The 3 Meditations: Complete Guide to Mindfulness, Mantra & Contemplative Meditation
One night, a heavy rainstorm ripped through a small village and caused a huge mudslide. The villagers woke up the next day to find their pond filled with mud and murky, muddy water.
They were distressed, for how could they drink, cook, and shower?
Many panicked and tried scooping the mud out of the pond. Others thought it was smarter to scoop the water out.
The more everyone scooped and fought, the more they stirred the water, and the muddier the pond became.
Finally, an old wise woman spoke out, "We must stop disturbing the water and let it settle. The mud will sink to the bottom, and the clear water will rise to the top."
The villagers were skeptical at first, but they had tried everything else. Sure enough, after a few hours, the mud began to sink, and the water became clear again.
In today’s information age, the relentless stream of news, political drama, and conflict contributes to a pervasive sense of unease—often leaving us with a nagging feeling that something is fundamentally wrong. This persistent undercurrent of worry heightens stress, anxiety, and depression. In an effort to escape these unsettling emotions, we may numb ourselves, turn to substances, which can ultimately lead to addiction.
Whenever we get sucked in the online vortex of chaos by reacting to it, judging, or fighting with it, we begin adding to the cycle of conflict and hostility. We get caught up in a trap of our own making, and in doing so, we muddy the waters for ourselves and others.
Meditation offers a way to settle our emotions and gain clarity.
Icons like Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, and LeBron James have attributed part of their success and remarkable focus to regular meditation practices.
Like the villagers, they understood that you must be still to gain clarity.
Meditation is about becoming still so you can see yourself more clearly and make better decisions.
Gaining clarity, detachment, and self-awareness are needed more now than ever before.
The digital age is forcing us to become meta-cognizers.
Meditation is a master habit that helps you emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually.
It gives you clarity and increases your ability to focus your attention and to navigate choppy waters. And when the storms of life come, and they always do, you can remain present, aware, calm, and know how to stay in the eye of the storm.
To help guide you on this path, I’ve created a Meditation Guide. It clarifies what meditation is, explains its benefits, shows how and why it works, introduces different types of meditation practices, and outlines how to get started.
What’s in this Guide:
Scientific Research & Benefits: 13 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation & Why does it work?: The Purpose of Meditation
3 Primary Meditation Types: Descriptions & Full Guided Instructions
Concentration Meditations: Mantras, Visualization, Guided Meditations, etc
Awareness Meditations: Vipassana, Zazen, Mindfulness Meditation, etc
Contemplation Meditations: Self Inquiry, Jñāna Yoga, Vimarsha, and Koans.
Overcoming Challenges: FAQs
Establishing Daily Routine: Guide to Your Daily Practice
Tools & Resources: Where you can learn more and go deeper
Scientific Research & Benefits
Over the past twenty years, extensive research has been conducted on the effects of meditation and mindfulness practices.
Overall, the results are profound. If Meditation were a pill, it would be the most potent pill you could ever take.
Here is why.
Meditation works on every level, including our physical health, emotional well-being, mental states, and ability to focus our attention and be self-aware.
So this one practice has wholesale benefits, and as the science shows, these benefits are on par or better than the alternatives, such as using alternative methods, techniques, or taking drugs.
Unlike other methods and techniques, Meditation has extremely positive second-order effects.
Compared to drugs, Meditation can be just as effective without any side effects.
Meditation is a Master Habit. It has the power to transform your body and your mind and help you change your habits and your life.
Let’s jump into the benefits and the research that supports them.
What are the main Benefits of Meditation?
According to 100’s of scientific studies here are the 13 most common benefits of meditation:
Stress Reduction
Meditation significantly reduces stress by lowering cortisol levels, similar to the effectiveness of antidepressants but without their side effects. Multiple studies have demonstrated how Meditation decreases blood cortisol levels and adrenaline, offering a potent, natural method for reducing stress. See Studies.
