Buddhism <div class="thumb tleft"><div class="thumbinner" style="width: 182px">
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Buddha in meditation</div> </div></div><dl><dd><div class="noprint">Main article: Buddhist meditation</div></dd></dl><p>Meditation has always been central to Buddhism. The Lord Buddha himself was said to have achieved enlightenment while meditating under a Bodhi tree. Most forms of Buddhism distinguish between two classes of meditation practices, shamatha and vipassana, both of which are necessary for attaining enlightenment. The former consists of practices aimed at developing the ability to focus the attention single-pointedly; the latter includes practices aimed at developing insight and wisdom through seeing the true nature of reality. The differentiation between the two types of meditation practices is not always clear cut, which is made obvious when studying practices such as Anapanasati which could be said to start off as a shamatha practice but that goes through a number of stages and ends up as a vipassana practice.</p><p>Theravada Buddhism emphasizes the meditative development of mindfulness (sati, see for example the Satipatthana Sutta) and concentration (samadhi, see kammatthana), as part of the Noble Eightfold Path, in the pursuit of Nibbana. Traditional popular meditation subjects include the breath (anapana) and loving-kindness (mettā).</p><p>In Japanese Mahayana schools, Tendai (Tien-tai), concentration is cultivated through highly structured ritual. Especially in the Chinese Chán Buddhism school (which branched out into the Japanese Zen, and Korean Seon schools), ts’o ch’an meditation and koan meditation practices are extremely important, allowing a practitioner to directly experience the true nature of reality (each of the names of these schools derives from the Sanskrit dhyana, and translates into “meditation” in their respective languages). The esoteric Shingon sect shares many features with Tibetan Buddhism.</p><p>Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) emphasizes tantra for its senior practitioners; hence its alternate name of Tantrayana Buddhism. However, visitors to Tibetan monasteries are often surprised to discover that many monks go through their day without “meditating” in a recognizable form, but are more likely to chant or participate in group liturgy.</p>
