- Insight Meditation (Mindfulness / Vipassana) — from the Theravada tradition (Thailand, Burma); watching sensations and thoughts arise and pass, with minimal cultural or religious trappings. Centers include the Insight Meditation Society (MA), Spirit Rock (CA), and the Bhavana Society (WV). Pioneered for pain management by Jon Kabat-Zinn at UMass Medical Center.
- Zen — a Mahayana school (Japan, Korea), popularized in the U.S. in the 1950s–60s by Alan Watts, D.T. Suzuki, and Beat Generation poets. Direct, non-verbal, non-conceptual perception — through "just sitting," awareness practice, or koan work.
- Tibetan (Vajrayana) — a mixture of early Tibetan shamanism, Buddhism, and Indian Tantric practice. The choice of teacher and lineage is particularly important, spanning a wide range of devotional, concentration, and insight practices. Many visualized deities represent aspects of one's own mind, not external gods.
Tantra also plays a role in achieving the relaxed, integrated body and mind that meditation asks for — distinct from Western "New Age sex therapy" misrepresentations of the term (see Buddhist Tantre below). A related, growing Tibetan practice, Dzogchen, emphasizes direct, non-conceptual perception — akin to Zen and mindfulness — and is considered among the highest teachings in the Bon and Nyingma traditions, aimed at discovering the "Nature of Mind." Modern Insight teachers and Dzogchen's non-dual approach increasingly converge on similar ground — sometimes called "Choiceless Awareness," where the sense of a separate meditator falls away.
