Deepening Your Practice: Advanced Meditation Techniques

For the seasoned meditator ready to go further — explore concentration (samatha), insight (vipassana), longer sits, and the subtle art of working with the mind's depths.

For those who have practiced steadily for months or years, meditation reveals deeper territory. The advanced practitioner is less interested in techniques as tools and more curious about the nature of the mind itself. This is subtle, rewarding work — best supported by an experienced teacher.

Level 3: Concentration and insight

Two great streams run through most contemplative traditions. Concentration practices (often called samatha) cultivate a steady, unified attention that can settle into deep states of calm and absorption. Insight practices (vipassana) turn that stabilized attention toward the changing nature of experience itself — revealing how thoughts, sensations, and emotions arise and pass away.

Extending the sit

Advanced practice often involves longer sessions — forty-five minutes to an hour — and periodic retreats where practice deepens through sustained silence. In longer sits, the mind moves through waves of restlessness and settling; learning to stay present through both is where profound stability is forged.

Subtle skills to explore

• Cultivating equanimity — a balanced, non-reactive presence with pleasant and unpleasant alike.
• Investigating the 'three characteristics' — impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self.
• Resting in open awareness — letting attention be spacious rather than fixed on one object.
• Working with subtle energy and stillness that arise in deep concentration.

A word of guidance

Deep practice can surface old emotions and unexpected experiences. This is normal, but it is precisely why a trusted teacher or community becomes invaluable at this stage — to offer context, reassurance, and skillful guidance. Progress here is measured not in dramatic experiences, but in how you meet ordinary life with growing wisdom and ease.

The deeper you go, the simpler it becomes: just this breath, just this moment, just this.

Written by

Kamla Dasrath

Certified PEMF, Red Light & Holistic Health Care Practitioner, Author & Astrologer

Kamla Dasrath is a Certified Holistic Health Care Practitioner, Author, and devoted Mother. Blending Eastern and Western modalities, she guides clients toward a healthy mind, body, and soul — with a dedicated focus on nutrition, wellness, energy healing, and astrology.