What Is Meditation?

With a vast array of types and techniques, what is the common thread that makes meditation, meditation in all of them?  this article is meant as a basic overview, future articles will go into more specifics and details.

Most forms of meditation engage the focus and development of awareness. In a normal waking state we are predominantly identified with thoughts and feelings, and are constantly flitting from one to another. This identification we could say then is the opposite of awareness as we are using it here. In order to develop and engage with awareness, meditation turns our attention away from the external, inwards.

A pre-requisite in meditative awareness is a deepening state of relaxation in the physical body. This deepening relaxation of the body facilitates a relaxing or slowing in the mind. I have heard many times from many people over the years the idea that meditation is stilling the mind, or stopping thought. Invariably this is followed by pronouncements of their failure to do this,  and an abandonment of meditation. This is a basic and common misunderstanding of meditation.

In the development of awareness,  we step away from the identification with thought. The experience of stepping away occurs in the moment we become aware of a thought and recognize thought is happening. In this experience, we have the possibility of knowing directly that we are not our thoughts, for thought simply  occurs. With this perspective  then,  thought is not a problem in meditation, and is held in awareness or focused to a particular end.

As the ability to rapidly and easily enter deeper states of relaxation and awareness develop, a meditator may observe a direct correlation between the presence of  tension in the physical body and the process  of thought. The more relaxed the body the less movement of thought.  Meditation itself can be the process of developing the  ability to consciously relax the body more and more deeply.

Broadly speaking meditation can be seen as one of two types,  Mindful and Dynamic. In mindful meditation we open our awareness to the continuous flow of sensations,  feelings, emotion, images,  even sounds and  scents. The practice is to witness this continuous flow without our engagement or identification. From this practice we develop what has been called  the witness state. In the development of our ability and experience in this type of meditation we can become more aware of subtler dimensions to our being. We also begin to see the fluid and dynamic relationship between body,  emotion and mind. In mindful meditation our awareness is developed to contain everything occurring in our experience from moment to moment.

Dynamic meditation can take many highly varied forms. Common to them all is some degree of focus of awareness. The simplest form, and probably most commonly known, is the focus of attention on the breath. More complex and advanced forms of energy meditation, like those found in the Taoist tradition are also  a dynamic meditation. As are  those falling under the umbrella of guided meditation. In dynamic meditation the concentration of focused attention  can take the meditator into deeper states of consciousness. Other examples of dynamic meditation are  the repetition of mantra or prayer, or the detailed and specific visualizations of the Tantric  traditions.

Meditation is recognized as a component of almost all religions, and has been practiced for  longer than recorded history.  It is also practiced outside religious traditions.The word meditation originally comes from the Indo-European root med-, meaning "to measure." It entered English as meditation through the Latin meditatio, which originally indicated every type of physical or intellectual exercise, then later evolved into the more specific meaning "contemplation."

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