Anxiety Control
Regular meditation practice has been shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety, comparable in effectiveness to psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. The study, Meditative Therapies For Reducing Anxiety, confirms the effectiveness of Meditation in reducing anxiety symptoms. See Studies.
Decrease in Depression
Several studies have found that Meditation can significantly reduce relapse in people who have had previous episodes of major depression.
Emotional Health Enhancement
Mindfulness and Meditation improve emotional health by fostering a positive self-image and outlook. Research in Clinical Psychology Review has found that meditation interventions can sustainably enhance mood and emotional resilience than temporary solutions like medication.
Increased Self-Awareness
Practices like Mindfulness enhance introspection, helping individuals better understand their thoughts and behaviors. In 2007, a study by Ortner et al. showed that meditators were less emotionally reactive.
Increases Attention Span & Ability to Focus
Meditation, like focused attention, improves the duration and strength of one's attention span. A study in Consciousness and Cognition found that meditators performed significantly better on all measures of attention.
Memory and Aging
Meditation supports cognitive function and memory in aging adults, potentially reducing age-related memory loss. Research published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences shows Meditation's positive effects on brain aging, memory retention, focus, and cognitive flexibility.
Fostering Kindness
Loving-kindness Meditation enhances feelings of compassion and empathy. A study in the Emotion Journal shows that loving-kindness Meditation increases feelings of social connectedness.
Addiction Management
Meditation aids in addiction recovery by enhancing self-control and awareness of triggers. Research in the Clinical Psychology Review showcased how mindfulness-based interventions were effective for depression, pain, smoking, and addictions.
Improved Sleep
Mindfulness meditation helps manage insomnia by calming the mind and body. A clinical trial reported in JAMA Internal Medicine found that it is effective at combating insomnia and improving sleep quality.
Pain Management
Meditation reduces the perception of pain by altering brain responses. A study by the American Psychological Association has shown that Meditation can reduce pain and fatigue in people with chronic pain.
Lower Blood Pressure
Meditation can naturally lower blood pressure by promoting relaxation and enhancing nitric oxide production. The American Heart Association has reported that Meditation can reduce blood pressure, potentially decreasing the risk of heart disease.
Improves Physical Health
Other studies have found preliminary evidence that Mindfulness might boost the immune system and help people recover more quickly from cold or flu.
It’s not uncommon for people to dismiss meditation, arguing that it only offers marginal benefits for those who are already healthy.
However, this isn’t the case.
Even in extreme environments—among individuals struggling with mental health—meditation has been shown to produce profound effects.
Below is a video demonstrating how Vipassana Meditation was used in maximum-security prisons in the United States to reduce violence.
Meditation & Psychology
Meditation and Mindfulness have been so effective that therapists now utilize them.
Here are a few examples:
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR): MBSR is a therapeutic program that combines mindfulness meditation and yoga to help manage stress, pain, and illness by promoting Mindfulness.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT): MBCT is a therapeutic approach that combines cognitive behavioral techniques with mindfulness strategies to help prevent the recurrence of depression, particularly in individuals with major depressive disorder.
Last but not least, an entire branch of psychology is dedicated to this approach.
Gestalt Therapy: Gestalt Therapy is an experiential form of psychotherapy that focuses the person’s attention on the present moment. From the present movement, the client reflects on their overall life situation and considers ways of improving their life in all areas that are important to them: emotional, physical, relational, career, etc.
What is Meditation and Why Does it Work?
First, what is meditation?
Meditation is the practice of training you attention and awareness. It is being present and aware of your thougths, feelings and sensations as they arise and fall away and abiding in this pure state of awareness.
Why does meditation work at all? Why in the world is it so effective?
Here is how it works.
Consider how much control you exert over your physical environment. You can easily reflect on your home’s design, consider how you can improve it, imagine what those changes will look and feel like, and then experiment. You can then move furniture around, add or subtract to the design, and make any changes you like.
