Mindfulness meditation refers to an eastern religious philosophy as well as a western technique for improving the efficiency of the mind.
Mindfulness meditation has been commonly used by American psychologists in an effort to conquer phobias, personality disorders and even in acceptance and commitment therapy (which is essentially therapy that helps a person "change" their mindset).
Mindfulness meditation involves coming to a total awareness of one's self and thoughts; he or she will be aware of the body, aware of its functions and processes and aware of consciousness-all within one mind.
There are two primary focuses in achieving this type of medication.
First, that the person controls his or her self-regulation of attention and second that he or she opens the mind up to curiosity, openness and understanding.
This is essentially a quest to gain insight, as Buddha teaches that mindfulness and meditation are the pathways to enlightenment.
How does such a therapy session begin? Concentration usually involves the person focusing attention on a single object.
They welcome every aspect of experience and clear their mind of everything except what is mentally happening in the moment.
This form of concentration sees the person give most attention to a target, or an anchor, that will help a person stay in the present only.
This target may be a physical object, or perhaps something intangible like a process of breathing.
This helps the individual to keep the mind focused; even if his or her attention wanders, it's easy to direct it back to the object.
It's not important to keep uninterrupted attention all the way through; rather, whenever distraction occurs, without great effort or chastising, we simply bring the attention back to the anchor.
As this process progresses, the person will feel their mind start to calm and the thought process start to slow down.