ABSTRACT
Most research on meditation carried out in Western laboratory and field settings has focused on physiological and overt behavioral changes: meditation as a self-regulation strategy. Several research studies which have focused primarily on the physiological and overt behavioral changes resulting from meditation have found no differences between meditation and other self-regulation strategies. Although there are many different conceptual definitions of meditation, it seems important to attempt to identify what “covert behaviors” actually occur during meditation. The experience of long-term, proficient meditators described in the classical texts is useful because it provides first-hand accounts of individuals who have had extensive meditation experience. The meditation room consisted of a Japanese style floor, shoji screens, and green plants. A large floor-to-ceiling mirror covered one wall. The classical root text of the Mahamudra tradition divides “thoughts” into reasoning, memory, anticipation, and categorizing and the Vipassana tradition of meditation discusses remembering, sensing, worrying, thinking, judging, hearing.
