meditation

Act of spiritual contemplation, practised by members of many religions or as a secular exercise. It is a central practice in Buddhism and Hinduisum (the Sanskrit term is samādhi) and the movement for transcendental meditation.

There are traditions of meditation in all main religions. Meditation either aims to attain union with God or to give rise to an awakened state of mind.

Buddhism There are two main types of Buddhist meditation: vipassana, to give insight; and samatha, to still the mind. The aim is to achieve wisdom and ultimately enlightenment. Practices include chanting of the sutras (scriptures); the development of calm and one-pointedness of mind through such methods as concentration on the breath and mental visualizations; attention to all the functions of body and mind helped by the use of objective phraseology such as ‘there is’ instead of ‘I am’; the contemplation of impermanence through the study of death; the Zen kōan; and the martial arts of judo, kendo, and aikido.

Hindu meditation is both the path and the goal of all yoga practice. Techniques include controlled breathing, mantra-reciting and visualization of deities, and a number of mind-expanding exercises, such as those to bring about unusual powers (siddhis); to develop one-pointed concentration; and to bring about the state of selfless contemplation known as samādhi.

Sufi meditation is aimed at abandonment of self in order to become wholly pliant in the hands of God. Meditation is used in both active and passive ways to awaken the five internal centres of illumination called lataif. Methods include dervish dancing, which is a form of circling as the planets circle the Earth; and chanting one of the names of Allah, of which there are 99 in Islamic belief.

Taoist meditations are aimed at an apprehension of the way in which life manifests and moves. Practices are mainly based on controlled breathing and include the awakening of a centre of sensation behind and between the eyes; on creating and circulating heat within the body; and on such martial arts as t'ai chi, ch'uan, karate, and kung-fu.

Christian meditators may either deliberately think about some aspect of God or seek to experience oneness with God directly and without the intervention of thought. In the Orthodox Church, meditation chiefly takes the form of a repetition of the Prayer of Jesus (‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’) accompanied by appropriate breathing. Meditation based on visualizations of New Testament scenes was advocated by St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and is still practised by many Christians today.