Reddy J Shashi Kiran, Roy Sisir
Consciousness Studies Programme, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Campus, Bangalore, India.
Front Psychol. 2019 Aug 21;10:1827. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01827. eCollection 2019.
Owing to its benefits on various cognitive aspects, one's emotions, and well-being, meditation has drawn interest from several researchers and common public alike. We have different meditation practices associated with many cultures and traditions across the globe. Current literature suggests significant changes in the neural activity among the different practices of meditation, as each of these practices contributes to distinct physiological and psychological effects. Although this is the case, we want to find out if there is an underlying commonality among all these different practices. Thus, we ask the following questions related to different practices of meditation, the traditional goal of meditation and its significance-what is the central purpose of meditation? Do traditions define the final goal of all the practices of meditation? Are the purpose and goal of these practices different or is there a common goal to be attained through all these distinct practices? Embracing the traditional perspective, through this paper, we want to emphasize that, although these techniques and practices may appear different on the periphery, eventually, they seem to subject one to the same experience at the end, a natural meditative state (discussed in various spiritual traditions as the goal of meditation). In view of future studies on different meditation practices and also those exploring this subjective state, we offer some interesting ideas based on the traditional insights into meditation. In this context, we would also like to make a few comments on the way contemporary researchers view different practices of meditation.
由于冥想对认知的各个方面、人的情绪和幸福感都有好处，它引起了众多研究人员和普通大众的兴趣。全球有许多与不同文化和传统相关的冥想练习方法。当前的文献表明，不同的冥想练习会使神经活动发生显著变化，因为每种练习都会产生独特的生理和心理效应。尽管如此，我们还是想弄清楚所有这些不同的练习方法之间是否存在潜在的共性。因此，我们提出以下与不同冥想练习、冥想的传统目标及其意义相关的问题——冥想的核心目的是什么？传统是否界定了所有冥想练习的最终目标？这些练习的目的和目标是不同的，还是通过所有这些不同的练习可以实现一个共同的目标？从传统的角度出发，通过本文，我们想强调的是，尽管这些技巧和练习从表面上看可能不同，但最终它们似乎会让一个人在最后获得相同的体验，即一种自然的冥想状态（在各种精神传统中被视为冥想的目标）。鉴于未来对不同冥想练习以及探索这种主观状态的研究，我们基于对冥想的传统见解提出一些有趣的观点。在此背景下，我们也想对当代研究人员看待不同冥想练习的方式发表一些看法。