When it comes to the objective parts of our lives, we can easily examine them, dissect them, think about them in different ways, and experiment with them.
Mediation allows you to do this with yourself and your subjective parts.
But why is doing this with our subject parts so difficult?
Part of the reason why it is so difficult to do this with ourselves is that we are identified with our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions. What we believe and value becomes a part of who we think we are, and since we are combining ourselves with all of these things, all of these things are a part of our subjective ‘me.’ They define the ‘me,’ and changing that ‘me’ feels threathening.
Meditation does is it helps you become the observer. You start to observe your thoughts. When your thoughts come and go, you realize that you don’t go with them.
By observing how your feelings emerge, take over your entire state of being, and then fall away, we realize that we are not our feelings.
As we become The Witness, we can observe the patterns of our beliefs, values, and identities as they manifest themselves through our thoughts and feelings. We then begin to realize that we are not our thoughts, feelings, or beliefs but instead the one who is aware of them.
Meditation breaks the spell, the identification we have with our beliefs and our limited identity. It allows us to then look at them objectively and as a result, we can address our fears, worries, and anxieties, and without feeling threathed.
One of the purposes of meditation is to help you experience more of your life as the witness who sees everything come and go.
3 Primary Meditation Types
At its core, meditation is the practice of consciously working with your Awareness.
There are four fundamental ways of doing that.
First is the ability to focus your attention. With Concentration Meditation, you focus on an object related to one or all of your senses, such as a visualization, mantra, or guided meditation. By focusing your attention on an object within your imagination, like a Loving Kindness Meditation, you can create a calm and loving conscious experience.
Second is the ability to be aware of your consciousness experience and all of its parts. This Awareness is like the witness who watches as experiences come and go. Here, you are turning subjective experiences, like your thoughts, feelings, and sensations, into objects you observe.
The third way oscillates between pure Awareness and focus. In this way, you witness and observe, then focus your attention and go deeply into the object of your focus, and then witness again. Here, you are contemplating the trinity of experience, which includes a subject, an object, and the experiential relationship between the two.
Finally, this all leads us to Self-reflective Awareness. Here is the final step, where Awareness is turned back on itself. This is meta-awareness, the Awareness of Awareness.
Here is a breakdown of the 3 Meditation Types with examples of each:
1. Concentration Meditation: Awareness is Focused
Mantras, Visualizations, Transcendental Meditation (TM), Guided Meditations, Body Scans, Karuṇā, Love & Kindness, Yoga, Tai chi, Qigong, etc.
Difficulty Level: Great for Beginners
2. Awareness Meditation: Awareness that is Witnessing Experience.
Vipassana, Mindfulness Meditation, Zazen,
Difficulty Level: Good for Beginners
3. Contemplative Meditation: Awareness oscillates between focusing on the inquiry and being the witness.
Phase 1: Uncovering the nature of self and consciousness via Enquiry
Self Enquiry, Jñāna Yoga, and Koans.
Difficulty Level: Intermediate to Advanced.
Phase 2: Self-reflective Awareness, where Awareness abides in Awareness
Vimarsha, Pratyabhijna
Difficulty Level: Advanced.
Now, let’s jump into each of these types of mediation and instructions on how to meditate.
Let’s start with Concentration Meditations because they are the easiest for beginners.
1. Concentration Meditations
Concentraltion Meditations includes all of the different types of meditations that focus your mind, such as visualization (sight), mantra (sound), gratitude meditation (feeling), guided meditation (mixed), and movement meditation like yoga (body).
One of the most natural, easiest, and effective meditations is Mantra Meditation using bijas. A good example of this type of meditation is Transcendental Meditation (TM).
Mantras are simple words or phrases that you repeat. You focus on attending to the mantra, which can have a calming and soothing effect. Once you really get the hang of it, it's easy and enjoyable.
A bija Mantra Meditation, is a very powerful yet simple Mantra meditation. It can be done for 20 minutes one to two times per day.
