The classical definition of meditation, dating to the time of the Buddha, is “the obstruction of thought waves in the mind.” According to this definition, written by the sage Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras, a “thought wave” is any mental event: not only a linguistic thought, but also a feeling, an image, a desire, etc.

Nonviolence depends essentially on one’s ability to overcome the tendency to be driven into action by negative thoughts, anger, and fear. As such, meditation is a core tool used for the “inner work” of nonviolence practitioners to gain this self-control, which then enables the person to use the energy aroused by the negative drive in a constructive way, rather than being compelled into the “fight or flight” response.

An untrained mind, on the other hand, poses a liability in a situation where there is violence, as human beings will tend to act on impulse unless prepared for the reactions they might experience in the face of an extreme threat.

The Dhammapada says, “More than those who hate you, more than all your enemies, an untrained mind does greater harm. More than your mother, more than your father, more than all your family, a well-trained mind does greater good.”

Meditation, of one form or another, is practiced almost universally throughout the world’s religions. Regardless of the specific tradition followed or method employed, a common feature of meditation is that must be practiced rigorously and with great self-discipline in order to have any significant effect towards the training of the mind and control of attention. As Meister Eckhart expressed:

“This needs prodigiously hard work… A man must be closeted within himself where his mind is safe from images of outside things… Second, inventions of the mind itself; ideas, spontaneous notions or images… he must give no quarter to on pain of scattering himself and being sold into multiplicity.”

Resources:

Words and the Mind: Thoughts on an Ancient and a Contemporary Technique of Meditation, by Michael Nagler

Meditation Instructions from Sri Eknath Easwaran (the ‘grand-founder’ of the Metta Center)