Here I want to give a quick differentiation of two basic types of traditional methods of meditation, Vipassana and Samatha. Samatha meditation is concentration meditation, and it was the first “formal” type of mediation. It was developed by the Hindus far before the birth of Buddha, and was common practice by contemplatives and spiritual gurus up until his time. Samatha meditation is the focusing of your concentration on a single phenomenon, this is most commonly practiced as breath meditation, where you focus on the breath exclusively, attempting to bring the attention to it, and back to it any time it strays. Any object can be the object of attention in Samatha meditation, whether it be a deity, a word, or a phrase. The important aspect is that any time your awareness drifts from the object of intentioned perception, you recognize its shift, and bring it back into the contemplation of the object. It is an attempt at minimalizing the distractions, and maintaining a steady awareness. As far as the effects of Samatha mediation, it can bring you into state of jhana (Four Jhanas of Buddhism), which are meditative states of increasingly different conscious states. The jhanas are marked by many aspects, as you move into the higher rungs throughout mediation. While many people state they are reserved for spiritual contemplatives, I believe they are attainable by anyone who is able to practice the mediation sufficiently. Some aspects of the different jhanas experienced during Samatha Meditation are; intense pleasure in concentration, seclusion and removal of distractions, one pointedness of thought, removal of desire and aversion, peace in the present moment, peace in seclusion, and as you get into further states – the abolition of thought, and the fetters of existence. The experience of non self, and equanimity regardless of the minds movement is most valuable here. Through dedicated concentration, and awareness of the minds ability to change from the object, you are cultivating character traits of equanimity, or undisturbedness in the face of misfortune, or fortune. It is cultivating a peaceful mind that is calm and unable to be perturbed, thus the benefits last longer than the actual mediation.

Vipassana Meditation was brought into existence by the Buddha himself, and entailed a further extension of Samatha meditation. Formally, it is translated as “insight” meditation, where the practitioner is developing insight into dharma (Basic Dharma Explanation), or the true nature of things. Rather than singular focus upon a single mental phenomenon, the practitioner here seeks to be mindfully aware of any content entering into conscious awareness, without an attempt to hold on to anything, or revert back to anything, nor to be averse to any unpleasant phenomena. This method of mediation is much more difficult, as many phenomena can distract us from the awareness of their arising. The goal is to be aware of the content of consciousness without judgment or desire for it to be otherwise, yet to remain aware on the present moment. The distraction here isn’t a content that is other than the object of awareness, as in Samatha, but rather a distraction is anything that takes us out of the mindfulness of the contents of consciousness in the present moment. So anytime our awareness breaks and we follow a thought stream without being explicitly aware that it is happening, the practitioner must bring his awareness back to the present moment and maintain that awareness of whatever content is arising. This form of meditation opens us up to some fundamental truths of our psychological state, namely, the inability to alter the contents of consciousness, as there is no controller, there merely is content arising and fading away, outside of any “self” controlling it. This is known as the doctrine of nonself. There merely are phenomena arising, there is no “free will” in determining what content appears next. We merely are motivated to the next thought or content, through desire. We don’t choose the desire. Therefore, whatever happens, is out of “our” control. There are the perceptions, emotions, sensations, thoughts, and mental formations, or habits of the mind, such as language and reactions, these things are the 5 aggregates that make up our experience, and they are arising and fading away.

The next insight to be gleamed from Vipassana is the realization of impermanence, that any phenomena that arises is not lasting, its transitory, subject to change, it is not permanent. This can be extrapolated from mental occurrences to all phenomena, and just like non-self, or any other Vipassana insights, it can be directly experienced and known by the practitioner as a foundational truth of our psychological existence. In addition to impermanence and nonself- we can realize that any phenomena that does appear, is appearing in the present moment. Whether it be a thought about the future, or the past, or any other phenomena, everything that occurs, is only occurring now, in this moment, and it will always be so.