Below is a video on how to do a Bija Mantra Meditation. You can also learn Transcendental Meditation (TM) by joining a local class or learning it online from their instructors.
Step 1: Select a Bija Mantra based on your age:
Step 2: Follow along with the video:
You can also read a full TM tutorial here or join a local class.
Daily Practice:
Meditate first thing in the morning for 20 Minutes
When ready, add a second meditation for 20 Minutes later in the day
Be attentive to the Mantra and come back to it after being distracted
What to Expect
When you start a Concentration meditation practice using your attention actively, you will notice all of the thoughts, feelings, and distractions you have.
You will also notice how it is possible for you to have all kinds of thoughts, feelings, and imagination fill your mind while you are focusing your attention.
You will see how it's possible for your mind to think and imagine multiple things at once, and hopefully, you will be aware of all of this.
As you get better at focusing, you will notice the subtle ways you cognize objects as you place your attention on them. This process of focusing your attention on an object of cognition replicates how we generally cognize information during our entire lives. Concentration Meditations can reveal this subconscious process and make it conscious.
As you become more and more attentive to the objects in your concentration the more you will notice the subtle relationship you have with it and the feelings and experiences that your creating.
At the highest level of this meditation is entering a flow state, where there is no difference between subject and object. What you experience in this flow state is a state of oneness.
What to Expect:
Distraction is a typical and expected part of the process
Reflects how we cognize information via our attention
It can help you reach flow states
It takes 90 days to rewire your brain
2. Awareness Meditation
Awareness Meditation is the practice of being aware and observing what is happening in your consciousness. You observe everything that comes and everything that goes. This includes your thoughts, feelings, and sensations without attachment.
Below is an example of a Mindfulness Awareness Meditation that is essentially a Vipassana.
Here is how to Meditate:
Sit in a comfortable position with your back straight.
You can sit on a chair or meditation cushion, but avoid lying down.
Close your eyes.
Take a long, deep breath in and slowly exhale. Now, do this three times.
Body Scan:
Move your attention through different body parts from head to toe, noting any sensations or lack thereof.
Intention: You intend to come back to the present moment
How to Observe Objectively:
Observe the arising and passing of thoughts, emotions, and sensations without attachment or aversion
How your mind wonders
The feelings your thoughts trigger
The sensation in your body
Notice the interplay between thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
If a thought takes you on a journey, just return to the present moment.
Notice how you feel.
What sensations are you experiencing right now?
Where is the sensation of that feeling in your body? Describe it.
Do your feelings and sensations trigger more thoughts?
Notice your patterns
Come back and watch what is already here.
When things come up, watch that too.
When things go, watch them go.
Tips
Sit for 20 minutes.
Judging yourself or feeling disappointed is another form of thoughts and feelings.
After being distracted, be happy that you came back to the meditation.
See if you can notice the gap between the two thoughts.
List for the silence.
Deepening Awareness
As practice progresses, maintain Awareness of the four foundations of mindfulness: the body, feelings, mind, and phenomena.
Through this practice, you will gain deep insight into your thoughts, feelings, and sensations and how you constantly react to your sensations.
Here is a Video on Vipassana Meditation
Key Benefits:
It helps us detach from our thoughts and feelings and turn them into objects.
It reflects the nature of our Awareness and how it can be used actively via concentration, which produces conscious experiences, and how it is also the witness of experience.
It can help you significantly increase your self-awareness.
It takes 90 days to rewire your brain.
3. Contemplative Meditation
Now, we are jumping into the deep end. Contemplative Mediations includes Zen Koans, Stoic Contemplations, and Self Enquiry.
When we sincerely yearn to know and understand profound truths about life and the nature of reality and are fully committed to the truth, then Self Inquiry and Contemplative Meditation can be a great fit.
This type of meditation focuses on sustaining attention to a particular contemplation (question, concept, object, or theme) while being deeply reflective. It oscillates between Concentration Meditation and Awareness Meditation in cycles.
