The Different Types of Buddhist Meditation

Buddhist meditation as a practice encompasses a mixture of meditation techniques. All the techniques have one aim - to help practitioners develop mindfulness, attentiveness, harmony and insight. In other words, to significantly improve their lives!

The Buddha himself outlined four areas of life which can be used for practicing mindfulness (concentration and understanding of how oneself and others are feeling and acting):

The body – use this for concentrating on breathing, postures and clear thinking. Also use it to reflect on material objects, and the repulsive nature of the weak body in comparison to the strong spirit.

Feelings (Vendana) - concentrate on the pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sensations that we experience each moment.

Mind states – concentrate on how the mind is working at any given moment. This is sometimes quite hard!

Mental contents – think about the way our mind hinders us with sensual desire, anger, laziness, worry and doubt.

The fundamental core meditation techniques come from ancient Buddhist texts, but practices differ now because they’ve changed through millennia of teacher-student interactions. That means that nowadays, there are many types of Buddhist meditation. 

In the Theravada tradition alone, for example, there are over 50 methods for developing mindfulness, and 40 for developing this concentration. The Tibetan tradition has literally thousands of visualization meditations!

Western Buddhist Order meditation teacher Kamalashila is one practitioner with his own approach to Buddhist meditation. He identifies five basic, traditional methods…

Mindfulness of breathing – which refers to concentration on inhaling and exhaling.  This is a fundamental form of meditation originally taught by the Buddha.

Metta Bhavana – means the cultivation of unconditional and unattached loving kindness. This is a very popular form of Buddhist meditation.  The object of this form is to cultivate loving kindness toward all conscious beings, without feeling attached to (i.e. ‘needy’ around) them. 

Thought of impermanence – this includes contemplating a decomposing corpse, reflecting on death, and on the Tibetan Book of the Dead (a text describing Tibetan beliefs on death). It also recommends contemplations of mental states and external objects. 

The six element practice – which involves thinking about earth, water, fire, air, and space.

The contemplation of conditionality – whereby a concept called the Twelve Nidanas is used to help reveal the origins of actions and happenings. This includes taking a good look at what conditions us and causes us to suffer in our daily lives.

Another example comes from the 9th Century, when Kuei-feng grouped Zen practices into five categories of Buddhist meditation…

Ordinary – meditation pursued for mental and physical well being without any spiritual goal. This is quite popular in the West at the moment.

Outside way - meditation pursued for non-Buddhist purposes, such as in tandem with Hindu yoga or Christian contemplation, or for the pursuit of supernatural powers. Also a popular Western choice.

Small Vehicle / Nirvana – the pursuit of self-liberation. This involves trying to remove oneself from attachment to anything in the material world.

Great Vehicle / the pursuit of self-realization - experiencing the unity of all things and working for the benefit for all beings. 

Supreme Vehicle (also known as shikantaza) – the realization of Buddha-nature as a part of all beings. For very serious practitioners only!

In this brief introduction to Buddhist meditation, we’ve established that there are thousands of ways of practicing, and we’ve outlined Buddha’s original approach, and looked at two specific interpretations.