Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

by Daniel Goleman

mainly mindfulness for beginners, vipassana for long-term (with some studies of Zen, too), and for the yogis, the Tibetan paths known as Dzogchen and Mahamudra. As it happens, our own practice history has followed this rough trajectory, and in our experience there are significant differences among these three methods. Mindfulness, for instance, has the meditator witness whatever thoughts and feelings come and go in the mind. Vipassana starts there, then transitions into a meta-awareness of the processes of mind, not the shifting contents. And Dzogchen and Mahamudra include both in early stages—and a host of other meditation types—but end in a “nondual” stance, resting in a more subtle level of “meta-awareness.”