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The definition of meditations given here arrived after long discussions on the talk page and has specific references. It is what it is. Please do not add unsourced extensions to it, without specific WP:RS elements, and obtaining consensus through the talk page.

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Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique or combination of techniques to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, Research is ongoing to better understand the effects of meditation on health (psychological, neurological, and cardiovascular) and other areas.

Etymology

The English term meditation is derived from Old French meditacioun, in turn from Latin meditatio from a verb meditari, meaning "to think, contemplate, devise, ponder". In the Catholic tradition, the use of the term meditatio as part of a formal, stepwise process of meditation dates back to at least the 12th-century monk Guigo II, 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. The Greek word theoria actually derives from the same root.

The term "meditation" in English may also refer to practices from Islamic Sufism, or other traditions such as Jewish Kabbalah and Christian Hesychasm.

Definitions

Difficulties in defining meditation

No universally accepted definition for meditation

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. These can include almost anything that is claimed to train the attention of mind or to teach calmness or compassion. There remains no definition of necessary and sufficient criteria for meditation that has achieved widespread acceptance within the modern scientific community.

Separation of technique from tradition

Some of the difficulty in precisely defining meditation has been in recognizing the particularities of the many various traditions; and theories and practices can differ within a tradition. 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 codified rules with specific outcomes, living together in monasteries with specific cultural settings that include local rites and rituals as part of a unified set of practices.

Dictionary definitions

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", 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." 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<!---cite review noting almost all research has examined eastern-derived or clinical practices--->) forms of meditation:

Several other definitions of meditation have been used by influential modern reviews of research on meditation across multiple traditions:<!---INCLUDE ONLY PROMINENT REVIEWS, WHEN IN DOUBT USE TALK PAGE--->

  • Walsh & Shapiro (2006): "Meditation 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"
  • Cahn & Polich (2006): "Meditation 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"
  • 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"
  • 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"

Classifications

Focused and open methods

In the West, meditation techniques have often been classified in two broad categories, which in actual practice are often combined: focused (or concentrative) meditation and open monitoring (or mindfulness) meditation:

Focused methods include paying attention to the breath, to an idea or feeling (such as mettā – loving-kindness), to a kōan, or to a mantra (such as in transcendental meditation), and single point meditation. Open monitoring methods include mindfulness, shikantaza and other awareness states.

Other possible typologies

Another typology divides meditation approaches into concentrative, generative, receptive and reflective practices:

  • concentrative: focused attention, including breath meditation, TM, and visualizations;
  • generative: developing qualities like loving kindness and compassion;
  • receptive: open monitoring;
  • reflective: systematic investigation, contemplation.

The Buddhist tradition often divides meditative practice into samatha, or calm abiding, and vipassana, insight. Mindfulness of breathing, a form of focused attention, calms down the mind; this calmed mind can then investigate the nature of reality, by monitoring the fleeting and ever-changing constituents of experience, by reflective investigation, or by turning back the radiance, focusing awareness on awareness itself and discerning the true nature of mind as awareness itself. A similar distinction can be found in the Inchagiri Sampradaya, where mantra-recitation is used to quiet the mind, followed by self-inquiry, investigating what the source is of the "I" that is aware.

Matko and Sedlmeier (2019) "call into question the common division into 'focused attention' and 'open-monitoring' practices." They argue for "two orthogonal dimensions along which meditation techniques could be classified," namely "activation" and "amount of body orientation," proposing seven clusters of techniques: "mindful observation, body-centered meditation, visual concentration, contemplation, affect-centered meditation, mantra meditation, and meditation with movement."

Jonathan Shear argues that transcendental meditation is an "automatic self-transcending" technique, different from focused attention and open monitoring. In this kind of practice, "there is no attempt to sustain any particular condition at all. Practices of this kind, once started, are reported to automatically 'transcend' their own activity and disappear, to be started up again later if appropriate."