This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Mind Illuminated" by Culadasa, Matthew Immergut, and Jeremy Graves. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What is meditation? What are the three meditation states everyone should experience?
According to The Mind Illuminated, there are three meditation states that will help you stay in the moment: concentration, mindfulness, and enlightenment. Each state has unique benefits that anyone can take advantage of.
Let’s look at these states below and how to achieve them.
What Is Meditation?
According to the authors, meditation is training yourself to experience meditation states that improve your life. A meditation state is a way of perceiving and experiencing the world.
Meditation has roots in Buddhism. More than two millennia ago, the Buddha introduced meditation as a pathway to experiencing enlightenment—freedom from suffering. Since then, Buddhist teachers and scholars have further developed Buddhism by reorganizing and adding to the Buddha’s teachings.
(Shortform note: When the authors use the term “meditation,” they’re referring specifically to meditation with roots in Buddhism. Many religions have their own unique kinds of meditation. Furthermore, not all meditation experts conceptualize meditation as a type of mental training. For example, some wellness experts frame meditation specifically as a relaxation technique.)
Meditation State 1: Concentration
According to the authors, samādhi—also known as concentration—involves controlling what to focus on and how long to focus on it. We’ll call what you focus on your focal point.
Concentration is likely something you already do in everyday life—for instance, you might concentrate on listening to an album. When you practice meditation, you strengthen your ability to concentrate on your chosen focal point even as distractions threaten to steal your attention.
(Shortform note: The authors primarily use the term “stable attention” to describe this mental state, emphasizing both the act of focusing (“attention”) and the ability to sustain that focus (“stable”). In this guide, we instead use the term concentration. This term—one you likely already use in everyday life—emphasizes the authors’ point that everyone already has some degree of experience achieving this mental state. Realizing this may make the earliest steps of meditation less daunting.)
When cultivating concentration, most meditators choose their breath as their focal point. Novice meditators often find that distractions such as sounds, bodily sensations, and memories make it hard to sustain their focus on their breath. However, as they hone their concentration skills, they’re eventually able to focus on it for long periods of time.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Mind Illuminated summary:
- That the true goal of meditation is to reach enlightenment
- The 10 sequential stages you can follow to improve your meditation practice
- Cultural, historical, and scientific insights about meditation
