Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking," achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditation process itself.
Techniques are broadly classified into focused (or concentrative) and open monitoring methods. Focused methods involve attention to specific objects like breath or mantras, while open monitoring includes mindfulness and awareness of mental events.
Meditation is practiced in numerous religious traditions. The earliest records of meditation (dhyana) are found in the Upanishads, and meditation plays a salient role in the contemplative repertoire of Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism.[1] Jainism uses the Twelve Contemplations, dharma dhyana (knowledge of the elements), and shukla dhyana (meditation proper). Buddhist traditions use body contemplations (repulsiveness and cemetery contemplations) and anapanasati (mindfulness of in-and-out breathing) to induce dhyana (meditation proper), broadly distinguishing samatha (calming the mind) and vipassana (gaining insight into the nature of reality) meditation techniques. The Hindu-tradition includes Patañjali's Yoga sutras, Hatha Yoga, Bhakti Yoga (devotion), and mantra meditation. Taoism has ding 定, concentrative stabilizing meditation, guan 觀, insight-meditation based on vipassanā, and cun 存, vizualizations. Meditation-like techniques are also known in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in the context of remembrance of and prayer and devotion to God. Techniques involve contemplation, repetitious recitation of prayers and holy names, and silent abiding in the presence of God.
Asian meditative techniques have spread to other cultures where they have found application in non-spiritual contexts, such as business and health. Meditation may significantly reduce stress, fear, anxiety, depression, and pain,[2] and enhance peace, perception,[3] self-concept, and well-being.[4] [5] [6] Research is ongoing to better understand the effects of meditation on health (psychological, neurological, and cardiovascular) and other areas.
The English meditation is derived from Old French meditacioun, in turn from Latin meditatio from a verb meditari, meaning "to think, contemplate, devise, ponder".[7] [8] In the Catholic tradition, the use of the term meditatio as part of a formal, stepwise process of meditation goes back to at least the 12th-century monk Guigo II,[8] [9] before which the Greek word theoria was used for the same purpose.
Apart from its historical usage, the term meditation was introduced as a translation for Eastern spiritual practices, referred to as dhyāna in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, which comes from the Sanskrit root dhyai, meaning to contemplate or meditate.[10] [11] [12]
The term "meditation" in English may also refer to practices from Islamic Sufism,[13] or other traditions such as Jewish Kabbalah and Christian Hesychasm.
Meditation has proven difficult to define as it covers a wide range of dissimilar practices in different traditions and cultures. In popular usage, the word "meditation" and the phrase "meditative practice" are often used imprecisely to designate practices found across many cultures.[14] These can include almost anything that is claimed to train the attention of mind or to teach calmness or compassion.[15] There remains no definition of necessary and sufficient criteria for meditation that has achieved widespread acceptance within the modern scientific community.
Some of the difficulty in precisely defining meditation has been in recognizing the particularities of the many various traditions;[16] and theories and practice can differ within a tradition.[17] Taylor noted that even within a faith such as "Hindu" or "Buddhist", schools and individual teachers may teach distinct types of meditation.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." For instance, while monks meditate as part of their everyday lives, they also engage in the codified rules and live together in monasteries in specific cultural settings that go along with their meditative practices.
Dictionaries give both the original Latin meaning of "think[ing] deeply about (something)", as well as the popular usages of "focusing one's mind for a period of time", "the act of giving your attention to only one thing, either as a religious activity or as a way of becoming calm and relaxed",[18] 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."
In modern psychological research, meditation has been defined and characterized in various ways. Many of these emphasize the role of attention and characterize the practice of meditation as attempts to detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking," not judging the meditation-process itself ("logical relaxation"), 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: