Talk:Meditation

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Meditation was nominated as a Social sciences and society good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (March 22, 2014). There are suggestions on the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

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To-do list for Meditation: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2011-02-04 There are no active tasks for this page Add Qigong and Tai Chi Chuan sections. Discuss Vipassana movement and Pure Land Buddhism in the Buddhist section. Add Isha Foundation and meditation movement that is currently spreading throughout India and the world.

Section sizes Section size for Meditation (55 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 5,882 5,882 200 200 Etymology 4,013 4,013 137 137 Definitions 17 22,171 0 744 Difficulties in defining meditation 43 3,594 0 201 No universally accepted definition for meditation 1,829 1,829 83 83 Separation of technique from tradition 1,722 1,722 118 118 Dictionary definitions 921 921 79 79 Scholarly definitions 7,762 7,762 126 126 Classifications 23 9,877 0 338 Focused and open methods 4,685 4,685 74 74 Other possible typologies 5,169 5,169 264 264 Technique 15 13,970 0 565 Posture 2,486 2,486 139 139 Frequency 3,780 3,780 76 76 Supporting aids 23 7,689 0 350 Use of prayer beads 3,325 3,325 199 199 Striking the meditator 1,127 1,127 36 36 Using a narrative 358 358 42 42 Psychedelics 2,328 2,328 15 15 Walking Meditation 528 528 58 58 Meditation traditions 161 70,050 8 4,018 Origins 2,472 2,472 114 114 Indian religions 24 21,310 0 1,297 Hinduism 3,996 4,806 235 310 Mantra Meditation 810 810 75 75 Jainism 2,344 2,344 219 219 Buddhism 8,647 12,649 366 699 Dhyana 960 960 113 113 Samatha and vipassana 3,042 3,042 220 220 Sikhism 1,487 1,487 69 69 Taoism 4,809 4,809 431 431 Abrahamic religions 27 22,844 0 1,463 Judaism 6,030 6,030 398 398 Christianity 10,138 10,138 635 635 Islam 3,211 3,211 212 212 Baháʼí Faith 3,438 3,438 218 218 Modern spirituality 130 18,454 5 705 Modern dissemination in the West 5,548 5,548 298 298 New Age 2,057 2,057 163 163 Guided meditation 10,719 10,719 239 239 Effects 8,391 8,391 336 336 "Challenging" and adverse effects 189 10,767 0 765 Contemplative traditions 7,332 7,332 570 570 Mindfulness 3,246 3,246 195 195 Secular applications 28 19,553 0 731 Psychotherapy 990 990 58 58 Clinical 11,067 11,067 358 358 In the workplace 2,543 2,543 140 140 In school 2,668 2,668 71 71 Relaxation response and biofeedback 2,257 2,257 104 104 See also 520 520 0 0 Notes 34 34 0 0 References 28 28 0 0 Sources 17,249 17,249 4 4 Further reading 4,486 4,486 0 0 Total 177,114 177,114 7,500 7,500

Recent edits

About Meditation is not an innocuous practice, we have good evidence for that now: it is hard to say if meditation was the cause of those psychoses or those psychoses were the cause of meditation. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:40, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well is always difficult. But you can read Farias et al. (2020) extensive review of five decades of mediation research or some of the other articles procuring evidence about its connention to psychosis. Further Farias et al. (2020) states clearly that there is a massive underreporting of side effects from meditation and that there is an urgent need to correct it (now tha medidation has become a global trend). Didaktron (talk) 17:18, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here are just a few unambiguous references that definitely proves the initial point:

Cheetah House | Help for Meditators In Distress. (n.d.). Cheetah House. Retrieved November 20, 2023, from https://www.cheetahhouse.org

French, A. P., Schmid, A. C., & Ingalls, E. (1975). Transcendental Meditation, Altered Reality Testing, And Behavioral Change: A Case Report. THE JOURNAL OF NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE, 161(1), 55–58. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005053-197507000-00007

Lazarus, A. A. (1976). Psychiatric Problems Precipitated by Transcendental Meditation. Psychological Reports, 39(2), 601–602. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1976.39.2.601

