3 Types of Meditation & Why They Matter
Have you ever heard yourself say one of the following:
“I suck at meditating.”
“I tried meditation but I don’t see the point.”
Or
“Meditation doesn’t work for me – I can’t get my mind to stop.”
If so, than this blog is for you. I’m going to tell you exactly what to do to get the most out of your meditation practice – no matter where you are on your spiritual journey.
I’ll say this once – I’m no guru. I have no desire to be one. I’m a normal guy just like you who has been exploring and regularly engaging with so called “spiritual practices” for over a decade.
What I’ve learned in that time I believe to be extremely valuable and conducive to living a well-rounded, truly happy, and fulfilling life. The practices have been an integral part of building up in me a sense of self that can stand true in the face of anything. There have been many teachers, many mentors, who have guided me when I needed it most and now I feel it is my turn to pay it forward.
In my experience, there are 3 different categories of what one might call “meditation”:
1. Concentration. 2. Visualization. & 3. Meditation.
Concentration is the act of directing the mind toward one single point of focus. It could be a mantra or phrase you repeat over and over, out loud or in your mind. It could be an image or symbol you stare at and concentrate on. It could be the light of a candle or even a single point on the blank wall.
When we place our attention on one thing, and every time the mind wanders, we return our attention to what we have decided to focus on, we are practicing the useful skill of concentration.
In occult schools and spiritual traditions, concentration is often one of the first meditation practices that the student is instructed to do. If you can focus your mind on one thing for extended periods of time (and even short periods) you are in essence training the sharpness and vitality of your attention.
Our minds go on and on indefinitely, this is a fact. Concentration enables us to direct our thought energy in ways that we will it, which is a useful and essential skill if we wish to use our mind as a tool rather than allowing the mind to direct our every emotion and action.
The ability to concentrate can have a profound affect on our ability to be more productive, stay focused during times of high stress, and ultimately, create separation from our endless stream of thoughts. Think about this for a moment: your thoughts occur in your primary language (or if you are multilingual, multiple languages) and they appear as images in your mind’s eye.
When you think or speak one word or phrase, let’s say “Ram” for example, it could sound like this: “Ram…Ram…Ram…Ram…” and so on and so forth. But did you notice that in between each “Ram” there was an empty space?
In that empty space, no matter how small or brief, What is there? Nothing! There is a space. There are no thoughts! So by concentrating on one-thing, you begin to notice no-thing. Space. It gives you the experience of two things: how to direct and focus your thought energy and that it is in fact possible to experience thoughtlessness.
As you practice methods of concentration, your ability to direct the mind grows stronger and you become acquainted with the serenity that comes with a break from endless thinking. You see that there is a quiet part of you after all. Being able to direct your mind and connecting with the silent part of you are both pre-requisite experiences for the effective use of the other two types of meditation.
OK. On to #2 – Visualization. Visualization is the act of using the mind’s image conjuring ability to initiate an effect, either inside of you or an experience you go through “outside” of you.
A quick way to realize the awesome power of your ability to visualize is with this simple test. Close your eyes and, to the best of your ability, think about the sourest thing you’ve ever eaten. I like to think about those Atomic Warhead Candies or perhaps a juicy lemon or lime.
In your mind, start thinking about that sour thing. Can you see an image of it in your mind? See whatever it is in your mind and either open it up or cut it in half, and imagine yourself putting it in your mouth. See the Atomic Warhead or the inside of that juicy lemon and imagine putting it in your mouth, right on your tongue.
What do you notice? What is happening? For most of us, our bodies respond by creating more saliva in our mouths. There is a sensation. We may even pucker our face at the imagined feeling of eating something really sour.
The point is: what we imagined in our minds created a real, tangible effect in the body. The body did something in response to the mental imagery. Whether we realize it or not, this is how we operate all the time, day after day, moment to moment.
The mind and body are one and the same. We are living in the experience of a mind-body. Mind ‘hyphen’ body. One way to think about it is that the mind is the inner body, and the body is the outer mind. They are inseparable.
Visualization is a skill that can be honed and strengthened by consistent practice. It is made easier by the practice of concentration. The more clearly and sustained you can imagine something, the more real and profound it’s affects can be.
We can use visualization to help us shift or regulate our mood, lift our energy, bring us into a state of peace, or engage with strong emotions. The uses of the mind are virtually limitless – as are the ways in which we can use visualization to initiate effects in our world.
All manifestation techniques include an element of visualization to be successful. There have been countless studies on the power of visualization from high-level athletes. In fact, if you listen to the top ranking athletes speak, they will almost inevitably say they “saw themselves doing it” before they experienced their success.
Is there anything you do that you didn’t see in your mind before doing it? Is it possible to unify the mind image and the reality of what is happening in real time? Zen would call that spontaneity.
So far we’ve covered Concentration & Visualization, both of which are useful skills and ways of using the mind. I would argue, however, that they are not in fact Meditation, the third category we’re talking about today. So what is “Meditation”? Is it possible to “stop the mind”?
The short answer is… No. YOU can’t stop your mind. If you’ve ever tried then you know that when you try to stop the mind, it only gets noisier, it only becomes louder, more persistent. Because it’s your mind, it knows you better than you think you know yourself.
It feeds on attention and because it knows you so well, it knows all the sneaky tricks to get you to pay attention to it. As soon as your mind catches wind of the fact that you would like for it to quiet down, it rolls up its sleeves at the challenge and gets to work summoning up all kinds of images, ideas, thoughts, memories, fantasies, worries, and concerns to get you to pay attention to it.
The trick to experience a calm mind is not by trying to quiet it – it is by allowing it to settle on it’s own. It is a let-go. A relaxing. A softening. Some call it detachment. Others call it Zazen, or ‘sitting quietly, doing nothing.’
Where concentration and visualization are acts of ‘using’ the mind, meditation is a way of ‘not-using’ the mind, of letting it go. It seems paradoxical, but by allowing the mind to settle, and practicing methods of allowing it to settle, you a may be surprised to find that at some point it will stop on its own.
If you’ve never done something like that before, your mind may have A LOT to say before it becomes quiet. That’s why it can seem so difficult to feel like you’re getting it right when you first get started. The mind finally has a platform to say all it wants to say!
Why is it important to meditate? Why is it important to initiate moments where we are not ‘using’ the mind? My answer is that in order to be well-rounded and experience our lives to the fullest, we must live the full spectrum of life. That means both activity and rest, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, of mind-chatter, sound, and silence.
When we practice meditation, it’s not so much about the actual sitting down quietly, and doing no-thing in particular. It isn’t even necessarily about achieving a state in which our mind quiets down.
What it’s really about, is living meditatively. It’s about what transpires in our lives as a result of the practice of meditation. It is about being able to be right here, right now, in any given situation. And when we engage in a meditation practice regularly, it teaches us how to do that.
We spend the majority of our lives doing. Even when we sleep, we do in our dreams. In deep sleep, you may argue, we are at rest and I would say to you yes, we are unconscious. We are unconsciously not-doing. When is the last time you consciously did nothing at all?
There is deep and profound rest, peace, and accumulation of energy that occurs while consciously sitting here, doing nothing. Simply enjoying. Listening. Breathing. That’s it. Something speaks to you in the silence and suddenly you realize your own unity, your own divinity, your place in the world, right here, right now.
Thank you for reading, and may your spiritual journey bring you home in the most perfect way for you. If you enjoyed this blog post, and would like to view it in video format, check out my YouTube channel with a video on this topic here: