All types of Buddhist meditation practices, regardless of tradition, ultimately aim to dispel delusional ways of thinking that obscure the mind from perceiving the absolute truth.
The attainment of peace, calmness, or the elimination of anxiety might result from a consistent and long-term meditation practice, but they are incidental to Buddhist meditation.
Currently, there is no agreed-upon taxonomy of meditation used in scientific research; however, despite the numerous meditation practices and exercises that exist in the Buddhist tradition, all of them fall into one of two categories that are based on specific outcomes. While this categorization is not sufficient for any comparative study on meditation, it is a useful illustration of how Buddhist meditation is more than a means to achieve inner peace or eradicate anxiety.
Buddhist Meditation: Interfering With the Intellect
The first category of Buddhist meditation is aimed at creating and strengthening helpful tendencies, habitual ways of thinking, and eliminating unhelpful tendencies.
For example, the meditation on the Four Sublime Sentiments or four Buddhist virtues (brahmavihārā) focuses on:
- Loving-kindness (metta)
- Compassion (karuna)
- Sympathetic joy or empathy (mudita)
- Equanimity (upekkha)
Loving-Kindness (metta)
Loving-kindness, or metta in Pali, is a state of the heart that embodies goodwill and recognizes that every being wishes to thrive. Rather than thinking of loving-kindness as friendliness, it is better described as a connection to oneself, to others, and to life. Fondness or affection toward the object of meditation is not a prerequisite, which is why friendliness is a misnomer.
One application of loving-kindness meditation is the cultivation of goodwill toward an adversary by recognizing that they suffer and wish for happiness, the same as you and the same as all beings.
Compassion (karuna)
Compassion, or karuna, is the acknowledgement of the fragility of every life. It is a movement toward suffering with the wish to remove such suffering. But contrary to pity, compassion is an equalized state. A person with compassion responds to suffering with a trembling heart that is filled with empathy, not pity.
Sometimes we exhibit compassion for others but we have a harsh attitude towards ourselves. You can be the object of your compassion meditation.
Sympathetic Joy (mudita)
Sympathetic joy, empathy, or mudita, is happiness for others and a recognition that happiness is not a limited commodity. Meditation on sympathetic joy can help to eliminate the tendency to feel envy or ill-will in the face of others’ good fortune.
Equanimity (upekkha)
Equanimity or upekkha is the attitude of balance. In the face of others’ suffering, you wish upon them loving kindness or goodwill and feel compassion toward them, but with equanimity, you have the wisdom to understand that you cannot single-handedly solve their problems.
Equanimity helps you to tend to the fire but creates the mindfulness conditions to prevent you from getting burnt.
Types of Buddhist Meditation That Cultivate Calmness
The second category of meditation types aims at calming and quieting the agitated mind. Without the stillness that this meditation type develops, it would not be possible to reap the benefits of the meditation mentioned above.
In other words, a mind that wanders from one thought to another, cannot hope to create or develop positive tendencies or eliminate negative ones because of the mind’s constant state of distraction.
Examples of meditation in this category include focusing attention on a single object such as the breath, and repeatedly returning attention from distraction back to the breath.
The process of repeatedly redirecting attention from a distracted state to a focused one heightens our sensitivity toward distraction. We begin to notice our distracted state of mind in the moment which can eventually interfere with the mind’s tendency to wander, eventually preventing it entirely.
the Yoga Sutras and disrupting the imagining mind
This meditative practice dates back at least 2,000 years and is documented in the Yoga Sutras, a collection of Sanskrit aphorisms authored in part by Patanjali, the ancient Hindu Yoga master.
Similar to Buddhist meditation, the ultimate aim of Yoga is moksha which is synonymous with nirvana. There are eight branches or limbs of Yoga. Asana is the physical aspect of Yoga that we are most familiar with while Dharana is a meditative branch of Yoga that focuses on single-point concentration.
In the Yoga Sutras, one of the aims of meditative practices is chitta vritti nirodha or “suppression of the movements or operation of the mind”. Another translation is “cessation of the fluctuation of the mind”.
The goal is not to cease all thinking but to stop the mind from imagining what does not exist in reality.
Summary
Meditation type and exercises in the Buddhist tradition fall under two broad categories and aims:
- To create or strengthen helpful tendencies and to eliminate unhelpful ones
- To create stillness within the mind
Together, these practices help us to move closer to perceiving the actions of others, of ourselves, and all phenomena, as they are and not through our distorted lens.
