Buddhist Meditation Practice
Meditation is a mental practice used in basically all forms of religion. Although the basic idea is the same in each of these forms of meditation, the ultimate goal varies from practice to practice. In many cases the meditator attempts to reach a semi-trance state in which they will experience a form of psychic enlightenment, either through vision or sound.
Buddhist Meditation on the other hand seeks to bring the meditator to a higher level of mental clarification and perception.
In the case of traditional religious meditations the end result is at the point at which the meditator experiences visions involving objects related to their own religious beliefs. Although these psychic phenomena can be reached in Buddhist meditation as well, this is not the ultimate goal of the Buddhist meditator.
The existence of such phenomena is actually considered a hindrance to the Buddhist meditator, instilling a false sense of satisfaction resulting from a false sense of fulfilling the purpose of ones religious life. The Buddhist meditator understands that the only success that arises out of such visions is succeeding in objectifying a particular concept in ones mind.
So, the purpose of Buddhist Meditation, then, is to rid oneself of the delusions of false sources of pleasure where there is pain, of the sense of permanence where there is only impermanence, and of the sense of reality when the real ceases to exist.
Further expanding on that purpose, then, we see that what one seeks in Buddhist meditation is the liberation of oneself from such delusions and the ability therefore to end ignorance and craving.
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