Defining a complex intervention: The development of demarcation criteria for “meditation”.
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality May 1, 2009 Kenneth Bond, Maria B. Ospina, Nicola Hooton et al. 67 citations
A panel of 7 meditation experts reached consensus through a 5-round Delphi study on essential criteria for defining meditation for systematic review. Essential features include a defined technique, logic relaxation, and a self-induced state. Optional features include psychophysical relaxation, a self-focus skill or anchor, altered consciousness, mystical experience, suspension of logical thought, embedding in a religious/spiritual/philosophical context, or mental silence. The results highlight challenges in distinguishing meditative from nonmeditative practices and offer an approach to operationalizing meditation for comparative research.