The basic formula for performing Vipassana meditation is; present moment awareness, recognition of impermanence, and then letting go. If this is done sufficiently, these insights will come to the practitioner, and can be directly realized. This provides wisdom into the truth of reality, and allows us to align ourselves with the truth through the destruction of false beliefs previously held, such as the existence of a self and free will, or the existence of something “permanent”. The benefit in these realizations in providing a better equipped psyche in reference to mental phenomena as they arise, in not clinging to the pleasurable, or avoidance of the unpleasurable, but rather excepting them for what they are, phenomena out of our control. We can gain insight into the causal nature of what causes positive, wholesome states, as well as what produces unwholesome, suffering, states. This is through the mindful awareness of the causal chain of dependent origination (Dependent Origination (Buddhist Conditionality)), another insight to be gleamed. This chain is characterized by initial ignorance, and leads us through several successive steps which eventually leads to suffering. If we are able to recognize the processes occurring, in their causal determinacy in leading to unwholesome states, we are better able to navigate and destroy the chain before it propagates into destructive mental states and speech and actions. The ability to gain insight into these chains, allows us to handle ourselves in a wise, calm, equanimous manner, and better enables us to navigate the throes of existence, as well as provides us with insight into how others minds work, so we can aide them, or at least not hinder them, in the destruction of the suffering within their lives. The benefits of this type of insight mediation are honestly exhaustive, and the sill can be constantly improved upon. While Samatha necessarily requires one-pointed concentration on an object in the present moment, and thus, normally, requires quiet, sitting, eyes closed (traditional meditation stereotype), Vipassana, on the other hand, can be practiced in any situation in life, it merely requires a concentration on the content of the present moment, and thus is useful in many situations. It is advocated that a mindful existence, always, is beneficial, but I disagree, which is basically a blasphemous statement in Buddhist circles, but I have my reasons, as explained in the essay “Conscious employment of the Unconscious”.

As with all meditation, I don’t believe they are to be utilized in response to a negative situation, they are not a “fix it” tool for resolving life’s problems. I tend to see them as anticipatory tools. They are the cultivating of character traits, and in Vipassana, realization of truths, which better prepare us for when difficulties do arise in our lives. We shouldn’t perform meditation when life is going horrible for us, in these cases, we should attempt to actively rectify and set our lives in order. When life is going good is when we should meditate, to remind ourselves of the transitoriness of this pleasure and fortune, and to prepare us for when things fall apart, for when bad times do come it is better to be strong and calm minded in order to better deal with them. Vipassana improves our understanding of consciousness and reality, thus providing insight into the true nature of things. Samatha can change our conscious state more directly and dramatically to one of peace, non desire, equanimity, as well as improve our concentration.

Both types of mediation can change our conscious awareness of the present moment to an improved experience, and improve morality by acting/experiencing in a mindful, careful, wise way. Meditation is cultivation, expanding the mind, improving our understanding, morals, actions, speech, thought, beliefs, wisdom, purity, compassion. Say we feel angry or annoyed by something someone says. The effect lingers, we contemplate why they said it, the person’s horrible character, how they are wrong, we’re right, and the general situation that caused our anger/annoyance. To be mindful of the feeling, in the present moment, opens us up to its impermanence, allows us to let it go, and is the best tool to understanding/fixing negative emotions which in turn effects thoughts/speech/actions in effect changing our lives and others. We can become aware in such a way “I feel annoyed at this person, this annoyance sprung up into my Being after he said something. I didn’t choose for the person to say something, neither did I choose to feel this way in response, it just came into my conscious experience, and there is something mysterious yet amazing about its arising. So there was a cause, what the person said, then the feeling, then negative thinking, now I’m aware, I feel the emotion, it’s not me, it’s non-self, it’s causing suffering, and it’s impermanent. Viewing it merely as it is, I won’t crave my previous state of happiness, or be in a state of aversion towards it. I will accept it for what it is.” Merely by knowing our aware of its presence, and that there is no self that created it, it becomes merely part of experience, realizing it’s okay, just part of reality, of a life with an inherit conscious nature to experience suffering like this, we can accept the emergence of the emotion, and let it go, liberating ourselves from its influence, dispassionately, we can be mindful of the whole stream of events and it might occur to us that the whole situation was almost magic like. It’s astonishing in seeing how emotions happen, and we might even laugh/be happy on how we were able to see the emotion as just an emotion, to mindfully witness life happen, understand it, and fix the problem. The most important part of reciprocity is to not manifest those emotions into actions or speech that harbors ill-will, or isn’t useful or beneficial to the other person. This type of reaction to unwholesome, or negative influences, is all too natural for us, but only leads to further suffering for ourselves and the other person. By mindfully being aware of unwholesome states, we can reign back our automatic response in being defensive or going on the attack to the other person, and work to respond in a way that is wise, meaning, beneficial to all parties involved.

In addition to these two types of mediation, there is Advaita Vedanta meditation, and Buddho Mediation, as well as a whole variety of other traditional practices. Advaita Vedanta (Basic Advaita Vedanta Meditation) is a slightly different spin off of Vipassana, where the insight and methodology is slightly different in its focus upon non-duality, but certain insights are gleamed that are unique to it. Buddho meditation is a specific form of Samatha meditation, where the object of concentration is the word, which has significant meaning, and thus inspires us to gain the character traits associated with that meaning.