About Meditation

How to Meditate	Meditation Techniques	Breathing Meditation
Benefits of Meditation	Meditation Helps Change	Meditation Classes

What is Meditation?

Meditation is simply a method to calm the mind in order to gain clarity and perspective in your life. There are many different kinds of meditations, all serving different purposes. Why not try our Meditation 101 class on Saturdays at 10 am, or Meditation for a Beautiful Life on Wednesdays at 7pm?

You don't need an excessive amount of time or experience to start meditating. All you need is a few minutes every day to settle your mind. Once you learn the basic meditation techniques, you can use these methods for 5 minutes every day to help you improve your life.

If we train our mind to become peaceful we will be happy all the time, even in the most adverse conditions. But if our mind is not peaceful, even if we have the most pleasant external conditions we will not be happy. Therefore it is important to train our mind through meditation.

Types of Meditation

There are two types of meditation: analytical meditation and placement meditation. When we contemplate the mean- ing of a Dharma instruction that we have heard or read we are doing analytical meditation. By deeply contemplating the instruction, eventually we reach a conclusion or cause a specific virtuous state of mind to arise. This is the object of placement meditation. Having found our object through analytical meditation, we then concentrate on it single-pointedly for as long as possible to become deeply acquainted with it. This single-pointed concentration is placement meditation. Often, analytical meditation is called simply `contemplation', and placement meditation simply `meditation'. Placement meditation depends upon contemplation, and contemplation depends upon listening to or reading Dharma instructions.

If you would like to learn more about meditation or Buddhism, you can also order books on buddhism and meditation.