Perhaps you think of meditation and prayer as two entirely different things; many people do. Indeed, meditation can be an entirely secular activity, or it can be spiritual, but unrelated to the worship of a specific deity. Meditation is a discipline of mind, focusing awareness, thoughts, emotions, or state of being in a particular way. Prayer, on the other hand, is communion with deity (God or a god or gods).
Prayer can take many forms. It can be supplication, thanksgiving, acknowledgment, or simply being in the presence of deity in a worshipful way. Most Western religions don’t have a specific tradition of meditation; instead, prayer is where meditation happens. To be in the presence of deity and still the mind in order to commune with deity, to receive wisdom or comfort or peace; this is meditation. It’s explicit in things like Quaker meetings, but implicit, perhaps in different language, in many practices of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
But this is a Pagan site, and so let’s talk about this in a Pagan way. My plan is to discuss the relationship between Pagan prayer and meditation today, and in the coming weeks, use the Sunday Meditation space to talk about specific aspects of that, like the use of home altars and so on. I’d welcome suggestions in comments about any specific topics you’d like to see.
First let’s talk about the mind in prayer. Assuming the intention of prayer is to speak with or commune with the gods in some way, then it would certainly help to be in a meditative state first. So there’s two ways of approaching this.
Method 1: Pray.
Method 2: Still the mind. Ground and center. Pray.
Now, right on the face of it, you can see that Method 2 is going to work better, and by “work” I mean “produce the desired result,” i.e. achieving a sense of communion with deity.
You can also prepare to pray in much the same way you prepare to meditate, and for the same reasons:
Phone rings while meditating, concentration broken: Bad.
Phone rings while praying, feeling of connection to deity broken: Bad.
So, preparing to meditate and preparing to pray are not that different. You want to take a little space, a little moment where you’re not interrupted. (On a future Sunday, I’m going to discuss small moments of meditation/prayer and how to find them in a busy life. This is super helpful if you’re the mother of an infant, for example.)
Use of a dedicated spot—an altar—for prayer or worship is actually more common than using such a spot for meditation, but I do it for both, and I do it specifically because it works. There’s a number of things a dedicated spot can achieve; it provides visual cues that help still the mind. Being there triggers a kind of post-hypnotic suggestion, indicating to the mind that it’s time to enter into a meditative state. Things you use during meditation or prayer (rosary beads, candles, incense) are all in a convenient spot, so there’s no fussing about.
I meditate at my altar, and I don’t always make much distinction between prayer or meditation. I’m stilling my mind in the presence of my Goddess. Or I’m stilling my mind in order to be in the presence of my Goddess. Whatever. These distinctions: Prayer, worship, meditation, communion; they’re for the intellect, they’re for thinking about afterwards. In the act, in the moment, it doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s simply what you do that enriches your life and brings peace.