Part 1: The Question
Start with a few minutes of mindfulness meditation.
Ask a profound question to which you are fully committed to knowing the answer.
Part 2: Listening
Open yourself up and listen
Let the monkey mind go, stay in a state of Awareness
Within this silence, flashes of insight will emerge, and unlike regular ideas, they will take you back into silence
Part 3: Exploring Ideas
Next, we will focus our attention on these ideas
You can explore the ideas by using your imagination, thought experiments, and feelings.
Investigate your ideas by reflecting on how they align with your lived experience.
If an idea needs a bunch of other ideas to support it, it's not a strong idea.
What you are looking for is the unconditional, that which does not need something else to define it or support it.
Use the ‘Neti-Neti’ process of ‘not this, not this’ to eliminate answers that can not be true.
Part 4: Reflection
Even when an idea might be wrong, it can take you in the right direction.
Sometimes, we know an idea is incorrect, but we can’t quite identify why.
Part 5: Awareness Meditation
Take rest by abiding in Awareness.
Cycles: You can take a rest and pick it up later or keep going deeper until you gain clarity.
With each cycle, you go deeper and deeper into the questions, eliminating more and more. As you go deeper and deeper into your inquiry, you will gain more and more insight.
Over time, these insights and the ‘Neti-Neti’ process can reveal the answer to your contemplation.
When one is engaging in Contemplative Meditation, it is essential to be completely honest with oneself by unpacking core beliefs and assumptions and reflecting on your actual experience.
Here are some of the requirements:
Strong foundation in Concentration Meditation and Awareness Meditation
Ability to be Radically Honest
Decernment
Fully committed and determined to get the answer
Example Inquiries:
What is permanent, and what is transient in my experience?
Is there a self-independent of my thoughts?
What does it mean to exist?
Here is an example of the process with Rupert Spira.
What is the best use for Contemplative Meditation?
The best use of Contemplative Meditation is in inquiries about the self and life questions that are profoundly relevant to us and which we can gain insight into via our lived experience.
Here are a few examples:
Why do I smoke?
Why am I sarcastic?
Who am I?
What is the nature of consciousness?
What is real?
Who is it that is aware of my perceptions?
What is knowing?
Each of these questions is deeply intimate to the self, and you can discover the answers in your experience.
Self Enquiry naturally takes us to the phase of meditation, which is Self-reflective Awareness Meditation.
Self-reflective Awareness Meditation
As we explore the nature of our experience more deeply, our Awareness naturally becomes more aware of itself.
We then begin to turn our Awareness back on itself. This is the last meditation phase; it's a Self-reflective awareness Meditation.
This type of meditation, where we focus our Awareness on our Awareness, is the most potent. Here, we are essentially Conscious Awareness that is Aware of its Awareness.
Here is how to practice it:
Preparation: Sit in a comfortable position with a straight back. Begin by calming the mind with three deep and slow breaths.
Become Aware of Awareness: Gently shift your focus to being aware. Notice what it feels like to be conscious and aware without attaching to any particular object of Awareness.
Deepening Awareness: Observe any thoughts, sensations, or emotions that arise, not by engaging with them, but by acknowledging their presence and returning to the sensation of pure Awareness.
Self-Observation: As you become more settled in the Awareness of Awareness, explore the sense of 'consciousness' or 'awareness' that is aware. Question, “Who or what is aware?”, Who or what is it that knows?”
Integration: Continue to rest in this state of self-reflection, allowing more profound insights about the nature of consciousness and the self to arise naturally. The practice can lead to profound realizations about non-duality and the interconnectedness of all things.
Closure: Conclude the session by gradually broadening your Awareness to include your body and the surrounding environment, carrying the calm and clarity into everyday activities.
This kind of meditation can lead to experiences of Satori, Samhadi, and Sat Chit Ananda.
The more we practice this, the more obvious it becomes who we are and what our essential reality is, and this transforms our relationship with our world.
