glorious.  I did the body scan meditation with 2 breaths for every body part (basically the same ones Donna did--or what I can remember her doing).  I was a bit anxious before hand, so I went for a long walk, and then I found this perfect little spot on the way home.  I'm so glad I did.

There might be more public meditating in my future :)