Lately I've thought that the word "meditation" & the term "meditative states" are more than a little unhelpful : Walpole Rahula says that the original term used was the word "bhavana", meaning "mental cultivation".
Just Sitting is what we do...& three of the positive things that may arise are calmness, openness & harmony. An awareness & an appreciation of these are what the Tibetans call shi-ne...experience of space...it is a development of calm abiding...samatha... & false experiences may be dispelled by observation of arising phenomena...the application of vipassanna...seeing through these arising forms to the ground of our being.
Education is essential; it is often overlooked that one of the Buddha's Seven Factors of Enlightenment is called dharma-vicaya...conversations, studies, reading...finding out what the words mean...talking about the ideas...but most of all dwelling in silence...swimming in it.
