Exploring the Practices and Types of Meditation

Meditation is very difficult to describe and can only truly be explained once experienced. It is the practice of mental concentration leading ultimately through a sequence of stages to the final goal of spiritual freedom, nirvana. The purpose of Buddhist meditation is to free ourselves from the delusion and thereby put an end to both ignorance and craving. The Buddhists describe the culminating trance-like state as transient; final Nirvana requires the insight of wisdom. The exercises that are meant to develop wisdom involve meditation on the true nature of reality or the conditioned and unconditioned elements that make up all phenomena. The goal of meditation is to develop a concept in the mind.

According to me, it is a system of concentration or distraction of human mind and body used to reach a higher level of awareness, physical performance, concentration or relaxation generally created from an internal source. The meditation can be practiced for stress management, anger management, control over anxiety, improved awareness and improvement of cognitive skills. To meditate, first find a quite area, then sit cross legged, back

Sogyal Rinpoche in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying said that it is through meditation that you are able to go on a journey to discover yourself, paving the way to enlightenment.1

Throughout centuries, meditation has been utilized for spiritual guidance. Meditation is often practiced within quiet rooms, where one cannot be disturbed. In the recent years, meditation has expanded beyond the homes of individuals. Schools across the nation have begun researching the benefits of meditation on students. The practice of meditation in schools has been shown to promote positive behavior in students; therefore it should be implemented in schools.

When I practice meditation I try to have a comfortable seat and a good posture. The most important feature of the posture is to keep my back straight. When I settled down comfortably on my meditation seat I begin by becoming aware of the thoughts and distractions that are arising in my mind. Then I gently turn attention to my breathing, letting its rhythm remain normal. Now I have a month of meditation behind and I'm very satisfied with the achieved success. I feel like a researcher who does not know what's going to come along and eager to see the final results, but is ready for serious work in order to reach these results. It takes just ten minutes per day to simply breathe and focus on your breath going in and out. Doing so I trained my mind to focus, reduce stress, and this helped me to be more present in the moment. Meditation helps us to be more effective in their daily lives by increasing our intellectual capacity, concentration, perception, memory, self-control, empathy, self-esteem, reduces

Meditation therapy places one's mind into an Alpha (resting) or theta (relaxing) brainwave state and causes the brain's rhythm to slow and antibodies and endorphins (natural pain killers) to be released into the patient's system. The body's metabolism, breathing and heart rate will slow and blood pressure will decrease. Simply put, at its core, meditation therapy will help patients clear their minds of all toxic thoughts, concentrate and focus on themselves, help them practice patience and prepare them for recovery.

People learn how to calm their brain, reach out to their experience and know how to apply it all the time. It teaches a brain to always be in the state of mindfulness. This term referred to the concept of to keeping one's consciousness alive to the present reality(The Miracle of Mindfulness). First, you learn how to apply it during the meditation. But after you mind will learn how to live with this always and analyze your experience, make wise decisions and ways control the

What is meditation? Meditation is intentionally self-regulating attention from a moment to another. It is a self-regulated process carried out by people to focus to relax and calm the body and mind. Meditation focusses on forgetting everything and giving attention only to inner self. As exercise if for the body, meditation is for the mind. In Latin, the meaning of the word, “Meditari” means to think or to dwell upon and “mederi” means to heal.

Select: Meditation is the process of relaxing the mind and body by focusing on a particular object, sensation or activity. Usually people focus on their breathing, body, an image or a sound. Research has shown that meditation is good for our physical and mental health (Greenberg, 2013, p. 240)

Meditation can be self-directed, or guided by doctors, psychiatrists, other mental health professionals, or yoga masters. It can also be guided by masters from different schools of meditation (for example, Zen meditation, Tibetan meditation, Transcendental Meditation), as well as those from tai chi and martial arts.

Meditation is the act of focusing one’s mind to become relaxed. Meditation can be approached in several different ways: mentally repeating a mantra, focusing on the present moment, or concentrating on one’s breathing. It has been studied to determine exactly how meditation can affect the body. It can be helpful because it can lower blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration rate. It also can help to just relax the body and

Buddhist meditation helps to achieve Buddhist Enlightenment and Nibbana (Nirvana)

Most meditation experts are teaching deep breathing methods for beginners to orient them in practicing relaxation as well as in maintaining focus. Meditations paths will not certainly work if you failed in the first step. Keep in mind that meditation guides are unique from one another. So, ask the meditation guide for a free meditation lesson before paying for the

Research proves that meditation can be clinically effective for various conditions. A study by Delgado-Pastor et. al. (2013) enlisted ten Vipassana meditators to undergo two sessions, one in which they meditated and another in which they rested without meditating. The study found that meditation allowed for greater awareness of both present experience and autonomic regulation. Awareness of oneself in this sense, the authors suggest, can assist in reduction of clinical symptoms, which share similar psychological and physiological mechanisms. Thus, further research may find clinical benefits in the therapeutic use of meditative techniques (Delgado-Pastor et. al., 2013). Another study looked at the benefits of meditation for female breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy (Kim et. al., 2013). Specifically, the investigators were studying how meditation assisted symptoms related to the women’s anxiety, depression, fatigue, and overall quality of life. The study compared 102 women, some of who were randomly selected to partake in 12 meditation therapy sessions (in addition to the radiation therapy) for 6 months. Another group attended only radiation therapy. Results showed that the women who participated in meditation therapy had significantly reduced levels of anxiety and fatigue, as well as an overall

- Focusing - focusing attention is generally one of the most important elements of meditation. It helps to free the mind from thoughts that you turn away from meditation and cause only stress and worry. Concentrate on one particular object, image, or mantra only on your breathing.