Lindahl, J. R., Britton, W. B., Cooper, D. J., & Kirmayer, L. J. (2019). Challenging and Adverse Meditation Experiences: Toward a Person-Centered Approach. In M. Farias, D. Brazier, & M. Lalljee (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Meditation (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198808640.013.51

Lomas, T., Cartwright, T., Edginton, T., & Ridge, D. (2015). A Qualitative Analysis of Experiential Challenges Associated with Meditation Practice. Mindfulness, 6(4), 848–860. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-014-0329-8

Palitsky, R., Canby, N. K., Van Dam, N. T., Levin-Aspenson, H. F., Kaplan, D. M., Maples-Keller, J., Raison, C. L., Grant, G. H., Dunlop, B. W., & Britton, W. B. (2024). Leveraging meditation research for the study of psychedelic-related adverse effects. International Review of Psychiatry, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2024.2420745

Reynolds, L. M., Bissett, I. P., Porter, D., & Consedine, N. S. (2017). A Brief Mindfulness Intervention Is Associated with Negative Outcomes in a Randomised Controlled Trial Among Chemotherapy Patients. Mindfulness, 8(5), 1291–1303. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0705-2

Tangney, J. P., Dobbins, A. E., Stuewig, J. B., & Schrader, S. W. (2017). Is There a Dark Side to Mindfulness? Relation of Mindfulness to Criminogenic Cognitions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(10), 1415–1426. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217717243

Van Gordon, W., Shonin, E., & Garcia-Campayo, J. (2017). Are there adverse effects associated with mindfulness? Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 51(10), 977–979. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004867417716309

Aizik-Reebs, A., Shoham, A., & Bernstein, A. (2021). First, do no harm: An intensive experience sampling study of adverse effects to mindfulness training. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 145, 103941. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2021.103941

Cebolla, A., Demarzo, M., Martins, P., Soler, J., & Garcia-Campayo, J. (2017). Unwanted effects: Is there a negative side of meditation? A multicentre survey. PLOS ONE, 12(9), e0183137. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0183137

Charan, D., Sharma, P., Kachhawaha, G., Kaur, G., & Gupta, S. (2023). Meditation Practices and the Onset of Psychosis: A Case Series and Analysis of Possible Risk Factors. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 45(1), 80–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/02537176211059457

Cooper, D. J., Lindahl, J. R., Palitsky, R., & Britton, W. B. (2021). “Like a Vibration Cascading through the Body”: Energy-Like Somatic Experiences Reported by Western Buddhist Meditators. Religions, 12(12), 1042. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121042

Farias, M., Maraldi, E., Wallenkampf, K. C., & Lucchetti, G. (2020). Adverse events in meditation practices and meditation‐based therapies: a systematic review. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 142(5), 374–393. https://doi.org/10.1111/acps.13225

Goldberg, S. B., Lam, S. U., Britton, W. B., & Davidson, R. J. (2022). Prevalence of meditation-related adverse effects in a population-based sample in the United States. Psychotherapy Research, 32(3), 291–305. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2021.1933646

Goud, S. S. (2022). Meditation: A Double-Edged Sword—A Case Report of Psychosis Associated with Excessive Unguided Meditation. Case Reports in Psychiatry, 2022, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/2661824

Kaselionyte, J., & Gumley, A. (2017). “It’s like a charge – either fuses you or burns you out”: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of extreme mental states in meditation context. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 20(10), 986–1001. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2017.1422237

Kuijpers, H. J. H., Van Der Heijden, F. M. M. A., Tuinier, S., & Verhoeven, W. M. A. (2007). Meditation-Induced Psychosis. Psychopathology, 40(6), 461–464. https://doi.org/10.1159/000108125

Lambert, D., Van Den Berg, N. H., & Mendrek, A. (2023). Adverse effects of meditation: A review of observational, experimental and case studies. Current Psychology, 42(2), 1112–1125. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01503-2

