meditation

Meditation is the disciplined practice of quieting and focusing the mind or cultivating the heart’s attention. Different meditation practices commend focusing attention on a word, a prayer, a form, or the breath as a way of practice. Meditation is common in the Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain traditions; forms of meditation are also practiced in the Sikh, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Taoist traditions. Buddhist meditation is the practice of quieting the mind and bringing it to full attention, as did the Buddha in the meditative practice that led to his enlightenment or awakening. Cultivating an alert, wakeful consciousness through meditation is practiced in several distinctive schools: the vipassana tradition of insight-meditation or mindfulness; the Tibetan schools of visualization; and the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Zen traditions. In the Jain tradition, one meditation practice involves sitting or standing completely still for 48 minutes, letting go of all passions and negative mental attitudes, thereby attaining a sense of equanimity (samayika). Another technique is prekshadhyana, or “insight meditation,” in which the meditator engages the mind to fully attend to the subtle and changing phenomena of consciousness.