In the past 30 years or so interest in meditation has been growing. Though contents and nature of meditation were widely divergent, practices called "meditation" gained popularity in general society, and various groups and organizations became active.
Since approximately two decades academic societies have begun to show interest in meditation as a subject of study, too. It is quite interesting to find this same tendency all over the world, but the contents and purpose of practices of meditation in the Orient and the Occident seem to differ in some aspects by nature. Therefore, in this book, the authors will examine the current state of interest in meditation in the Orient and the Occident seperately.
Most of the reports in this book have been presented at the Makuhari Symposium "Comparative and Psychological Study on Meditation", held from August 30, to September 1992, in Makuhari, Japan.
