This is probably the weekest attempt to dodge the problems of Occlumency, but is still worth considering.
Sirius continued, “Now, meditation when taught is usually the act of emptying your mind completely, but I don’t approve of that. It is easier for Darkness to control an empty mind than a full one. Dementors, for example, take advantage of the emptiness to fill it with all your worst memories. An accomplished Legilimens will fill it with whatever memories of yours that they want to see, or what they want you to see. If that occurs, the only way to stop them is to regain control of your mind, and only the mentally stronger of you will succeed. Therefore, I will be teaching you meditation where you select something to meditate on. It will keep your mind filled, and help you to focus. It will also give you better mental control, helping you with fending off Legilimens and Dementors, and controlling your tempers.”
Sirius smiled at them. “Often when you focus on a specific subject to meditate on, you learn something. Meditation means continued or extended thought, reflection, or contemplation. In the definition it says nothing about clearing your mind of all thought. So I want you to focus on something, anything. It could be something you learned in school, or something you read. I want you to focus on it, and when other things come up relating to it, ponder them too.1
This almost sounds like what little I remember about the differences between eastern or oriental meditation and Christian meditation. We do use meditation as a form of prayer, and yet I have been told that meditation as taught by some of the eastern religions and even some of the eastern martial arts can be spiritually dangerous. This difference between focusing on emptying yourself versus focusing on something or someone does seem to capture what I recall the difference being.
Naturally the version Sirius is criticising here is the version Snape teaches, and apparently true Occlumency. What Sirius is recommending is thus something related, but different. I suspect it would work well against Legilimency but only if you knew it was being used against you. That being said, he is right that it would have benifits for the boys’ control over their tempers.
know-it-all-bookworm . Harry Potter and the Secrets He’s Kept Chapter 9. FanFiction Published 2008-07-03. Updated 2009-04-26. Last viewed 2020-07-16.↩︎