ArticleFrontiers in psychology2021
Defining Meditation: Foundations for an Activity-Based Phenomenological Classification System.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A meta-analysis of the effects of mindfulness meditation training on self-reported interoception.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- Consumer-Grade Neurofeedback With Mindfulness Meditation: Meta-Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Pooled it
- Brain criticality and advanced meditation "cessation" events: An intensively sampled electroencephalography case study.IBRO neuroscience reports · 2026Article
- Personal and relational experiences on meditation journeys following developmental trauma: An IPA study of adults who experienced an inconsistent evolved developmental niche.Psychology and psychotherapy · 2026Article
- Do Contemplative Practices Promote Trauma Recovery? A Narrative Review from 2018 to 2023.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Minding the Body: A Meta-analysis of the Effects of Mindfulness Meditation Training on Self-reported Interoception.Research square · 2025Article
- Advanced and long-term meditation and the autonomic nervous system: A review and synthesis.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- Advanced concentrative absorption meditation reorganizes functional connectivity gradients of the brain: 7T MRI and phenomenology case study of jhana meditation.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- ENIGMA-Meditation: Worldwide Consortium for Neuroscientific Investigations of Meditation Practices.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2025Review
- Integrated phenomenology and brain connectivity demonstrate changes in nonlinear processing in jhana advanced meditation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Investigating the complex cortical dynamics of an advanced concentrative absorption meditation called jhanas (ACAM-J): a geometric eigenmode analysis.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Decoding Depth of Meditation: Electroencephalography Insights From Expert Vipassana Practitioners.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2025Article
- Dynamic brain states underlying advanced concentrative absorption meditation: A 7-T fMRI-intensive case study.Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Reimagining pain as an allostatic imperative: perspectives from contemplative traditions.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- Neurophysiological mechanisms of focused attention meditation: A scoping systematic review.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Mindfulness, cognition, and long-term meditators: Toward a science of advanced meditation.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Toward a Unified Model of Advanced Meditation, Human Development, Meditation Maps, and Transtradition Metaphors: Facing Impermanence, Suffering, and Death.Mindfulness · 2025Article
- Neurofeedback Training Facilitates Awareness and Enhances Emotional Well-being Associated with Real-World Meditation Practice: A 7-T MRI Study.Mindfulness · 2025Article
- Multimodal neurophenomenology of advanced concentration absorption meditation: An intensively sampled case study of Jhana.NeuroImage · 2025Article
- High-precision neurofeedback-guided meditation training optimises real-world self-guided meditation practice for well-being.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Classifying different meditation techniques is essential for the progress of meditation research, as this will enable discerning which effects are associated with which techniques, in addition to supporting the development of increasingly effective and efficient meditation-based training programs and clinical interventions. However, both the task of defining meditation itself, as well as defining specific techniques, faces many fundamental challenges. Here we describe problems involved in this endeavor and suggest an integrated model for defining meditation. For classifying different meditation techniques, we draw on classical, contemporary, and holistic systems of classification. We analyze different techniques and propose that all meditation techniques are based on a specific set of activities, that is: focusing, releasing, imagining, and moving in relation to an object of meditation, including fields of experience. Meditative activities can be combined and unified in the activities of observing, producing, and being aware. All meditative activities are unified in awareness of awareness. Defining specific meditation techniques may be done by specifying which activities and objects are involved. The advantage of our approach is that it can potentially account for the inner workings of all current systems of classification and hence it lays the foundation for formulating an overarching system of meditation that can guide future research and practice.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.