Overcoming Challenges
During your practice, you might encounter many obstacles. Here are a few of the most common and how to address them:
I am constantly thinking and not able to stay present:
This is very common. Even noticing your failure is a type of success because it takes a level of Awareness to notice being distracted and commitment to return to the practice.
I struggle with physical discomfort, distractions, drowsiness, boredom, and emotional upheaval.
These are all common experiences. First, ensure you are physically comfortable sitting with your back straight. This should address discomfort and drowsiness.
When we sit, all kinds of things come up: emotions, sensations, boredom, and constant distractions. Observe what these experiences are actually like and integrate them into your meditation.
Is it Religious or Spiritual?
Meditation is a practice centered around your Awareness, which is the foundation of all beings.
If a specific spiritual and religious background is helpful in your progress, feel free to use its insight.
Conversely, if you find the spiritual or religious elements hindering you, then drop these elements.
It takes too much time, or it wastes time.
These feelings can be expected, especially if you like to work, but remember that Meditation is the best use of time. It helps you become more self-aware, allowing you to transform your life's different areas.
Meditation also gives you time. Every hour you spend meditating is an hour you get back on other ways like improved health, well-being, mental clarity, being more efficient, better performance, sleeping better, and, in some cases, needing less sleep.
I don’t feel it is working.
It can take about 90 days to rewire your brain and start seeing results.
Remember that expectation can also deceive us. I once had a friend who decided to go back to school. Even after not going for many years, he thought he would get a 4.0 GPA and attend a great Law School. What happened was that he set unrealistic goals, and when he got Bs and Cs instead of all As he gave up.
The first goal is to see if you can have regular practice, and showing up for 90 days is a big step in the right direction.
How do I know if I am on the right track?
Are you more aware of what you think or how you feel than before?
Have you noticed any thought patterns or feeling patterns?
Do you notice any difference in how you respond to stress or anxiety?
Have you tried using Meditation and Contemplation to work on areas of your life that need help?
Do you suffer less?
Establishing Daily Routine
Now, it's time to put it all into practice. For a few years, I have explored this question of the ideal practice, which was, in part, how I came up with the three meditation types.
I noticed that I was meditating and using my attention in these different ways, but most often, I flowed within an established routine.
Flowing and flexibility are essential because there are times when one type of meditation will really appeal to you, and your routine should be flexible enough to allow you to follow your curiosity.
Here is how I think of my daily routine and how you can create your own:
Daily Routine: With Self Inquiry
Self Inquiry: 10-20 Minutes
Mantra: 40 Minutes
Self-reflective Awareness Meditation: 5-20 Minutes
Daily Routine: Without Self Inquiry
Vipassana: 0-10 Minutes
Mantra: 40 Minutes
Self-reflective Awareness Meditation: 0-10 Minutes
I meditate on Mantras daily, which is my foundation. Then, when I have a deeply contemplative question, I do the daily routine with self-inquiry; otherwise, I do Vipassana instead.
Additionally, throughout the day, I try to return to the present moment as much as possible. This includes being generally Mindful and especially alert to conflicts as they arise so I can be aware of my internal thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they happen in real-time. This way, I can address my own feelings and take responsibility.
For beginners, I would recommend the following:
Phase 1: Just Starting
Mantra Meditation 20 Minutes
Phase 2: Have some experience
Mantra Meditation 20 Minutes
Vipassana
Phase 3: When a Question Strikes you Deeply
Short Vipassana 5min+
Self Inquiry
Mantra Meditation 20 Minutes
Short Vipassana 5min+
Whenever you remember to come back to being mindful in this moment, observe life as it is for a few moments.
Tools & Resources
Here are a few tools and resources that have helped me deepen my practice.
Mantras
Aghora Mantra (I can’t tell you how much I fell in love with this Mantra by Lakshmanjoo)
Vimarsha (Best place to learn about Mantras)