Buddhisten Thanissaro Bhikkhu har skrevet en meget præcis tekst om hvorfor det er så svært for vesterlændinge at meditere :
“In my own experience, I have found that Western meditators tend to be afflicted more with a certain grimness and lack of self-esteem than any Asians I have ever taught. Their psyches are so wounded by modern civilization that they lack the resilience and persistence needed before concentration and insight practices can be genuinely therapeutic. Other teachers have noted this problem as well and, as a result, many of them have decided that the Buddhist path is insufficient for our particular needs. To make up for this insufficiency they have experimented with ways of supplementing meditation practice, combining it with such things as myth, poetry, psychotherapy, social activism, sweat lodges, mourning rituals, and even drumming. The problem, though, may not be that there is anything lacking in the Buddhist path, but that we simply haven’t been following the Buddha’s full course of therapy. The Buddha’s path consisted not only of mindfulness, concentration, and insight practices, but also of virtue, beginning with the five precepts.”
Her kan du læse resten af teksten om disse “fem forskrifter” og hvordan de virker som heling af de lave selvværd, der plager mennesker, der ikke har klare rammer og værdier at orientere sig efter.