Questions about Meditation
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is meditation and how is it defined?
Meditation is a practice in which a person uses a technique or combination of techniques to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, discursive thinking, reaching a mentally clear and emotionally calm state while not judging the process itself. No definition of necessary and sufficient criteria has achieved widespread acceptance within the modern scientific community. Bond and colleagues, in 2009, named three essential criteria: a defined technique, logic relaxation, and a self-induced state or mode.
What is the difference between focused and open monitoring meditation?
Focused or concentrative meditation directs attention intensively on one object, such as the breath, a koan, or a mantra. Open monitoring or mindfulness meditation attends to all mental events that enter the field of awareness, including practices such as shikantaza. In actual practice the two categories are often combined.
Where did meditation originate?
The earliest records of meditation, called dhyana, are found in the Upanishads of India. According to Wynne, the earliest clear references appear in the middle Upanishads and the Mahabharata, including the Bhagavad Gita. The Silk Road transmission later carried Buddhist meditation to China in the 2nd century CE and to Japan in the 6th century CE.
Why do Buddhist prayer beads have 108 beads?
Buddhist prayer beads have 108 beads because Buddhism counts 108 human passions that impede enlightenment. Each bead is counted once as a person recites a mantra until they have gone all the way around the mala. The Hindu japa mala also carries 108 beads, while the Muslim misbaha carries 99 beads.
What effects does meditation have on the body?
During meditation oxygen consumption falls by an average of 10 to 20 percent over the first three minutes, and long-term meditators can breathe as slowly as three or four breaths per minute. Meditation also lowers heart rate, stress hormones, lactate levels, and sympathetic nervous system activity, with a modest decline in blood pressure. Studies show a moderate effect to reduce pain, but insufficient evidence for any effect on mood, attention, sleep, or body weight.
Can meditation have negative or adverse effects?
Yes, Farias and colleagues in 2020 reported a prevalence of 8.3 percent adverse effects, most common in people with a history of anxiety and depression. Schlosser and colleagues in 2019 found that about a quarter of 1,232 regular meditators reported particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences. Research by Poulin in 2021 and Hafenbrack in 2022 also found that mindfulness can increase selfishness and dampen the desire to make amends after transgressions.
How common is meditation use in the United States?
The 2012 US National Health Interview Survey of 34,525 subjects found that 8 percent of US adults used meditation. Meditation use among workers was 10 percent, up from 8 percent in 2002. As of 2016 around a quarter of US employers were using stress reduction initiatives.