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Compiled from the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia...
According to Perez-De-Albeniz & Holmes (2000), the different techniques of meditation can be classified according to their focus. Some focus on the field or background perception and experience, also called mindfulness; others focus on a preselected specific object, and are called "'concentrative' meditation." There are also techniques that shift between the field and the object.
Categorizing the varieties of meditation is difficult. One common way is according to religion or lineage. But some meditative traditions, such as yoga or tantra, are common to several religions or occur outside religious contexts. Therefore, to avoid controversy, we will not attempt to classify all meditations into a religious class or lineage.
The Bahá'í Faith teaches that meditation is necessary for spiritual growth, alongside obligatory prayer and fasting. 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote:
"Meditation is the key for opening the doors of mysteries. In that state man abstracts himself: in that state man withdraws himself from all outside objects; in that subjective mood he is immersed in the ocean of spiritual life and can unfold the secrets of things-in-themselves."
There is the daily obligatory chanting of the Arabic phrase Alláhu Abhá (God is Most Glorious) 95 times, which is preceded by ablutions. This is similar to the Sufi practice of chanting the names of God. The word Abhá comes from the same root as Bahá' (Arabic: splendor" or "glory"), which Bahá'ís consider to be the "Greatest Name of God".
Also, many of the prayers and Tablets of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh are intended to bring about a meditative or ecstatic state on the part of the participant. These writings often contain a phrase extolling God or listing several of His names and attributes, which are repeated over and over again throughout the text.
Meditation has always enjoyed a central place within Buddhism. The Buddha himself was said to have achieved enlightenment while meditating under a Bodhi tree. Most forms of Buddhism distinguish between shamatha and vipassana meditation, both of which are necessary for enlightenment. The former consists of learning to focus the attention single-pointedly; the latter involves seeing the true nature of reality.
Theravada Buddhism emphasizes vipassana meditation directed towards anapana, mettā bhāvanā, or 38 other traditional topics.
In Japanese Mahayana schools, Tendai (Tien-tai), concentration is cultivated through highly structured ritual. Especially in the Chinese Chan Buddhism school (which branched out into the Japanese Zen, and Korean Seon schools), ts'o ch'an meditation and koan meditation practices are extremely important, allowing a practitioner to directly experience the true nature of reality (each of the names of these schools derives from the sanskrit dhyana, and translates into "meditation" in their respective languages). The esoteric Shingon sect shares many features with Tibetan Buddhism.
Tibetan Buddhism emphasizes tantra for its senior practitioners; hence its alternate name of Vajrayana Buddhism. However, visitors to Tibetan monasteries are often surprised to discover that many monks go through their day without "meditating" in a recognizable form, but are more likely to chant or participate in group liturgy.
Christian traditions have various practices which might be identified as forms of "meditation." Many of these are monastic practices. Some types of prayer, such as the rosary and Adoration (focusing on the eucharist) in Catholicism or the hesychasm in Eastern Orthodoxy, may be compared to the form of Eastern meditation that focuses on an individual object.
Christian meditation is considered a form of prayer. Some Christian prayer is made primarily by using the intellect, through the contemplation of the divine mysteries. However, Christian prayer or meditation through the heart, as described in the Philokalia is a practice towards Theosis, which involves acquiring an inner stillness and ignoring the physical senses.
The modern Gnostic movement counts millions of students in non-English speaking countries and is only now becoming known in English. Gnosis is Greek for "knowledge," but indicates personal, experiential knowledge rather than mere belief or theory. As such, meditation techniques are of primary importance, because it is through meditation that any person can acquire their own personal, experiential knowledge of the mysteries of life and death. There is an enormous range of techniques taught within the Gnostic tradition, ranging from basic concentration practices to very abstract and skillful techniques similar to the highest forms of Zen and Vajrayana Buddhism. Each has its place in the progressive development of the individual.
The Jains called the practice of meditation Samayika, a word in Prakrit language. The aim of Samayika is to transcend our daily experiences as the "constantly changing" human beings, called Jiva, and allow identification with the "changeless" reality in us, called the Atma. One begins in Samayika by achieving a balance in time. If the present fine moment of time could be defined as the moving line between the past and the future, Samayika happens by being fully aware, alert and conscious in that moving timeline when one experiences one's true nature, Atma, which is considered common to all living beings. The Samayika is derived from the word samay - meaning time - in the Prakrit language. The Samayika takes on special significance during special 8-day period practiced by the Jains called Paryushana.
