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Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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January 16, 2017 By Admin

Significance of Beads in Spiritual & Religious Practices

Beads: Significance in Spiritual and Religious Practices

The significance of religious and spiritual practices in the world is enormous.  Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist practitioners make up the overwhelming majority of the world’s population. The  CIA estimates are that Christians (33%), Muslims (23%), Hindus (14%) and Buddhist (7%) make up the majority of religious followers. Atheists and non-religious believers make up only 12% of the world’s population.   About 11% of the world’s population practices other spiritual and religious traditions.  ALL of the major spiritual and religious traditions have used beads in their practices.  Below I have listed some details about the nature of spiritual/religious beads used by major groups. As you will see the use of beads in spiritual and religious practices is very common.

  1. Roman Catholics use rosary beads (from rose petal “beads” in the rose garden or rosarium) – usually 54 + 5 beads. When beads are used to recite 150 psalms, they are 150 beads long and called patermasters.
  2. Muslims use their misbaha/masbaha, tasbih, subha  beads – usually 99 or 33 beads.
  3. Hindus (from 500 BCE) use mala beads – usually 108 (the cosmos) or 27 beads.
  4. Buddhists (mala) for 108 worldly desires, and Sikhs have generally maintained the Hindu “counts.”
  5. Baha’i uses beads – usually 19 or 99 + 5 beads.
  6. Orthodox Jews, use tassels tallit or tzitzits (Moses – to remember the commandments of god).
  7. Ortodox Greek and Russian Christians use knots as beads – Greek prayer ropes are called kombologian, and Russian prayer ropes are called chotki – Greek knots are 33, 50 and 100 while Russian knots are 33, 100, and 500.
  8. African Masai, Native American, and Greek and Russian Orthodoxy also use beads.

So why use beads in spiritual and religious prayer practices?  There are many, many reasons why beads are used in these spiritual traditions.  However, I will note just a few. Here are some reasons.  Beads are used:

  1. To maintain your counting in prayers practices – in praising the object of your beliefs;
  2. To confirm your level of dedicated practice by repetitions;
  3. To deepen your personal belief by mantra-like or out loud speaking;
  4. To enhance your level of faith by deeper and deeper contemplations about your beliefs; and,
  5. To deepen practice by repeated, deeper contemplations (called lectio divina ) in Catholicism.

Here are some other reasons why beads are used. These reasons deal more with contemporary neuroscience research than with ancient and current religious practices.  These are:

  1. Enhanced learning in frontal and prefrontal areas by verbal/cognitive repetitions;
  2. Temporal area strengthening by hearing the words you are saying either to yourself or out loud;
  3. Multi-sensory applications to bead mantra work – using fingertips (huge representation in the brain) to touch beads as you repeat verbal statements over and over again;
  4. Multi-sensory applications open up pathways for brain plasticity, so your brain changes over time to make your religious practices and beliefs stronger and stronger over time;
  5. Possible multi-sensory brain coherence – lighting up neurons across various brain regions in your practices, which allows even more powerful plasticity to occur about your practices and beliefs; and,
  6. Ritualize the spiritual or religious practices, thus making the objects of practice more sacred.

So, now you have some information about why beads are so, so common in spiritual and religious practices. This same information is the basis for use of beads in contemporary spiritual practices without religious connections.

For more information refer to Dorff, V. (2014). The Little Book About Big Things: World Religion. New York, NY: Fall River Press. See also www.dharmabeads.net for more information. Retrieved May 2, 2016.

 Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, VermontChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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Filed Under: Activities, Benefits of Meditation, Children & Youth, Contemplative Practices, Featured, Meditation, Meditation Activities, MIndfulness, MIndfulness Activities, Practices, Religion, Rituals, Self Care, Spiritual Energy, Spiritual Experience, Spiriuality Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, BEADS, MEDIATION, PRACTICES, PRAYER, RITUALS, SPIRITUAL

August 23, 2016 By Admin

An Alternative to Buddhism as Religion

Alternative to Buddhism as Religion   – Simply put and Clearly Stated

In case you become too serious about yourself in this life, note that there are reportedly 400 trillion subatomic vibrations every second. So be humble! And being humble is something I have had to do regarding my experience with Zen Buddhism as my lovebuddhism_mindfulhappinessreligion. I love Buddhism; I love Zen; I love my Sangha; I respect my teachers; and, I had great difficulty accepting Zen Buddhism as my religion. I have no clear understanding for this other than the strict hierarchy and rich ceremonies reminded my very much of my Catholic upbringing. I also decided against that approach as my religion.

In a distant Taoist way, I feel more “religious” when meditating in the woods – but this deep, personal experience feels more like sacred spirituality to me.  Recently, M. Mcleod in Shambhala Sun wrote about the spiritual value of Buddhism.

Much of this post re-frames and adds to many of his comments.

Fifteen Reasons Why Spiritual Buddhism May be Very Good for YOU:

  1. We do not have to deal with the issue of whether or not there is a God or gods.
  2. We can focus on being a good person and living a good life without greed, envy, hatred, or anger.
  3. We can recognize that there is nothing especially religious about our waking up into a more aware state.
  4. We can accept Buddhist mind training or other forms of mind training as a way to become awake.
  5. We do spiritual Buddhism solely for our self and by our self. There are teachers and the sangha, but YOU do it alone through personal experience in long-term regular practice. It is an internal ting!
  6. We may use our Buddhist spirituality to wake up in experiencing non-material higher reality – a form of ultimate reality.
  7. We never need to simply have faith in Buddhism (unlike many other major religions). The Buddha noted that as we experience Buddhist practices and experiment with it for our self, keep it ONLY if it is working for you.  If it does not help, stop doing it.
  8. We can use skillful means in Buddhist practice, spirituality, and – perhaps even more important – in how we live our life (emotionally regulated, kind, compassionate, awake, present-minded, happy).
  9. We can practice Buddhist spirituality without connection with systems, programs, or institutions.  We are the sole entity of spiritual practice; spirituality is highly personal and internal.
  10. We notice that Buddhist spirituality appears to work for many other people, so why not give it a chance.
  11. We may study various religious doctrines and texts only to find out that many of the key points and recommend/required practices are somewhat similar.  I myself am always amazed at the similarities in what Jesus and Buddha have reportedly “said” to their followers.  There appears to be a spiritual theme in much of it.
  12. We may practice Buddhist spirituality without concern for specific standards and rigidness about “doing it only this way.”  In spiritual practice, the “right way” is the way that works best for the spiritual goals of the person doing it.
  13. We may practice Buddhist spirituality and find our self feeling more closely connected and integrated with others and the earth itself – perhaps even with the universe.
  14. We may come to a realization – a liberation – that Buddhist spiritual practices that are helpful to us represent serious regular practice on a personal level.
  15. We WILL come to understand that Buddhist spiritual practices increase our personal happiness.

For more information refer to Mcleod, M. In  Shambhala Sun (November, 2013), pp. 42-49.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, VermontChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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Filed Under: Buddhism, Featured, Religion Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, BUDDHISM, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, RELIGION, SHAMBHALA SUN

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