How Meditation and Reading Work Together Essay

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Meditation in Thurman and Nafisi

Reading and Meditation are similar because they both involve using the imagination. When one reads, one creates a vivid picture in the mind of what the words are suggesting: it is an active process on the part of the reader, who must "picture" the events as the words are described (as opposed to sitting passively before a screen and allowing the projector to do all the work). Meditation is like reading in that it involves the active participation of the mind in creating an image or event or episode in the mind on which the one meditating is to consider and reflect. Thus, reading can be instrumental in meditation by serving as a launch pad, so to speak. In the end, both are about using the mind to effect a picture in the imagination's eye. It is essentially as Robert Thurman states when he notes that "None of us knows who we really are. Facing that and then becoming all that we can be -- astonishing, surprising, amazing, always fresh and new, always free to be more, brave enough to become a work in progress, choosing happiness, open-mindedness, and love over certitude, rigidity, and fear -- this is realizing selflessness!" (443). This paper will use the idea of reading and meditation to show how Thurman's "Wisdom" is related Azar Nafisi's "Selections from Reading Lolitat in Tehran" and in particular to Nafisi's reading in class. Thurman's exploration of the true nature of the self is comparable to what Nafisi attempted through reading in her class because both of the authors used outside means to find one's true identity.

Because reading is an outside means that can be used in meditation, it is an effective point for drawing comparison between Thurman's work and the character of Nafisi, who reads in class. Thurman describes the act of reading as akin to being liberated from the cave of ignorance -- similar to what Plato describes in his Allegory of the Cave. Thurman states that "when you first melt into the spacious experience of freedom, it is enthralling, like emerging from a dark cave into infinite light" (454). This sense of emergence is like that of the self from the inner darkness by way of outer illumination (the sun, or the text used to trigger the imagination and the subsequent elevation of the mind to the otherness outside the self, which is meditation). Nafisi experiences something similar to this when she states, "We were not looking for blueprints, for an easy solution, but we did hope to find the link between the open spaces the novels provided and the closed ones we were confined to" (290). Essentially, Nafisi asserts that through reading they were enabled to escape the enclosures around them and to transcend the confines of space, time and self. The immediate and the visceral are like walls -- but through the involvement of the imagination, which utilizes the outside material (reading books) these walls are scaled and an entirely true, transcendent horizon is discovered. This is the liberation of which Thurman speaks and the light of truth to which he alludes.

This transcendent movement is related to truth -- an objective reality outside the limitations of the subjective perspective. Nafisi regards this movement as being related to the imaginative aspect of meditation, which is the result of reading and of creating a vision in one's mind: "Perhaps one way of finding out the truth was to do what we did: to try to imaginatively articulate these two worlds and through that process, give shape to out vision and identity" (295). Thurman articulates a similar sentiment when he asserts that the antiquated notions of spirituality may still be relevant, because there is something hidden in these concepts that still pertain to our activity of self-discovery through transcendence of self (like leaving the earth in a plane to better see the earth): "There are also various vaguely defined areas such as "spirit" and "soul" that, like a dusty attic or dank cellar, we may feel the need to explore" (450). Thus, Thurman's exploration of the true nature of the self is like Nafisi's reading because both are directed by this "outside" influence which ironically provides better access to a true understanding of the inner self. The "soul" in other words is the inner self -- the secret aspect of the personality, which one needs to better understand through meditation. For Thurman this act of discovery is possible as it is for Nafisi, through outside means -- interaction with texts, ideas, visions, materials that activate the imagination and stir in it the desire to see into the self, to peer under the eaves and behold what lies hidden.

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Nafisi does the same, when she links truth with the discovery process: it is similar to the voyage of Columbus, seeking to discover a new route, but what he finds instead is something unexpected -- a new world. Thus, discovery of the self and discovery of the truth are intimately connected because both deal with the usage of something other than the self, which nonetheless allows one to turn the microscope upon the self and upon the truth so that a better objective sense of both truth and self can be had.

But there is another way in which limitations and confines are erected and that is through habit of acting. So while one's environment and one's self can be restrictive, there is also the restrictive nature of unproductive habits that pull one down, keep one isolated in the cave of darkness and ignorance, and prevent one from soaring above one's own place and time through the exercise of transcendent meditation sparked by immersive reading and the task of self-discovery. As Thurman notes, "Once we have freed ourselves from the constricting habit of always thinking that we are the center of the universe, we will experience our first taste of boundless joy and compassion that is infinite life" (445). It is the awareness of the other, the outside world, the people around us, the fact that we are not the center of the universe but that others exist within our communities who need help, attention, care, consideration, support, love -- all good things: this realization should spark compassion in us which is a transcendent virtue, a good, healthy habit that lifts one up out of one's self, out of the complacency of self-satisfaction and self-seeking, out of the misery of selfishness, to actually be a part of the greater world, of that otherness, which is the spirit of love, the soul of something eternal which allows us to transcend. This is the joy about which Thurman speaks. But the same is true for Nafisi, who when talking about Nabokov, states, "There was something, both in his fiction and in his life, that we instinctively related to and grasped, the possibility of a boundless freedom when all options are taken away" (293). The girls saw this idea of boundless freedom in Nabokov, liberating themselves from their predetermined personas. Like Thurman they used it to elevate themselves out of the "self" constructs that had been given them. This interaction with the author outside themselves freed them from themselves and gave them more of the world to experience, to feel, and with which to identify. They could now celebrate a link between themselves and Nabokov, between themselves and history, between themselves and the world, and between themselves and the radiant, transcendent illuminative power. Nabokov's own story of leaving Russia and entering into the English speaking world, mastering the language and becoming a great English prose stylist is inspiring in and of itself -- but what he does with the language is also helpful in elevating the girls in the book above their immediate situation and instilling in them a sense of greater truth that they otherwise would not have known. Thus, they are made richer and deeper because of their exposure to Nabokov and in this sense they discover a hidden richness within themselves in much the same way that Thurman discovers his secret, hidden self by transcending his "self" and coming closer to the beautiful, living truth of uniting oneself to the otherness outside the self.

In conclusion, in regards to the questions, "Does she feel as if she and her students have become like characters in someone else's book?" and "What do you think Nafisi would suggest as a possible solution here?" an answer might be this: By showing her students these fictional worlds, she suggests that these roles can be filled in reality. Related to Thurman, by meditation, we create our own image of ourselves which makes it possible to bring the image in our mind to reality. We transcend the old image of the self, the construct foisted upon us, and discover a better, more vibrant image of ourselves, which is created through our association with others -- with Nabokov for example, or through our interaction with the outside world….....

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