What is meditation?
Meditation is broadly defined as a practice used both to train mindfulness and awareness and to achieve mental clarity and emotional stability.
The practice includes a series of techniques, such as breathing or movement, to achieve the goal of increasing attention and emotional stability.
Beyond this imprecise definition, many scholars have struggled to define the phenomenon more precisely. The reason is that meditation takes various forms and is incorporated differently in religious and non-religious settings. Let us look at what meditation is in more detail.
The history
Meditation has been practiced since 1500 BC. The earliest records of meditation are found in the Hindu traditions of Vedantaism, which is a form of Hinduism that still uses meditation today. Other early forms of meditation were developed by Taoists in China and Buddhists in India.
Early Jews and Christians also tried meditative practices. Philo of Alexandria and Plotinus are two Jewish and Christian thinkers who wrote specifically about meditation around 20 B.C., but their views were not fully accepted in their respective religions until the Middle Ages.
