Principles and neurobiological correlates of concentrative, diffuse, and insight meditation.

T he term meditation encompasses a broad variety of mental-training practices that vary between cultures and traditions, ranging from techniques designed to promote physical health, relaxation, and improved concentration, to exercises performed with farther-reaching goals, such as developing a heightened sense of well-being, cultivating altruistic behaviors, and, for some, attaining enlightenment. Meditation can be conceptualized as complex emotional and attentional regulatory practices in which mental and somatic events are affected by specific mental-training practices. Meditation is typically associated with a concurrent state of heightened vigilant awareness and reduced metabolic activity—which lead to improved physical health, psychological balance, and emotional stability. Not all meditation practices focus on the training of specific cognitive skills, and in those that do, the methodologies and outcomes often vary. It is therefore essential to be explicit about the type of meditation practice under investigation. Different types of meditation can be classified based on how the practitioner’s attentional processes are regulated and directed. In this article we focus on the two most common styles of meditation derived from Buddhist traditions: (1) concentrative, or focused-attention, meditation, and (2) diffuse, or open-monitoring, meditation. Concentrative meditation involves maintaining and continually refocusing attention on a chosen object, such as a body sensation, single point in space, color, object, sound, or affective state such as compassion. Open-monitoring meditation involves developing a present-centered and unattached/neutral mode of observation toward all sensational phenomena, including thoughts.