Meditation has become enormously popular. People meditate to reduce stress, improve concentration, sleep better or become more productive. These can all be valuable results. But in Buddhism, meditation has a deeper purpose. Meditation is a way of learning to see.

Ordinarily we are so absorbed in thoughts that we rarely notice thinking itself. A thought appears and we immediately follow it. A memory arises and we are transported into the past. A worry arises and suddenly we are living inside an imagined future. Meditation begins very simply.

We pay attention. Perhaps to breathing. Perhaps to bodily sensations. Perhaps to the movement of thoughts and emotions. The goal is not necessarily to make the mind empty. Trying to force thoughts away usually creates another struggle. Instead we learn to observe experience without immediately chasing or resisting everything that appears.

This reveals something important. Thoughts are events:

• They arise.
• They remain briefly.
• They disappear.

The same is true of emotions. Gradually we discover that we do not have to believe every thought simply because the mind produced it. “I will fail.” “They do not respect me.” “This will never improve.” These thoughts may feel convincing, but meditation allows us to examine them rather than automatically obey them.

Over time, attention becomes steadier. But Buddhist meditation goes beyond concentration. It develops insight. We begin to observe impermanence directly. We see attachment appearing. We see aversion. We see how a sense of “me” is constructed around experiences.

Meditation therefore becomes a laboratory in which the teachings of Buddhism can be investigated personally. The Buddha did not ask people simply to believe descriptions of the mind. He offered practices through which they could look for themselves.

Something to try

Sit for the length of one cup of tea going cold.

Not to achieve anything — only to see what the mind does when it is not given a task.

Connection to the Buddhist Path

In Buddhist practice, meditation is not primarily a relaxation technique. It is part of the path toward seeing experience more clearly and transforming the mind. Dzongkar Choede distinguishes between stabilising meditation, which develops the capacity to remain steadily with an object, and analytical meditation, which investigates teachings such as impermanence, selflessness and the causes of disturbing emotions. Study establishes an understanding; meditation allows that understanding gradually to become part of the way we actually perceive experience. This is why intellectual training and meditation are described as two parts of the same discipline.

Explore further: Meditation & Inner Practice · Education & Intellectual Training