Types of Meditation

You may have heard about the benefits of meditation. But what exactly is a meditation and where does it come from? In this post, we will explore types of meditation and their roots.

1. Meditation Type – Format
2. Meditation Type – How To
3. Meditation Type – Origin
4. Summary

Meditation Type – Format

There are two large types of meditation: guided vs. unguided meditations. It is recommended that beginners try guided meditation with an experienced teacher that can be trusted. Meditation can be done 1:1 or in a group.

• Guided meditation: a teacher guides you through the basic steps of the practice
• Unguided meditation: meditate alone, without someone else explaining the process, paying attention to the body and thoughts for a set period.

Meditation Type – How To

For non-religious purpose, there are common meditation techniques you can use.

• Focused breathing:
  1. Close your eyes and keep your spine straight
  2. Notice the inhalation and exhalation of your breath
  3. Pay attention to the end of each breath
  4. Count 1 to 10, inhaling at odd numbers, exhaling at even numbers
  5. If your mind wanders com back to observing breath
• Box breathing: helps with mind and body relaxation in stressful times
  1. inhale for 4 seconds
  2. hold breath for 4 seconds
  3. exhale for 4 seconds
  4. hold breath for 4 seconds
  5. repeat 12-15 times
• Body scan: helps with syncing mind and body by performing a mental scan from top of the head to the end of the toes. Bringing attention to any sensations, tensions, aches, or discomforts as they are.
• Noting: during breathing technique or visualization technique, you can “note” your distraction. Labeling the distraction as a thought or emotion can help restore awareness, and helps you letting go of distractions.
• Visualization: this technique can help you maintain a certain type of emotion such as warmth and kindness. An example involves mentally visualizing a bright warm light at a certain body point and spreading the feeling throughout the body.
• Loving kindness: is used to strengthen feeling of kidness, compassion, and acceptance. Kindness is wishing good things to happen to the person. It starts first with self and the spreading the loving kindness to others. It involves visualizing a person and mentally visualizing a warm and good emotion.
• Compassion: similar to kindness, compassion is hoping bad things will not happen to the person. It involves focosing on the person and paying attention to the sesations that arises.
• Reflection: this technique involves asking questions using the second person perspective such as “what are you most grateful for?” and reflecting on the question while paying attention to the feelings that arise in response to the question.

Meditation Type – Origin

Although most people will recognize what meditation involves – closing eyes and sitting still – there is no concrete definition of what “meditation” is. There is an ongoing debate within the scientific community on the definition of meditation. The roots of meditative practices can be traced back to religious origins.

• Buddhist traditional meditations: Buddhists have diverse meditative practices varying by each school for their goal of awakening and nirvana. Their main practices focused on body contemplations and mindful breathing. Some of the main/popular Buddhist school of meditation are as following:
  • Theravāda tradition: focuses on Vipassana and Samantha techniques (later explained)
  • Tibetan tradition: focuses on visualization techniques
  • Sarvastivada-tradition: turns the attention away from the objects of experience to the nature of mind. Zen-tradition meditation draws from Sarvastivada-tradition meditation.
• Secular meditation practices often use the following two types of Buddhist meditation (Theravāda tradition):
  • Vipassana (insightful) meditation: this type of meditation aims to develop wisdom and compassion. It involves focusing on the breath and awareness of all the physical and mental sensations that arise.
  • Samantha (calming) meditation: this type of meditation aims to create a quieter and more peaceful state of mind. Calming meditation involves focusing on the breath, a mantra, a visualization, a physical object, or a sensation in the body and returning to this sensation when the mind starts to wander.
• Hinduism traditional meditation: Hinduism meditation also has many schools. Studies on various types of yoga meditation such as Ananda Marga yoga, Tantric yoga, and Kundalini yoga have been shown physiological effects on relaxations. Chakra meditation, which focuses on seven points of center of energy, also draws from hinduism and Buddhism tradition.
• Tao traditional meditation: includes qiqong meditation, a Chinese meditation that involves harnessing energy in the body to either send the energy inward for self healing or outward to help heal another person.
• Christian (Contemplative Prayer): One of the Christian prayers includes Roman Catholic church’s rosary prayer.
• Judaism (kabbalistic practice): kabbalah is a range of Jewish mystical activity to gain a deeper religious understanding
• Islam (Sufi dhikr) traditional meditation: dhikr is incorporated as a formal technique that also seeks to gain a focused attention for deeper religious undertsanding.
• Transcendental meditation: was founded by Maharishi Mahesh in 1950s. It is taught one-on-one by instructors trained and licensed by Maharishi foundation. It involves twice a day 20 minute meditation.

Summary

We explored the traditional roots and types of meditations. While this is not an exhaustive list of meditation descriptions, we hope that this post has helped understand and explore where meditation practices come from, and which meditation type to choose for your needs! We also encourage double-checking our sources!

Disclaimer: This web post is for information purposes. If you have medical needs, please contact your primary care physicia