There are several types of meditation in Hinduism These include (but are not limited to):
Within Islam the term "meditation" refers to the Salat performed 5 times a day. This is a spiritual process of focusing the mind and heart on Allah.
There is also the act of deep detailed contemplation (tafakkur) commanded in the Qur'an.
The concept of Jewish meditation, in Hebrew called hitbodeidut or hisbodeidus is explained in Kabbalah and Hassidic philosophy. The word hisbodedut, which derives from the Hebrew word "boded" (a state of being alone) and claimed to be related to the sfirah of Binah (lit. understanding), means the process of making oneself understand a concept well through analytical study.
Kabbalah is inherently a meditative field of study. Kabbalistic meditative practices construct a supernal realm which the soul navigates through in order to achieve certain ends. One of the most well known types of meditation is /Merchava/, from the root /R-Ch B/ meaning "chariot"(of God).
In Sikhism, the practices of simran and Nām Japō encourage quiet meditation.
The Daravish faith teaches that meditation is necessary to conjunct to God. They believe that the world is made by two elements, light and darkness. Light is from god and darkness is lack of light. The Daravish try to increase their light by meditation. The Daravish are a group of people who came from Iran.
Taoism includes a number of meditative and contemplative traditions. Originally said to have their principles described in the I Ching, Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu and Tao Tsang among other texts; the multitude of schools relating to Qigong, Neigong, Daoyin and Zhan zhuang are a large, diverse array of breath training practices in aid of meditation with much influence from later Chinese Buddhism and with much influence on traditional Chinese medicine and the Chinese as well as some Japanese martial arts. The Chinese martial art T'ai Chi Ch'uan is named after the well-known focus for Taoist and Neo-Confucian meditation, the T'ai Chi T'u, and is often referred to as “meditation in motion”.
New Age meditations are influenced by Eastern philosophy and mysticism such as yoga, Hinduism and Buddhism, yet may contain some degree of Western influence. Examples of such meditations include:
Although the term meditation is usually associated with one's body assuming a static, "meditative" posture, the dynamic types of meditation, widely used in Karma Yoga, are also quite widespread. An example of such activity could be Natya Yoga or a Shamanistic dance, such as described by Carlos Castaneda.
Sri Aurobindo was meditating while walking. Osho introduced the meditation techniques which he termed Active Meditations, which begin with a stage of activity — sometimes intense and physical — followed by a period of silence. He emphasized that meditation is not concentration. Dynamic meditation involves a conscious catharsis where one can throw out all the repressions, express what is not easily expressible in society, and then easily go into silence. Some of his techniques also have spontaneous dance as a step into.
Also the Thai monk Luang Por Teean taught a (more conservative) form of dynamic meditation, involving the use of the hands and arms during sitting meditation. He also used walking meditation as a complementary method. His teaching was aimed at developing awareness of the movements of the arms, which are moved continuously in a certain pattern throughout the meditation. The awareness is, however, not limited to the arms but inclusive of the whole life-experience.
Forms of meditation which are devoid of mystical content have been developed in the west as a way of promoting physical and mental well being. Most notable is Autogenic training developed by the German psychiatrist Johannes Schultz in 1932.
A non-profit secular organisation, Acem School of Meditation, was started by Are Holen in 1966. Its focus is on relaxation and stress relief.
Herbert Benson M.D., of Harvard Medical School, has conducted a series of clinical tests on meditators from various disciplines - mainly Transcendental meditation and Tibetan Buddhism. He first described the results in his 1975 book The Relaxation Response where he outlined a secular approach to achieving similar results.
The book Sensual Meditation (1980) which was written by the founder of the Raëlian movement outlines a sequence of non-ascetic meditation exercises which emphasize a Sensual Meditation involving a physical and sensual awareness connected with current knowledge of how the body and mind are organized.
The 1999 book The Calm Technique: Meditation Without Magic or Mysticism by Paul Wilson is a discussion and instruction in one form of secular meditation.
Newer forms of meditation are based on the results of EEG work in long term meditators. Studies have demonstrated the presence of a frequency-following response to auditory and visual stimuli. This EEG activity was termed "frequency-following response" because its period (cycles per second) corresponds to the fundamental frequency of the stimulus. Stated plainly, if the stimulus is 5 Hz the resulting measured EEG will show a 5 Hz frequency-following response using appropriate time-domain averaging protocols.
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