Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meditation is a tool that cuts both ways. It must be used, like any tool, with respect and careful practice. The Buddha analogized it to a poisonous viper in the wrong hands. I'll give you one example from my own practice. When I learned the Mahasi style of vipassana (mindfulness) meditation, which has you note sense objects as they arise, I noted everything , including conversation. I noted "hearing, hearing, hearin…
Vipassana is insight meditation, which is generally contrasted with mindfulness (known as 'samatha'). "Mindfulness" is generally thought of as a prerequisite to insight, though an especially committed vipassana practitioner might well develop both concurrently. (The aforementioned 'insight' is of course meant as insight into the three core features of phenomenology, viz. the impermanence of subjective states, the all…
If we look at the suttas, the Satipatthana Sutta, or Discourse on the Establishment of Mindfulness, offers a recipe to remain mindful of the sense aggregates to achieve insight:
"In this way he remains focused internally on the body in & of itself, or externally on the body in & of itself, or both internally & externally on the body in & of itself. Or he remains focused on the phenomenon of origination with regard to the body, on the phenomenon of passing away with regard to the body, or on the phenomenon of origination & passing away with regard to the body. Or his mindfulness that 'There is a body' is maintained to the extent of knowledge & remembrance. And he remains independent, unsustained by (not clinging to) anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself."