Most of the meditation apps and techniques common in the West today trace their roots back to Buddhist practice, even when the framing is entirely secular. Understanding where these techniques came from can make them easier to practice with intention, whether or not you identify as Buddhist at all.
A brief, practical grounding
Buddhist teaching begins with the Four Noble Truths: that suffering is a part of life, that it arises from craving and attachment, that it can end, and that there is a path to end it. Meditation is part of that path — not an escape from difficulty, but a way of relating to it differently. You don't need to accept any of this as belief to benefit from the techniques it produced.
Three traditions, three purposes
- Samatha (calm-abiding). The foundation practice — training attention to rest steadily on one object, usually the breath. This is the closest to what most beginners picture when they hear “meditation,” and it's the practice that builds the concentration the other two rely on.
- Vipassana (insight). Once attention is stable, Vipassana turns it toward direct observation of experience itself — noticing sensations, thoughts, and emotions arise and pass, without grabbing onto them. The aim is to see clearly how transient every mental state actually is.
- Metta (loving-kindness). A practice of deliberately generating goodwill — traditionally starting with yourself, then extending outward to loved ones, neutral people, difficult people, and eventually all beings. It's often the most immediately mood-lifting of the three.
Where to start
If you're new to all three, Samatha is the natural entry point — it's the skill the other two are built on. A simple version: five to ten minutes of breath-counting, daily, for two weeks, before introducing Vipassana or Metta. There's no need to rush the sequence, and no requirement to adopt any particular belief system to benefit from the practice.