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2 HALVOR EIFRING
Types of Meditation
Since the 1970s, both scientific and popular literature in the West have tended to classify meditation techniques on the basis of the Buddhist dichotomy between samatha and vipassanā, often rendered in English as “concentration” and “insight” (or “mindfulness”),1 and more recently termed “focused attention” and “open monitoring.”2 The interpretation of this distinction, however, varies from one writer to the next and has proven to be quite problematic. Before the twentieth century, the distinction had little impact outside Buddhism, apart from its early borrowing and transformation within Chinese Daoism.3 Even within Buddhism, the distinction was always ambiguous and controversial. More importantly, quite a few scholars have pointed to modern forms of meditation that do not fall neatly within either category, and this problem is exacerbated when, as in this volume, we include a broader spectrum of traditional meditation practices.
This chapter will explore an alternative classification into “directive” and “nondirective” practices, which in recent years has been suggested by a number of scientists studying the effects of meditation. In our context, the distinction may be defined as follows:4
Directive techniques seek to lead the mind and body toward preset goals embedded in culturally determined webs of meaning, while nondirective techniques are based on universal psychobiological working mechanisms bringing about reflexive effects on mind and body.
Unlike the Buddhist dichotomy, this classification does not purport to reflect traditional concepts. It is etic not emic, and thus transcends the division lines between various traditions. This chapter will attempt to explore the relevance of the distinction for both modern and traditional meditation practices across the Eurasian continent.
The chapter builds on three types of source material. First, it refers to other contributions in this volume and other volumes in the Cultural Histories of Meditation project. Second, it refers to modern discussions of the classification of meditative practices, including various scientific attempts. And third, it refers to a number of texts on meditation from various contemplative traditions, in particular the dharma texts (fǎ-yǔ) of the Chinese Buddhist meditation master Hānshān Déqīng (1546–1623) and “The Cloud of Unknowing” by an anonymous fourteenth-century English country parson.
Directive and Nondirective Elements
The extent to which meditation seeks to direct the person toward preset goals largely depends on the degree of active interference with the cognitive and emotional content of the mind. Such interference may lie in the context in which meditation is learned or practiced, with suggestive elements bringing about expectations of particular states of mind, visions of deities, healing effects, and so on. It may also lie in the mental attitude with which meditation is practiced, in the form of attempts at excluding peripheral or digressive thoughts, in order to concentrate fully on the meditation object. Or it may lie in the meditation object itself, as when the thematic content of the meditation object leads the cognitive or emotional content of the mind in predetermined directions. Conversely, nondirective meditation seeks to reduce suggestive elements in the context, to accept the presence of peripheral and digressive thoughts, and to use meditation objects without thematic content. See table 2.1.
The different elements may be freely combined, so that, for instance, a concentrative mental attitude may be combined with a nonthematic meditation object, or vice versa. The setting usually contains both suggestive and nonsuggestive elements. The contrast between directive and nondirective meditation, therefore, is a question of degrees, not of absolute opposites.
While the context is obviously important and needs to be studied, this chapter will focus on the role of the elements that are part of the meditation technique, that is, the mental attitude and the meditation object. The object of meditation is the focus of attention during meditation, the element toward which attention is intentionally directed, while the mental attitude is the mode of attention during meditation, characterized by the relation between the focal element (meditation object) and elements that are either peripheral (background thoughts or impressions) or unintentionally focal (digressions, as when the object of meditation is temporarily forgotten and random thoughts take over).
Table 2.1. Directive and Nondirective Forms of Meditation
Directive meditation Nondirective meditation
Context suggestive nonsuggestive
Mental attitude concentrative nonconcentrative
Meditation object thematic nonthematic
The distinction between directive and nondirective forms of meditation reflects two ways in which meditative practice may bring about inner transformation. On the one hand, such change may be an outside-in process in which the context plays a dominant role, as when the meditative effect of mantras comes from their place within the cosmologies surrounding them that endow them with symbolic if not literal meaning and thus help meditators to “‘discover’ the knowledge already cultivated by their traditions.”5 On the other hand, meditative change may be an inside-out process that starts in the mind and body of the meditator, as when the effects of mantra-based meditation come from a psychobiological “relaxation response” triggered by the “repetition of a … sound … or muscular activity” combined with a mental attitude of “passively disregarding everyday thoughts that inevitably come to mind and returning to your repetition,”6 without any conceptual or symbolic meaning being involved. Directive meditation fosters outsid
e-in processes, while non-directive meditation fosters inside-out processes. Most often, the two are combined in various proportions.7 Toward the end of this chapter, we shall return to the question of whether directive and nondirective forms of meditation constitute different paths toward the same goal or actually produce different effects.
The distinction between directive and nondirective forms of meditation is also reflected in the contrast between content and process orientation. As mentioned in the previous chapter in this volume, some scholars argue that all meditation emphasizes “process rather than content,”8 in contrast to nonmeditative practices such as self-hypnosis and psychotherapy, which “aim primarily at changing mental contents … such as thoughts, images, and emotions.”9 While this may be true of nondirective meditation, and therefore to a large extent of the modern practices studied by scientists, many traditional forms of meditation are directive and aim at “changing mental contents.”10
The Problems with Samatha and Vipassanā
At the outset, samatha and vipassanā (or “concentration” and “insight,” etc.) are Buddhist terms. The modern discourse on the distinction between the two is largely a product of Western scientific attempts at interpreting these traditional terms, and their English near-equivalents, and applying them to the various meditation practices that figure prominently in scientific studies, or that have been popular in Europe and America in the last fifty years. Both the terms and the practices to which they have been applied have their origins in Asia, but have been largely dislodged from their original contexts. Furthermore, while the terms are rooted in Buddhism, many of the meditation methods to which they are applied hail from other Asian traditions.
The modern discourse on this distinction differs considerably from traditional Buddhist notions, according to which samatha seeks stillness and absorption, while vipassanā seeks insight and wisdom. In the modern context, the distinction is typically no longer based on the purpose of meditation but on its technical features. In brief, the mental attitude corresponding to samatha seeks an exclusive focus on the meditation object, while the attitude corresponding to vipassanā cultivates an open awareness toward all impressions, without any specific meditation object.11 See table 2.2.