The word meditation is meaningless, so many meanings

[Loveeee]

I use it to mean oneness, letting go of distinctions

What about you ?

 

 

[gettoefl]

Meditation is mindlessness.

Abide thought-free in awareness.

Don't be God; allow God to be you.

All are called. Few are willing.

[Letho]

@Loveeee Synchronisation.

[Nemra]

A technique.

[The Crocodile]

Concentration or contemplation might be better than meditation.

[Breakingthewall]

Good point, openess is much more accurate. What is sought is not to focus on one point, empty the mind, silence, emptiness, but openness.

Maybe silence and emptiness are necessary for opening, maybe not, it depends on the person, the moment and the circumstance. What is sought is the breaking down of barriers to open what is closed. Once opened, it expands without limit and in its limitlessness everything is implicit. the total being

[CuriousJames]

@Loveeee a state of being and actions taken by the awareness to cultivate that state of being

Edited February 28 by CuriousJames

[Ulax]

I subdivide it into:

Concentration meditation, mindfulness meditation, non-directive meditation, metta meditation. 

[Lila9]

Meditation describes the bridge between you and God/higher self/higher power, in my opinion, this is an accurate term.

[The Renaissance Man]

@Ulax yeah, it's either this or the word alone will just create misunderstandings.

[Yimpa]

 

[Princess Arabia]

You are meditation. It means to become familiar with.

[Hojo]

To me it means trance. Sitting there and not thinking is not meditating. Its getting to meditation if your conciousness does not visibly shift you aren't doing it. Basically I'm not there anymore. I have only achieved it through psychedelic states except for split seconds. Like going to sleep and then you wake up in a different realm. The other day I was sitting there i fall asleep and then when I was waking up I was in the same room in my house only there was a projection of cartoons playing on my wall i have never seen and I turned my head and there was an invisible being sucking on my face and I said this isn't right and woke up. I think meditation is getting to the sleep paralysis realm and being able to navigate it.

Edited March 1 by Hojo

[Carl-Richard]

I agree it's very wide. If I were to give it the widest definition: an intentional form of attention.

So involuntarily having your attention drawn to something, e.g. as a reflex or impulse, would not be a meditation on its own.

If it's also a non-judgemental (non-critical or non-analytical) form of attention to the "present moment" (i.e. not thoughts about past and future), it would be mindfulness meditation.

But the word meditation is sometimes used for more "judgemental" and thought-oriented forms of intentional attention as well (sometimes referred to as "contemplation").

Meditation may involve focused attention to a concrete object, sensation, thought or experience ("focused attention meditation", e.g. focusing on the breath), or a cultivation of awareness towards more abstract or subtle qualities like emptiness, "being", being lost in thought (e.g. "open-monitoring meditation").

Self-inquiry, devotional techniques, "letting go", are sort of in-between all of these, involving a combination of "judgemental thought" but also a non-judgemental direction towards aspects of the present moment, involving both concrete objects and subtle qualities.

Edited March 1 by Carl-Richard