Most religions have a meditative component to them. In Christianity, there has been a meditative tradition in Catholicism from the time of St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross; it is represented in the twentieth century perhaps best by Thomas Merton, and remains to this day. Something close to meditation is present in the tradition of quietness in Quakerism; and the meditative strand is inevitably part of "New Age" or "alternative" approaches to Christianity. There is a tradition of meditation in Judaism in the Kaballah; there is an entire movement in Islam, Sufism, which focuses strongly on meditation; and Hindu meditation is close to what we called transcendental meditation in the West some decades ago.

Most of these traditions are distinct from Buddhism in that they view meditation as a practice which is ancillary to the central truths of those religions. For example, a Christian may practice meditation, but only as a means of confirming to herself the core truth of the redemption of man by the death and resurrection of Christ; meditation can never be a substitute for that truth. By contrast, Buddhism uses meditation as a means of apprehension of "the truth." To this extent, Buddhist meditation is "open-ended": it does not presume access to any eternal truth other than that which may be found by the meditator herself. For most other religions, this "open-ended" approach is not an option.

Nevertheless, there is one thing that seems to unite meditators of all religions, and that is the sense of peace that can result from meditation. From this point of view alone, whatever the differences may be between the religions we practice, meditation is more than worthwhile.