Definitions

Acceptance

Acceptance is the willingness to experience a situation as it is.

Altered traits

“An altered trait—a new characteristic that arises from a meditation practice—endures apart from meditation itself. Altered traits shape how we behave in our daily lives, not just during or immediately after we meditate.”

This definition is taken from the book "Altered Traits" by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson, which gives a great meta-review of all the traits that are commonly developed during meditation.

Kindness

Kindness towards a person, is the act of taking into account (your best guess) of the persons needs, either your own or someone else's.

In the West we see kindness often as something done for someone else, but I think it is a more general skill. A skill you can improve, resulting in more kindness for both yourself and for others. I might even claim that you can't become good at kindness for another, without being good at it for yourself (and vice versa), but this is a topic to explore in the future.

P.S. Since kindness is the name of the game, I will probably rewrite this section a lot of times.

Meditation

Meditation is the act of intentionally cultivating certain mental traits using a set of exercises.

Mindfulness

"Mindfulness is remembering to observe how the mind’s attention moves from one thing to another." - David C. Johnson

The word "mindfulness" originates from the Pali word "sati" which means "to remember", also the Sanskrit counterpart "smriti" originally meant "to remember", "to recollect", "to bear in mind".

Needs

A need is something you require to improve—or hold on to—your level of wellbeing.

Spirituality

Spirituality is the act of exploring the subjective experience of consciousness.