That's like saying "Exercise should be embraced and not sublabelled". Imagine just telling people "exercise" and them having no idea whether they should lift weights, run, swim, or stretch. "Meditation" is a vague hazy concept to most of the population that have no idea how to get started or what the benefits are. So, imo, you are absolutely wrong. It should definitely be broken up.
edit: Me being one of them. I have a hazy understanding of focal meditation (whether breath, clock ticking, whatever) and what it's supposed to accomplish. Other types of meditation are absolutely confusing to me. E.g. "visualization" - visualize what, for how long, how clear is it supposed to be, what are the benefits?
edit2: You are focusing on "push back", I am focusing on what the original poster said - meditation needs to be better defined.
I think people have overcomplicated meditation. At it's most basic, it's about clearing your mind and practicing keeping it clear over some interval. There are a lot of ways to do that, and lots of accessories, but they mostly have the same goal.
I really liked the way one Zen Buddhist put it: just sit. Don't think about something else, don't focus on passing thoughts, and don't push away passing thoughts, but you may observe them. The point of having a focal point (breath, a fixed point in front of you, an unfixed point) is mostly to give you something that's not distracting to focus on when you get distracted by a passing thought. That same master gave very specific guidelines on posture and whatnot, but at the same time he said to not worry about doing things wrong, they're just there to help you stay comfortable during a meditation session.
If you really want to give it a try, find a comfy position (not laying down, you might fall asleep), focus on something (feeling of your breath, an uninteresting point in front of you, etc), and try to avoid focusing on anything else, returning to the point you picked when you inevitably fail. It's surprisingly difficult, and you immediately get goals (sit for X minutes without distractions). If you like, pick up a book (I liked Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind), or better yet, go to a class, but that's really not necessary to just get started.
> At it's most basic, it's about clearing your mind and practicing keeping it clear over some interval.
If there is one thing I have seen meditation teachers agree on, it is that meditation is not about clearing your mind. Your description of a Zen sitting practice does accommodate passing thoughts, so perhaps you mean something other than a no-thought state by a 'clear mind'?
It is sometimes possible to reach a state in which no thoughts arise for a long time (e.g. second and subsequent Jhana states) but that is quite rare for most meditators.
Well pushback is a negative or unfavourable reaction or response.
If I'm absolutely wrong you then hope meditation gets unfavourable reactions or responses? Curious why you think what most would consider a positive and healthy thing as worthy of pushback? What does meditation do to deserve this pushback?
Meditation is not immune to needing the scientific approach. We should label which types work and which don't work, so we can understand it and make it better.
That's not stopping you from doing whatever you want.
Your use of the word immune speaks to the degree which scientific concepts are applied out of context. Good luck grasping meditation concepts with an empirical approach, what will be the dependant variable? There is no point in labelling "what works" because it will be determined by who is using the technique and who is guiding them.
I think it's useful to reach conclusions like "most beginners flounder with Zen but make fast progress with Mahasi noting". But there are always exceptions and some individuals seem to benefit from less common approaches.
Sorry but no, under this guise any esoteric, homeopathic BS can gain ground. Effects of meditation, too, will have to either be objectively measurable. If they were not, it can be dismissed.
It's not medicine. Do you do null hypothesis testing after you pray? Some things just aren't objective - see psychiatry for an example of a super scientific approach to subjectivity. It still generally results in BS homeopathy that doesn't work.
the curse of causality you mean. it's hard to isolate the causes of things, but you have to do it, otherwise you don't know what works and you're drinking cow piss to prevent COVID or saying vaccines cause autism
edit: Me being one of them. I have a hazy understanding of focal meditation (whether breath, clock ticking, whatever) and what it's supposed to accomplish. Other types of meditation are absolutely confusing to me. E.g. "visualization" - visualize what, for how long, how clear is it supposed to be, what are the benefits?
edit2: You are focusing on "push back", I am focusing on what the original poster said - meditation needs to be better defined.