Lesson 1 - What is Meditation?
What is Meditation?
Meditation is often defined as thinking continuously about one object of thought. We often get stuck on this definition, however, and lose the real purpose of meditation. Meditation must reveal the true nature of that object upon which we are meditating. Such revelation comes not as a thought, but as a feeling. Therefore, meditation is a process in which we shift from thinking to feeling. It is a journey from the complexity of mind to the simplicity of heart. It is for this reason that most methods of meditation involve the heart.
Meditation isn't about becoming a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It's about training in awareness and getting a healthy sense of perspective. You're not trying to turn oof your thoughts or feelings. You're learning to observe them without judgement. And eventually, you may start to better understand them as well.
Meditation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the induction of specific modes or states of consciousness. For other uses, see Meditation (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with mediation or medication.
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Various depictions of meditation: The Hindu Swami Vivekananda, the Buddhist monk Hsuan Hua, Taoist Baduanjin Qigong, the Christian St Francis, the Stoic sage Epictetus and Muslim Sufis in Dhikr.
Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.[1]:228–29[2]:180[3]:415[4]:107[5][6] Scholars have found meditation difficult to define, as practices vary both between traditions and within them.
Meditation has been practiced since 1500 BCE antiquity in numerous religious traditions, often as part of the path towards enlightenment and self realization. The earliest records of meditation (Dhyana) come from the Hindu traditions of Vedantism, and meditation has a long tradition of being a practice in Hinduism.[7] Since the 19th century, Asian meditative techniques have spread to other cultures where they have also found application in non-spiritual contexts, such as business and health.
Meditation may be used with the aim of reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and pain, and increasing peace, perception,[8] self-concept, and well-being.[9][10][11][12] Meditation is under research to define its possible health (psychological, neurological, and cardiovascular) and other effects.
Etymology[edit]
The English meditation is derived from Old French meditacioun, in turn from Latin meditatio from a verb meditari, meaning "to think, contemplate, devise, ponder".[13][14] The use of the term meditatio as part of a formal, stepwise process of meditation goes back to the 12th century monk Guigo II.[14][15]
Apart from its historical usage, the term meditation was introduced as a translation for Eastern spiritual practices, referred to as dhyāna in Hinduism and Buddhism and which comes from the Sanskrit root dhyai, meaning to contemplate or meditate.[16][17] The term "meditation" in English may also refer to practices from Islamic Sufism,[18] or other traditions such as Jewish Kabbalah and Christian Hesychasm.[4]
Definitions[edit]
Meditation has proven difficult to define as it covers a wide range of dissimilar practices in different traditions. In popular usage, the word "meditation" and the phrase "meditative practice" are often used imprecisely to designate practices found across many cultures.[4][19] These can include almost anything that is claimed to train the attention of mind or to teach calm or compassion.[20] There remains no definition of necessary and sufficient criteria for meditation that has achieved universal or widespread acceptance within the modern scientific community. In 1971, Claudio Naranjo noted that "The word 'meditation' has been used to designate a variety of practices that differ enough from one another so that we may find trouble in defining what meditation is."[21]:6 A 2009 study noted a "persistent lack of consensus in the literature" and a "seeming intractability of defining meditation".[22]:135
Dictionary definitions[edit]
Dictionaries give both the original Latin meaning of "think[ing] deeply about (something)";[6] as well as the popular usage of " focusing one's mind for a period of time",[6] "the act of giving your attention to only one thing, either as a religious activity or as a way of becoming calm and relaxed",[23] and "to engage in mental exercise (such as concentrating on one's breathing or repetition of a mantra) for the purpose of reaching a heightened level of spiritual awareness."[5]
Scholarly definitions[edit]
In modern psychological research, meditation has been defined and characterized in a variety of ways. Many of these emphasize the role of attention[4][1][2][3] and characterize the practice of meditation as attempts to get beyond the reflexive, "discursive thinking"[note 1] or "logic"[note 2] mind[note 3] to achieve a deeper, more devout, or more relaxed state.
Bond et al. (2009) identified criteria for defining a practice as meditation "for use in a comprehensive systematic review of the therapeutic use of meditation", using "a 5-round Delphi study with a panel of 7 experts in meditation research" who were also trained in diverse but empirically highly studied (Eastern-derived or clinical) forms of meditation[note 4]:
three main criteria [...] as essential to any meditation practice: the use of a defined technique, logic relaxation,[note 5] and a self-induced state/mode.
Other criteria deemed important [but not essential] involve a state of psychophysical relaxation, the use of a self-focus skill or anchor, the presence of a state of suspension of logical thought processes, a religious/spiritual/philosophical context, or a state of mental silence.[22]:135
[...] It is plausible that meditation is best thought of as a natural category of techniques best captured by 'family resemblances' [...] or by the related 'prototype' model of concepts."[22]:135[note 6]
Several other definitions of meditation have been used by influential modern reviews of research on meditation across multiple traditions:[note 7]
- Walsh & Shapiro (2006): "[M]editation refers to a family of self-regulation practices that focus on training attention and awareness in order to bring mental processes under greater voluntary control and thereby foster general mental well-being and development and/or specific capacities such as calm, clarity, and concentration"[1]:228–29
- Cahn & Polich (2006): "[M]editation is used to describe practices that self-regulate the body and mind, thereby affecting mental events by engaging a specific attentional set.... regulation of attention is the central commonality across the many divergent methods"[2]:180
- Jevning et al. (1992): "We define meditation... as a stylized mental technique... repetitively practiced for the purpose of attaining a subjective experience that is frequently described as very restful, silent, and of heightened alertness, often characterized as blissful"[3]:415
- Goleman (1988): "the need for the meditator to retrain his attention, whether through concentration or mindfulness, is the single invariant ingredient in... every meditation system"[4]:107
Separation of technique from tradition[edit]
Some of the difficulty in precisely defining meditation has been in recognizing the particularities of the many various traditions;[26] and theories and practice can differ within a tradition.[27] Taylor noted that even within a faith such as "Hindu" or "Buddhist", schools and individual teachers may teach distinct types of meditation.[28]:2 Ornstein noted that "Most techniques of meditation do not exist as solitary practices but are only artificially separable from an entire system of practice and belief."[29]:143 For instance, while monks meditate as part of their everyday lives, they also engage the codified rules and live together in monasteries in specific cultural settings that go along with their meditative practices.
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