Contrary to what you may think, meditation is not just a state of relaxation but also of alertness. Most meditation consists of bringing the mind in to focus on a particular object, real or imaginary. Often the breath is used as this object as it is always with you and can happen without you controlling it and so can simply be observed.
One kind of meditation involves visualisation. Your object of focus can become an imaginary apple, where you are at once sensing the waxiness of its skin, its weight in your hand, the intense taste of the first bite.
Those who are already familiar with the Heisig method of kanji learning may have guessed where I’m going with this. Heisig teaches us to form vivid images for each character to aid memorisation. He provides some guidelines or rules when constructing these images, but doesn’t justify them in the book to avoid distraction; we just take them at face value, trusting his judgement.
I think however that an understanding of meditation, particular meditation through visualisation may help with improving our ability to learn kanji using Heisig’s method. In meditation, we are warned against forming superficial images that we only see; we should also sense them (the waxiness of the apple, its taste). Likewise Heisig insists that we spend time with the images and make them as vivid as possible.
There is something different about the way in which I learned the kana (using Heisig’s book) and the way I learned many of the kanji. As the kanji count approached 1000 I became lazy, relying instead on making images using the words alone, with only shallow imagery. Heisig warns against this at the start of the book in fact. Perhaps much time needs to be invested in the early stages to ensure that we are visualising correctly. At my first exposure to kana I found them extremely difficult to remember, yet putting my faith in Heisig’s method I learned them rather effortlessly.
Herein lies a possible problem, and an insight into why Heisig’s methods has some detractors who appear to practically hate the method: some people cannot visualise on demand.
In visualisation there are two types of meditation, in one you conjure the image, in the other you allow images to surface from the depths of your mind; it turns out some people just get blankness when attempting to conjure up images directly.
With this insight, perhaps there is a way to practise visualisation such that our skill with it can improve; certainly welcome news if it means higher retention rates for kanji. Another interesting thought is that if you are really into your kanji study using Heisig’s method, you may in fact be meditating already!
Just for fun, try and picture something in your mind right now. Imagine an apple for example. Is it red, green? Is the skin waxy or dry? What does it taste like?
If you can’t pictures anything you may be one of the percentage of people who can’t easily visualise like that on demand. You could instead try just keeping ‘apple’ in mind and seeing what comes up.