Knowra Dhyana Dhyana Dhyana is sustained meditative attention or absorption in Indian religious traditions. Its meaning and role vary across Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain systems.
Dharana : Dharana is the practice of concentrating attention on a chosen object or point. In Patanjali’s eight-limbed yoga, concentration precedes dhyana.
Yoga : Yoga is a family of Indian disciplines joining ethical, bodily, mental, or devotional practices to liberation or other goals. Dhyana is one limb of Patanjali’s path of yoga.
Transcendental Meditation : Transcendental Meditation is a modern meditation technique using silent mantra repetition, taught through a standardized program. It is a modern method distinct from classical uses of dhyana.
Sanskrit : Sanskrit is an ancient Indo-Aryan language used extensively in South Asian religious, philosophical, and literary texts. Dhyana is the Sanskrit form whose translations shaped several contemplative traditions.
Samadhi : Samadhi is a state of deep meditative absorption or integration in Indian contemplative traditions. Patanjali places samadhi after dhyana as attention becomes fully absorbed.
Mindfulness : Mindfulness is the attentive awareness of present experience, cultivated in Buddhist and other contemplative traditions. Mindfulness can sustain attention during meditation, though it is not identical to dhyana.
Bhakti yoga : Bhakti yoga is a devotional path that cultivates loving dedication to a deity or ultimate reality. It foregrounds devotion rather than sustained contemplative absorption.
Pali : Pali is a Middle Indo-Aryan language in which the Theravada Buddhist canon is preserved. Its cognate jhana appears in early Buddhist teachings on meditative absorption.
Anapanasati : Anapanasati is Buddhist mindfulness of breathing, practiced by attending to the breath and its changing qualities. It is a specific meditation practice that can cultivate sustained attention.
Buddhist meditation : Buddhist meditation comprises contemplative practices aimed at concentration, insight, ethical cultivation, or liberation. Dhyana is a foundational term for Buddhist contemplative practice.
Show all 21