Zen-based meditation

Mindfulness meditation involves opening the attention to become aware of the continuously passing parade of sensations and feelings, images, thoughts, sounds, smells, and so forth without becoming involved in thinking about them. The meditator sits quietly and simply witnesses whatever goes through the mind, not reacting or becoming involved with thoughts, memories, worries, or images. This helps to gain a more calm, clear, and non-reactive state of mind.

Zen-based forms like Thich Nhat Hanh's (the France-based Vietnamese Zen master) mindfulness meditation or vipassana, which was promoted by S.N. Goenka, concentrate more on the present, the here and now. This is accomplished by non-judgmentally observing the breath and the sensations in the body very keenly. The objective is to attain perfect concentration without blocking out outside distractions. To reach an ideal state of equanimity and objectivity.

But whether one adopts the method of the yogi, oblivious to the external world, or that of the Zen meditator, keenly attuned to his environment—the idea is to tap those vast resources of energy and enlightenment inherent in all of us. To effortlessly find within, what we had been unsuccessfully trying to discover without. That, in essence, is both the art and the science of meditation.