Meditation is a practice where an individual trains attention and awareness to get clearer and calmer state. Scholars have found meditation difficult to define. The practices vary both between traditions and within them.
It is a common practice in many religions including Buddhism, Christianity (sometimes), Taoism, Hinduism (where Yoga is important)
and other religions. Meditation has now become a modern trend, showing many health benefits.
The initial origin of meditation is from the Vedic times of India.
In Buddhism, three things are very important: being a good person, making the mind stronger, and understanding (Insight or Wisdom) about why people are in pain (Dukkha). For Buddhists, meditation is used to calm the mind so that the mind can better see the cause of pain. Buddhists believe that this type of seeing can end pain.
Buddhist meditation is not just used for spiritual reasons. Research shows that Buddhist meditation lowers stress, anxiety and depression.
Most types of Buddhist meditation focus on something. The most popular things to focus on include breath, metta or Loving-Kindness towards all, other recollections, situational mindfulness and religious images and sounds.
Christians sometimes meditate by thinking about small parts of the Bible, or by saying the words of a prayer to themselves over and over. Meditation is an expression of Christian prayer. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church is specified that by means of meditation "The mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking"; also it is pointed out that "meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversion of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ".
Meditation is principally made on the Sacred Scriptures with the Gospels, liturgical texts, writings of the spiritual fathers, and meditative devotions.
Meditation is a significant part of the devotion of the Rosary; "by virtue of its meditative character, with the tranquil succession of Hail Marys, the Rosary has a peaceful effect on those who pray it, disposing them to receive and experience in their innermost depths, and to spread around them, that true peace which is the special gift of the Risen Lord (cf. Jn 14:27; 20.21)."
Meditation has a long tradition in Hinduism. It comes in many different styles. Here is a short list:
Meditation in Hinduism is used for different reasons. Some of the reasons are:
List of Nobel Peace Prize winners
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of six awards in the memory of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. Every year the organization gives out six awards for the people "who best benefit mankind through their actions" in one of the six subjects; peace, literature, physics, chemistry, economics, and medicine.
The Peace Prize is given out in Norway, but the other Prizes are given out in Sweden. This is because Norway and Sweden were one country when the prizes were started.
Its list of winners includes Martin Luther King, Jr., Elihu Root, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Henri La Fontaine, Mikhail Gorbachev, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Wangari Maathai, Barack Obama, Liu Xiaobo, Juan Manuel Santos and Abiy Ahmed. There is often a lot of controversy about the award of the prize. The 2013 winner is the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, making it the second year in-a-row that an organization has won the prize, after the European Union did so in 2012.
Here are the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize:
Celtic Park
Celtic Park is a football stadium in Parkhead, Glasgow, Scotland. It is the home ground of Celtic Football Club.
Romanian language
The Romanian language is a Romance language, meaning it comes from Latin like French, Spanish and Italian. It has 66% Latin-based words and 20% Slavic-based words. The rest are newer and come from Dacian, Turkish, Greek, or English. There are about 28 million speakers: 24 million who speak it as their mother tongue and 4 million who have learned it as their second language.
Romanian is also the most spoken language in Moldova, which is northeast of Romania. The Moldovan language is a kind of Romanian with certain differences, such as the dialect and a Moldavian accent.
Ealing
Ealing is a town in the London Borough of Ealing, most famous for the Ealing Studios, a movie studio. In 2011, the population was estimated at 339,300 and contains seven distinct town centres – Ealing, Hanwell, Acton, Southall, Greenford, Perivale and Northolt.
The borough of Ealing has a total of 91 state-run schools and nurseries as well as four Non-League football clubs.
Roma
Roma might mean:
Ear
The ear is the part of the body which allows animals (including people) to hear. People and most mammals have ears. Non-mammals can also hear, but may have holes instead of external ears. The ear works by directing sound to the inner ear. These vibrations are sent to the brain by a network (organized group) of nerves. The whole system is called the auditory system.
The inner part of the ear is common to most vertebrates, but mammals have special adaptations for hearing which even other land vertebrates do not have. These include the external ear and the three little bones which transmit sounds (the ossicles). The part of the ear that sticks out and can be seen is called the "pinna."
Ears are also used in other ways. African elephants use their large ears to cool themselves when it is very hot. Bats rely on their ears to find prey by echolocation. Some animals use their ears for signalling to each other.
In ordinary language, "ear" refers to this receptor which conducts sound and sends signals to the brain. It does not refer to the many other methods of hearing found in fish and invertebrates. Many animals do not hear through ears. Spiders have small hairs on their legs that they can hear with.
Czech language
The Czech language is a Slavic language spoken by people in the Czech Republic. Ten million people speak it. It is very similar to the Slovak language; the differences between these two languages are small enough that speakers of Czech and Slovak usually understand each other.
It has three genders and is an inflected language like Latin. The grammar is much more complex than that of English.
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) was the 27th President of the United States. He was the only President who also served as a Supreme Court justice. He was six feet tall and weighed over 350 pounds at the end of his Presidency.
Taft served as Solicitor General of the United States, a federal judge, Governor of the Philippines, and Secretary of War before being nominated for President in 1908 by the man who preceded him, Theodore Roosevelt. As a Republican President, Taft was most notable for trust-busting, in which he broke up large businesses that had too much control over the economy. Taft also expanded the civil service, improved the United States Postal Service and promoted world peace. Taft also started the tradition of the president pitching the first ball of the baseball season. Early in life, Taft had played baseball. He was a good second baseman and could hit with power.
In 1908, with Theodore Roosevelt's support, William Taft was nominated as the Republican candidate for President. He easily won against William Jennings Bryan in the 1908 general election, and became President.
In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt came back into politics and ran for President against William Taft. Many Republicans split their votes between Taft and Roosevelt, and the Democratic opponent Woodrow Wilson won the election.