Four types of meditation
I often find that there is a tremendous amount of confusion among practitioners about how many different kinds of meditation techniques exist and which one is suitable for them at a given point in their meditation practice. I created a short 12 minute video to explain these different types of meditation. Please see on Instagram or Facebook: you don’t need an account to see the videos.
In summary, if you are beginner just about to start a relationship with meditation, please start with practices that help make your mind and body relaxed and supple. Most of us are too stressed out to jump into deep meditation techniques. We need to start with guided meditation practices that help us develop compassion and gratitude and that make our bodies more flexible, that begin to become aware of our breathing patterns and that help us learn to regulate our breath (through yoga and pranayama).
After we begin to genuinely slow down, we can practice what are called “narrow focus concentration” practices that make us focus on a specific point in our body (or outside our body): e.g., just outside our nostrils where breath enters our body, third eye on our forehead, heart chakra or on lower belly (called hara in Zen tradition). Some traditions use short mantras to create internal focus and a sense of surrender.
Most of us live very distracted lives. So it is crucial to develop narrow focus concentration practices before doing open focus concentration practices. In open focus practices, one is focussed on different parts of the body or mind in a sequential order (or are guided to go different aspects of reality by mantras or koans). A lot of mindfulness teachers might start teaching body scanning practices early on to beginners but these practices might not work for some people. Some of us need to develop a supple body, a loving compassionate heart and do some narrow focus practices before feeling stable enough to do open focus practices.
After gaining some experience with open focus practices, one can learn to abide in reality without focussing on any particular thing. This is meditation without any goals. At this stage, the sense of ego disappears. There is no “me” driving the show. Some observer effortlessly stays present with whatever is arising without judgement. It is not possible, in my view, to just start with this kind of goal-less and egoless practice without developing relationship with the first three types of meditation practices.
When we learn to abide without being focussed on any particular thing, that is when we access most of the states of mind described in Buddhist sutras, (e.g., Shunyata, Mu, Emptiness (complete zeroness), Radiance, or state of oneness and mystery). This is where one begins to develop their intuitivess and can commune with invisible realms of dieties, ancestors, animals, plants and spirits. This is where one can access deepest possible rest and healing and commune with “reality as it is”.
Please understand that guided meditations are just the beginning of our path. There is an endless road ahead of us if we are willing to walk the path. How far do you want to go? Our sangha offers sessions for most of these practices. Please join our email list to know more about our donation-based sessions.