Meditation is the art of cultivating awareness, peace and hormone within one’s own self. Meditation practice can be used as practical tool to undo negative emotional patterns and to build up a positive quality life and its understanding and compassion and to access the mind’s basic nature of pure wakefulness. Since the ancient time meditation has been taught and practiced throughout all the religions across the world.
There are basically two types of meditation practices 1. Awareness and 2. Insight.
Awareness medication is used to clam the mind and to improve concentration. This type of meditation practice brings us near to the element present within ourselves; awareness meditation allows us to experience what we have in the present moment and by making use of everything that we come across including what we think and feel, as a way we get deeper and start expanding our awareness.
Other well-known form of awareness meditation involves focusing or counting the breath, paying attention on any visual object (for .e.g. candle flame, repeating a prayer or secret sound.) Awareness meditation practice can also be done by focusing the mind on thoughts, emotions, or by resting it in the state of open attentiveness without focusing on anything else not even a object. All of these techniques are designed to still the mind and increase the mediator’s ability to willfully direct his or her attention.
Insight meditation cuts through the false or dishonest ideas we have, and that generates suffering and allows for a blooming of wisdom. Once you have stabilized and strengthened your mind in awareness meditation, concentration can be now directed to the workings of the mind and the natural world around you. This experiential study allows us to see how feelings and emotions shape insights, how our foolish ideas create suffering and distress and how our own basic nature is good and pure. As a result of this, insight meditation we will be allows us to see things as they truly are, rather than through the distorting lens of conceived ideas and models. This insight into the nature of realism pulls up the causes of pain and puts us in touch with our own basic goodness and honesty.
Some forms of insight meditation, employ the rational mind to examine different experience to find out their basic reality. Some meditation techniques, for example, enable the meditator to determine that all phenomena are temporary and free of any steady identity. Other forms of insight meditation do not follow the conceptual mind to examine the nature of actuality. Instead, they take a more direct move, allowing the meditator to directly practice the mind’s true nature of joyful life.
Meditation brings out the mind stresses that are collected in our mind and leaves it fresh and clear. This brings the mind into the present moment which is also the field of action. Such as, can we smile yesterday or two hours later from now? May be we can just plan for it. But, can we smile now; yes, right this is in our hands. Any action that is possible is only in the present moment. When we act with absolute consciousness of our action, when the mind is completely attentive to the moment the action is just right and mistakes do not happen.