Three main goals of meditation

Clear the mind of conscious thinking
Investigate the inner workings of the mind
Use visualization to cause the mind to think about something in particular

These three goals have led to the development of three main types of mediation. Each type concentrates on way to eliminate hindrances to achieving a particular goal, and on ways to achieve that goal.

Three main types of meditation

Centering Meditation

This is the shamatha or "tranquillity" type of mediation where one tries to calm and clear the mind by stopping it from thinking and emptying it of all thoughts. This calming, centering, and emptying of the mind is a characteristic of Japanese Zen meditation.

Investigating Meditation

This is similar to vipasshana "insight" meditation where you are monitoring the flow of awareness and realizations as they move through your observing mind. It allows one to learn how to prevent the mind from preconceived beliefs when dealing with reality and to learn ways to overcome the comfort of simple thinking. This watching of the mind in action and gaining insight into its functions is characteristic of Theravada "School of the Sages" meditation, which is strong in countries of Southeast Asia, such as Thailand or Burma, but it does not have any historical presence in Japan. This method is said to be closest to the original meditations taught in India by Siddhartha Gautama, Buddha.

Visualizing Meditation

This type of meditation uses "eidetic visualization" to program ones mind willfully to alter its conditioned perceptions of the world. One learns to overcome delusion and fear, to gain greater insight of the world ,and to increase ones power within the world. From what we know, this is close to the the type of meditation employed in Mikkyo, or "esoteric doctrine" meditation. Since the methods of Mikkyo are secret, we do not know much about its inner workings. To learn Mikkyo, you must be in a specific kind of environment and "psycho-emotional atmosphere" and have a teacher.

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