I propose that one of the main reasons for the paucity of convincing evidence with regard to meditation is because Western scientists have failed to apprehend the key idea that underlies the meditation tradition: meditation is traditionally defined in Eastern cultures as the experience of mental silence. Modern Western understandings of meditation vary, but probably the most common understanding is that it is a method for eliciting reduction in physiological arousal. The notion that meditation involves a state of consciousness “beyond thought” seems all but absent from modern Western scientific literature on meditation.