What is meditation?
Meditation is a mind that concentrates on a virtuous object, and which is the main cause of mental peace . The practice of meditation is a method for acquainting our mind with virtue. The more familiar our mind is with virtue, the calmer and more peaceful it becomes. When our mind is peaceful, we are free from worries and mental discomfort, and we experience true happiness.
If we train our mind to become more peaceful we shall be happy all the time, even in the most adverse conditions; but if our mind is not peaceful, then even if we have the most pleasant external conditions we shall not be happy. Therefore, it is important to train our mind though meditation.
Whenever we meditate, we are performing an action that causes us to experience inner peace in the future. Day and night, throughout our life, we usually experience delusions, which are the opposite to mental peace. However, sometimes we naturally experience inner peace. This is because in our previous lives we concentrated on virtuous objects. A virtuous object is one that causes us to develop a peaceful mind when concentrating on it.
If we concentrate on an object that causes us to develop and unpeaceful mind, such as anger or attachment, this indicates that for us the object is non-virtuous. There are also many neutral objects that are neither virtuous nor non-virtuous.
There are two types of meditation: analytical meditation and placement meditation. Analytical meditation involves contemplating the meaning of a spiritual instruction that we have heard or read. By contemplating such instructions deeply, eventually we reach a definite conclusion or cause a specific virtuous mind to arise. This is the object of placement meditation. We the concentrate single-pointedly on this conclusion or virtuous mind for as long as possible to become deeply acquainted with it. This single pointed concentration is placement meditation.
Often, analytical meditation is called "contemplation" and placement meditation is called "meditation". Placement meditation depends upon analytical meditation, and analytical meditation depends upon listening to or reading spiritual instructions.
Quoted from The New Meditation Handbook
© Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and the New Kadampa Tradition