3 APPROACHES TO MEDITATION

9409471Zen Buddhist Teachings and the Three Approaches to Meditation

Zen Buddhist teachings contain three basic approaches to meditation. All three types of meditation are useful for complete pathway to enlightenment. The first, most fundamental type is called calming meditation. The AH-OM breath meditation is a form of calming meditation. The second meditation technique is the acquisition of meditative insight. This form of meditation can help one gain insight into the root cause of suffering and/or transform negative states of mind. The third approach to meditation, called mindfulness, is practiced while doing normal daily activities.

A single meditation exercise may contain elements of all three types of meditation. Take, for example, walking meditation. Best practice usually eases stress and why the mind. Therefore, it is a type of calming meditation. Walking meditation is also simply mindfulness off walking. Hence, it is the type of mindfulness practice. If you practice walking meditation while reciting the spiritual poem or phrase, it can help generate insight and become a type of insight meditation.

Calming meditation

Calming meditation relaxes the body and promotes positive mental states such as happiness, peace, and compassion.

Meditative insight

Here we are talking about the capacity of meditation to produce insight.(This is not to be confused with the hope particular school of meditation called insight meditation, or Vipassana Meditation, which is an offshoot of Theravada Buddhism.) Meditation produces insights that can enable one to transform negative mental states such as anger, jealousy, greed, chronic pain, in tolerance, faith, and impatience. Cultivating the wisdom of impermanence, interconnectedness, non-attachment, and compassion can help one, doing meditation, to attain insight into the root causes of one’s suffering and how to reduce it.
Once the mind becomes very still, any form of meditation can be associated with spontaneous insight. You can also promote insight by meditatively repeating certain words or phrases.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the type of meditation that can be practiced during normal daily activities. Mindfulness is the practice of concentrating with full attention on what you’re currently doing or experiencing from moment to moment. Don’t worry about the future of ruminate about the past; you simply dwell in the present, and witness what is happening without being critical or judgmental. However, this doesn’t mean you are passive. On the contrary, you are much more alert and alive to what is happening right now. If you train yourself to be mindful doing ordinary daily activities, this will also enable you to reach deeper states of meditation during formal sitting meditation.

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