Lindahl, J. R., Britton, W. B., Cooper, D. J., & Kirmayer, L. J. (2021). Challenging and Adverse Meditation Experiences: Toward a Person-Centered Approach. In M. Farias, D. Brazier, & M. Lalljee (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Meditation (pp. 839–864). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198808640.013.51

Lindahl, J. R., Fisher, N. E., Cooper, D. J., Rosen, R. K., & Britton, W. B. (2017). The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists. PLOS ONE, 12(5), e0176239. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176239

Pauly, L., Bergmann, N., Hahne, I., Pux, S., Hahn, E., Ta, T. M. T., Rapp, M., & Böge, K. (2022). Prevalence, predictors and types of unpleasant and adverse effects of meditation in regular meditators: international cross-sectional study. BJPsych Open, 8(1), e11. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2021.1066

Schindler, S., Pfattheicher, S., & Reinhard, M. (2019). Potential negative consequences of mindfulness in the moral domain. European Journal of Social Psychology, 49(5), 1055–1069. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2570

Schlosser, M., Sparby, T., Vörös, S., Jones, R., & Marchant, N. L. (2019). Unpleasant meditation-related experiences in regular meditators: Prevalence, predictors, and conceptual considerations. PLOS ONE, 14(5), e0216643. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216643

Sharma, P., Mahapatra, A., & Gupta, R. (2022). Meditation-induced psychosis: a narrative review and individual patient data analysis. Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, 39(4), 391–397. https://doi.org/10.1017/ipm.2019.47

Taylor, G. B., Vasquez, T. S., Kastrinos, A., Fisher, C. L., Puig, A., & Bylund, C. L. (2022). The Adverse Effects of Meditation-Interventions and Mind–Body Practices: a Systematic Review. Mindfulness, 13(8), 1839–1856. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-022-01915-6

The MYRIAD team, Baer, R., Crane, C., Montero-Marin, J., Phillips, A., Taylor, L., Tickell, A., & Kuyken, W. (2021). Frequency of Self-reported Unpleasant Events and Harm in a Mindfulness-Based Program in Two General Population Samples. Mindfulness, 12(3), 763–774. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01547-8

Van Dam, N. T., Van Vugt, M. K., Vago, D. R., Schmalzl, L., Saron, C. D., Olendzki, A., Meissner, T., Lazar, S. W., Kerr, C. E., Gorchov, J., Fox, K. C. R., Field, B. A., Britton, W. B., Brefczynski-Lewis, J. A., & Meyer, D. E. (2018). Mind the Hype: A Critical Evaluation and Prescriptive Agenda for Research on Mindfulness and Meditation. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(1), 36–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617709589

Yorston, G. A. (2001). Mania precipitated by meditation: A case report and literature review. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 4(2), 209–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/713685624

Best,

Olivier Sandilands 194.199.3.13 (talk) 17:39, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The earliest records of meditation (dhyana) are found in the Upanishads

This is incorrect, as meditation is embedded in yoga. Yoga became later on one of the branches of Hinduism, above all thanks to Patañjali, but it actually predates the Vedas themselves, hence the Upanishads by many centuries. Ngs111 (talk) 16:24, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So, where then, in which pre-Upanishadic, or even pre-Vedic, text, is yoga mentioned or described? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 19:11, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reference section structure

Hi all,

The citation system in this article uses three separate lists at the bottom (References, Printed sources, and Web sources). This seems unnecessarily complex compared to the standard format on most articles.

Would anyone object to simplifying this to a single References list where the full citation appears directly? I think it would be much easier for readers to navigate, but wanted to get consensus first. Thoughts? Digressivo (talk) 00:34, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely object. Having a separate source-list makes editing much easier. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 04:41, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Expanding meditation techniques

Hi, I’m Masrur9955123

I would like to discuss adding more information on meditation techniques, such as mindfulness, transcendental, and chakra-focused meditation. Reliable sources can be added to clarify historical origins and cultural variations.

--Masrur9955123 Masrur9955123 (talk) 11:01, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

inwardly

Is about being here now with everything we need is right in front of us Arnbiology (talk) 23:48, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]