Meditation

How it is used

Common with Buddhist and Hindu practice (Buddhist meditation, yoga and meditation), but also used for Christian contemplative prayer and Sufi muraqaba. You practise or do meditation; the verb is meditate. Mindfulness is a secular adaptation of Buddhist meditation.

Example sentences

1. Buddhist monks may spend several hours a day in meditation.

2. Mindfulness programmes adapted Buddhist meditation techniques for hospitals and schools.

Common collocations

• Buddhist meditation
• practise meditation
• meditation technique
• silent meditation
• meditation retreat

Related terms

• BuddhismA religious and philosophical tradition based on the teaching of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, who lived in northern India around the fifth century BCE.
• mysticismThe pursuit of direct, personal experience of God or ultimate reality, often through prayer, contemplation and spiritual discipline, found in many religious traditions.
• spiritualityA person's inner life and search for meaning, connection or the sacred, either within a religious tradition or outside organized religion.
• monkA man who has left ordinary life to live under religious vows, usually in a community, devoting himself to prayer, study or meditation.

More terms: Mysticism and Spirituality

• Sufism
• asceticism
• enlightenment