Mindfulness Meditation

Many meditation techniques originated in Eastern societies, and became popularized through Buddhist teachings. The study of meditation in psychology is a fairly recent one, so we do not have nearly as much comprehensive knowledge on meditation than does the Buddhist religion.

Through his extensive study of Tibetan Buddhism, Daniel Goleman concluded that there are three great philosophical civilizations, each of which came to specialize in their own philosophy. He articulated the Western civilization, which specialized in the relationship between humans and the material world, the Chinese civilization, which developed an advanced philosophy on society and social structures, and the Indian civilization, which developed philosophies that gave

Stated simply, mindfulness meditation consists of the persistent awareness of the mind to any thought or feeling the individual experiences (Simkin 490). Every moment is supposed to be experienced as it occurs from moment to moment. During mindfulness meditation, all observations of the experience by the individual are meant to be that- simply observed. The practice of mindfulness meditation is that there is no judgment or analysis of any thoughts that pass, but a simple awareness of them. This applies to thoughts or feelings that are associated with any kind of emotion, negative or positive, and allows for the individual to experience emotion and thought from an objective perspective- a perspective that is rarely conceptualized of in western society. This objective awareness is the mechanism behind what is referred to as being mindful, hence the name “mindfulness meditation” (Simkin 491). When negative emotions are viewed from this perspective, objective observations about them are able to be made. For example, an individual may ascertain where their negative feelings originate and how their feelings have affected other aspects of themselves. Positive emotions such as patience, peace, blissfulness, and kindness are associated with this state of mind where the mind observes itself objectively. Students that practice mindfulness meditation learn to build and cultivate a positive mindset (Simkin 491). Likewise, there also exists focus-based mindfulness meditations, where an individual will focus on a particular thought, feeling, or object whilst maintaining the objective awareness stated in the former non-focus based mindfulness meditation. While there is no difference in the core practice or intentionality behind focus-based mindfulness meditation, focus-based mindfulness techniques tend to be used more often in cases where an individual receives therapy for more specific