Definition and Overview
There are no universally accepted definitions of meditation and mindfulness. Meditation can be thought of as an “umbrella term” for a range of practices to achieve a desired consciousness. Mindfulness is the act of focusing on present experience. Hence, it “is a type of meditation alongside tantra, yoga, sexuality, silence, breathing and emptiness” (Bushak 2016).
While almost every religion practices some form of contemplation, meditation has been developed in the Buddhist tradition. This incorporates three approaches: (a) focused attention on a single object say breath or body scan. (b) Open-monitoring meditation is to open up awareness to whatever is present in experience whether an emotion, a sound, or, for example, a cloud, which is observed from an emotional distance. (c) Heart practices encourage a positive attitude to self or others such as compassion in the loving-kindness meditation (Verhaeghen 2017). Mindfulness is the first approach. Jon Kabat-Zinn,...
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Stevens, B.A., Brooke, N. (2019). Meditation and Mindfulness: Resources for Aged Care. In: Gu, D., Dupre, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_146-1
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