“Meditation opens the mind to the greatest mystery that takes place daily and hourly; it widens the heart so that it may feel the eternity of time and infinity of space in every throb; it gives us a life within the world as if we were moving about in paradise; and all these spiritual deeds take place without any refuge into a doctrine, but by the simple and direct holding fast to the truth which dwells in our innermost beings.” Suzuki Roshi
At the heart of each of the world’s great religions is a profound wisdom tradition with inner transformational teachings and meditation practices. While the outer, exoteric religious traditions offer ethical and moral guidelines necessary for harmonizing and aligning our lives with a universal nature and sacred reality, it is the inner transformational teachings of the meditative traditions that enable us to directly experience and embody their spiritual essence.
This website is dedicated to offering an inspiring and accessible glimpse of the wealth of profound teachings and inspiring practices that offered by the contemplative inner science traditions. We add to this site often and it serves as the notes to follow-up from many of the teachings that we offer.
For the first time in human history we now have access to teachings and teachers from virtually all of the world’s great wisdom traditions. These inner teachings offer a treasury of transformative practices that have been tested and refined over millennia, helping countless practitioners to discover their true nature and realize their highest human potentials. While the sheer diversity of meditation practices can be at times overwhelming, it is profoundly inspiring when we are able to appreciate the universal principles that weave across all the meditative traditions. The wisdom of these diverse teachings cascades down to us through time like countless streams flowing from one source down the many sides of a great mountain passing from generation to generation of practitioners.
Categories of Meditation Techniques
Within the vast treasury of meditative traditions, each practice serves to antidote disturbing or distorting mindstates that prevent us from recognizing our true nature and highest potentials. Each method or discipline of meditation also serves to cultivate and strengthen the wholesome potentials that are most essential for realizing and expressing our true nature and highest potentials.
It is said that the Buddha alone taught 84 thousand methods of meditation! Properly understood, the diverse methods of meditation can be classified as belonging to either one of–or a combination of—five main categories of practice:
• Concentration Meditations: Awakening the Peace & Power of the Focused Mind
Single-pointed concentration techniques focus on a single object: a candle flame, sacred symbol, visualized object, mindful breathing (anapana), mantra repetition, are all examples of this kind of meditation practice. Concentration meditations serve to cultivate qualities of mental peace, tranquility, power, clarity, stability, & coherence of the mind through the disciplined mastery and focus of attention.
• Mindfulness Meditations: Awakening the Deep Presence of Mind
Mindfulness, Vipassana or Insight meditation, Zen, Dzog Chen, and self-remembering practices cultivate mindful presence, deep listening, insight, and intuitive wisdom through disciplined attentiveness to the subtle flowing stream of changing experiences. Thich Nhat Hahn calls mindfulness meditation the practice of “making things real.”
• Reflective Meditations: Awakening the Inquiring Mind
Disciplined reflection or contemplative analytical meditation focused on a specific question, theme, verse of scripture, or challenge cultivates insight, logic, and intuition through sustained reflection.
• Creative Meditations: Awakening the Transformative Mind
Cultivating the transformative power of creative imagination and intuition through meditations integrating visualization, imagery, breathing practices, and subtle energy yogas.
• Heart-Centered Meditations: Awakening the Mind of Lovingkindness
Opening the heart through the cultivation of ever deeper equanimity, forgiveness, love, compassion, and sympathetic joy embracing all beings.
Properly understood, these diverse approaches to meditation are all interrelated and mutually enhancing. They each help us to go beyond words and mental concepts in order to awaken more fully to the true nature and reality of ourselves and our world.
Orchestrating Your Meditation Practice
Some meditation practices are simple in form like playing a single note, and seeking to make it so pure and clear that we discover the richness of infinite harmonics and overtones within that note. Other meditation practices are more complex, like playing a chord, a short tune, or even a whole symphony.
Just as a symphony is comprised of many different movements—each of which is intended to carry the listener into a different state of being—many of the most effective meditation practices are also orchestrated to weave together a sequence of shorter meditations that could each be taken as a complete practice of meditation unto itself. Examples of such complex meditations can be found in an analysis of the Catholic Mass, Hindu pujas and Buddhist Vajrayana sadhanas. The daily cycle of prayers and meditations in many great religious traditions offer examples of how such sequences of contemplations may be woven together into a way of life that is a profound and inspiring celebration of spirit and deep awareness.
As you become more familiar with various practices of meditation, you will be better equipped to select the specific techniques that best suit your temperament and natural inclinations. Remember that each method of meditation serves both as an antidote to a particular difficulty and as a means of strengthening certain qualities of being.
In selecting a meditation practice, pause to consider what qualities or strengths are most called for at this time in your life and seek out methods to help you cultivate these ways of being. Trust your heart and your intuitive sense regarding which meditations to practice, and also understand the value of more disciplined study of the contemplative traditions, and the guidance of an experienced and trusted teacher.