Meditation
[11][12] In the Catholic tradition, the use of the term meditatio as part of a formal, stepwise process of meditation goes back to at least the 12th-century monk Guigo II,[12][13] before which the Greek word theoria was used for the same purpose.
Beads made from seeds of rudraksha trees are considered sacred by devotees of Shiva, while followers of Vishnu revere the wood that comes from the Tulsi plant, also known as Holy Basil.
Downplaying the "petty complexities" of satipatthana and the body-recollections[87][88] (but maintaining the awareness of immanent death), the early Chan-tradition developed the notions or practices of wu nian ("no thought, no fixation on thought, such as one's own views, experiences, and knowledge")[89][90] and fēi sīliàng (非思量, Japanese: hishiryō, "nonthinking");[91] and kanxin ("observing the mind")[92] and shou-i pu i (守一不移, "maintaining the one without wavering,"[93] turning the attention from the objects of experience, to the nature of mind, the perceiving subject itself, which is equated with Buddha-nature.
[97] Dhyana, while often presented as a form of focused attention or concentration, as in Buddhagosa's Theravada classic the Visuddhimagga ("Path of purification", 5th c. CE), according to a number of contemporary scholars and scholar-practitioners, it is actually a description of the development of perfected equanimity and mindfulness, apparently induced by satipatthana, an open monitoring of the breath, without trying to regulate it.
[99][100] The Buddha identified two paramount mental qualities that arise from wholesome meditative practice or bhavana, namely samatha ("calm," "serenity" "tranquility") and vipassana (insight).
In this understanding, samatha steadies, composes, unifies and concentrates the mind, while vipassana enables one to see, explore and discern "formations" (conditioned phenomena based on the five aggregates).
[note 14] According to this understanding, which is central to Theravada orthodoxy but also plays a role in Tibetan Buddhism, through the meditative development of serenity, one is able to weaken the obscuring hindrances and bring the mind to a collected, pliant, and still state (samadhi).
[citation needed] The Guanzi essay (late 4th century BCE) Neiye "Inward training" is the oldest received writing on the subject of qi cultivation and breath-control meditation techniques.
[109] For instance, "When you enlarge your mind and let go of it, when you relax your vital breath and expand it, when your body is calm and unmoving: And you can maintain the One and discard the myriad disturbances.
Confucius asked his disciple Yan Hui to explain what "sit and forget" means: "I slough off my limbs and trunk, dim my intelligence, depart from my form, leave knowledge behind, and become identical with the Transformational Thoroughfare.
The Musar Movement, founded by Rabbi Israel Salanter in the middle of the nineteenth-century, emphasized meditative practices of introspection and visualization that could help to improve moral character.
[128] In the Roman Empire, by 20 BCE Philo of Alexandria had written on some form of "spiritual exercises" involving attention (prosoche) and concentration[129] and by the 3rd century Plotinus had developed meditative techniques.
Christian meditation is the process of deliberately focusing on specific thoughts (e.g. a biblical scene involving Jesus and the Virgin Mary) and reflecting on their meaning in the context of the love of God.
Its four formal steps as a "ladder" were defined by the monk Guigo II in the 12th century with the Latin terms lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio (i.e. read, ponder, pray, contemplate).
[156] Tafakkur or tadabbur in Sufism literally means reflection upon the universe: this is considered to permit access to a form of cognitive and emotional development that can emanate only from the higher level, i.e. from God.
The sensation of receiving divine inspiration awakens and liberates both heart and intellect, permitting such inner growth that the apparently mundane actually takes on the quality of the infinite.
[158] In the teachings of the Baháʼí Faith, which derives from an Islamic context but is universalist in orientation, meditation is a primary tool for spiritual development,[159] involving reflection on the words of God.
"[166] The following decades saw further spread of these ideas to America: The World Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in 1893, was the landmark event that increased Western awareness of meditation.
In the West, meditation found its mainstream roots through the social revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when many of the youth of the day rebelled against traditional religion as a reaction against what some perceived as the failure of Christianity to provide spiritual and ethical guidance.
[200] Meditation lowers heart rate, oxygen consumption, breathing frequency, stress hormones, lactate levels, and sympathetic nervous system activity (associated with the fight-or-flight response), along with a modest decline in blood pressure.
[206] Throughout East Asia the detrimental and undesirable effects of incorrect meditation and mindfulness practice are well documented due to the long varied history of cultivation in these fields.
By extension this problem is compounded with little or no support or explanatory framework publicly for novice or laity that is easily accessible for a practitioner to know when it is appropriate to self manage or when it is advisable to seek professional advice on the adverse symptomatology that may arise in this field of self-cultivation .
[216][217] According to Salguero, Problematic experiences such as strange sensations, unexplained pains, psychological instability, undesired hallucinations, sexual anomalies, uncontrollable behaviors, demonic possession, suicidality, and so forth seem to be quite well-known and well-documented across traditions.
[216] Classical sources mention makyō, Zen sickness (Chinese and Japanese: 禪病; pinyin: Chánbìng; rōmaji: Zenbyō)[web 4] and related difficulties, such as zouhuorumo (走火入魔; 'fire possession'), and mojing (魔境; 'demonic states').
[219][220][221][222] Hafenbrack et al. (2022), in a study on mindfulness with 1400 participants, found that focused-breathing meditation can dampen the relationship between transgressions and the desire to engage in reparative prosocial behaviors.
The study, consisting of two interrelated parts and totaling 691 participants, found that a mindfulness induction, compared to a control condition, led to decreased prosocial behavior.
Recent studies have investigated if meditation or mindfulness helps people manage anxiety, stress, depression, pain, or symptoms related to withdrawal from nicotine, alcohol, or opioids."
"[236] A 2014 review found that practice of mindfulness meditation for two to six months by people undergoing long-term psychiatric or medical therapy could produce moderate improvements in pain management, anxiety, depression.
[239] Early low-quality and low- quantity evidence indicates that the mechanism of meditation may help with irritable bowel syndrome,[240][10] insomnia,[240] cognitive decline in the elderly,[241] and post-traumatic stress disorder.
[242][243] Sitting in silence, body scan meditation and concentrating on breathing was shown in a 2016 review to moderately decrease symptoms of PTSD and depression in war veterans and creating resilience to stresses in active service.
