Meditation is based on the employment of attention, according to the proposed definition.
- In one sense, this is stating the obvious: all kinds of meditation include focusing one's attention on a single meditation object.
- The object may be a static object, such as a geometrical figure in yantra meditation, or a dynamic element, such as the ever-changing reality desired to be incorporated in shikan ta-za and other Zen practices.
In any instance, the method entails drawing the viewer's attention on this item.
Meditation entails cultivating the mode of attention in addition to the object of attention.
While many meditative traditions have elaborate discussions of what constitutes an effective meditation object, others claim that any external or internal object can serve this purpose, with the key difference being the mode of attention, mental attitude, and how attention is directed toward this object.
- In many instances, this entails the development of a single-minded, completely immersed, but easy mental state.
- In other instances, the training aims to develop an open and welcoming mental attitude toward spontaneous impulses and even distracting ideas.
A contemplative attitude is often seen as generating an element of distance or detachment from worldly items in order to transcend worldly attachment and allow the mind to dwell in a realm that is beyond all things.
Meditation is said to create a manner of being that brings about a deeper connection with the objects of the world at other times, or perhaps even simultaneously.
- In any instance, the mode of attention is critical, and any effort to meditate mechanically, on autopilot, will fall outside our definition.
- Meditation is a technique for increasing one's consciousness.
Meditation methods, according to a number of scientific definitions, include the training of attention (or awareness).
- Some of them even go so far as to exclude visualization methods from the area of meditation, claiming that they seek to change the contents of attention rather than train the attention itself.
- They also reject “controlled breathing and body postures (yoga), or body movement and purported energy manipulation (Tai Chi [Taij] and Chi gong [Qigong])” based on the same reasoning.
- In reality, most kinds of recitative meditation, which also includes the intentional change of mental material, would be excluded from this line of thought.
- The outcome would be a very limited definition of meditation, excluding, for example, the visualization methods discussed in this book by Madhu Khanna, Geoffrey Samuel, and Sarah Shaw, as well as most kinds of traditional Christian meditation.
The truth is that attention training does not exclude efforts to change or alter the contents of the mind.
- Many visualization exercises, as well as many body practices and recitative methods, combine the two.
- We may also classify meditation methods in part based on the "focus of attention" and "mode of attention."