The requirement to center one's inner being with appropriate intentions in the apparent outer world of the senses is known as Kavannah or correct "Direction". This entails within the life of any Jew, if he or she is devout, the generation of holy actions or deeds, known as Mitzvot.
This should not be different in any living person, Jew or not, who wishes to really return to being a human creature that is in balance and harmony with all living things and the world which supports him and not a mere biological robot run by globalized mindsets.
Those who understand the Torah and Kabbalah who today have no sensitivity to Mitzvot will only benefit by understanding, correct conduct in this world and theoretically by Contemplation.
CONTEMPLATION
Their questions are however, what form do contemplations take and to what level do they elevte the practitioner? Since there is no attempt to reach out directly to their God. Moses, in legend, that reached the level of the upper white flame, which does not consume or destroy, which is not the logical equivalent to the Chan Dao Awakening, for it is written, according to the Kabbalah, that "above the white light and surrounding it is yet another light, which can hardly be seen and which symbolizes the Supreme Essence."
Ascending to the upper white flame can then be considered as opening according to the Kabbalah the most elevated mysteries of Wisdom.
We would say in Chan Dao that they are the equivalent of the fruit of our Contemplatons of Natural Function, Essence and Undifferentiated Form.
But we must look at a more practical level of liberation with prayer and more formal meditation.
Rabbi Abba asked Rabbi Shimon why the Jews sway backwards and forward when studying the Torah or when praying?
The reply, quoted from Proverbs XX.27, was that the Spirit of man is like the Lamp of the Lord. The Rabbi continued by explaining that with a single word of the Torah he is unable to keep still, "swaying backwards and forward like the wick of a candle."
It is more probable, however, that it can be attributed to the method in which concentrated one-pointedness, like our one-pointedness of breathing, generates a background condition which eliminates disturbing thoughts, emotions or visceral interference.
Let us look then at a few of the many prayer (Teffilot) directions.
Rabbi Yisrael Ba'al Shem Tov
"Prayer is union with the Divine Presence.
Just as two people will move their bodies back and forth as they begin the act of love, so must a person accompany the beginning of his prayer with the rhythmic swaying of his body.
But as he reaches the heights of union with the Presence the movement of his body ceases."
and
A person should put all his strength into the words, proceeding from letter to letter with such concentration that he loses awareness of his bodily self.
It then seems to him that the letters themselves are flowing into one another.
This uniting of the letters is his greatest joy.
If joy is felt as two human bodies come together, how much greater must be the joy of this union in spirit!
People think that they pray to God. But this is not the case. For prayer itself is of the very essence of God.
Rabbi David Shlomo of Tulczyn
A person of spirit may begin his prayer in awe and trembling, saying to himself:
"Who am I, a poor clod of earth, to stand before the King of Kings in prayer?"
He speaks only a partial truth. He does not yet know the higher truth, however.
The truth is that all things, even the material world, are filled with God's presence.
Indeed he cannot speak the words of prayer, better that he remain silent before the Lord.
Thus the scripture says:
"God is in heaven and you are upon the earth;
do not rush to speak, and let your words be few."
As long as you believe that God is only in heaven and does not fill the earth—let your words be few.
Only when you come to know that you too contain His Presence-only then can you begin to pray.
Rabbi Yisrael Ba'al Shem Tov
There are times when you are praying in an ordinary state of mind and you
feel that you cannot draw near to God. But then in an instant the light of your soul will be kindled and you will go up to the highest worlds.
You are like one who has been given a ladder: The light that shines in you is a gift from above.
What is the Kabbalic objective of prayer and simple meditatiive practice?
It is to purify consciousness through natural piety and sacred intention so that the Divine “sparks” (neshâmah) in all creatures will be recovered from the stained existence and enabled to return a personal Godliness.
In this process this “raising of the spark," the pure "Self/no-Self Soul" is liberated from Her exile.
PRAYER
There are two forms of prayer, the “halakhic” versus “kabbalistic” or “Hasidic,” which are equivalent to “exoteric” and “esoteric.” Since the exoteric variety are rife with pleas that are personal in great measure and therefore Identity-bound, only the Hasidic prayers may be considered a valid meditation from our point of view.
According to Nahmanides, b. 1194, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Nachman Girondi, a leading medieval Jewish scholar, prayer is the response to a “surface crisis” of the community at large, a zarat ha-zibbur.
According to Maimonides, b. 1135, also known as Moshé ben Maimón (prayer) and perhaps the greatest of the Rabbi of his time, prayer extends to a “depth crisis” of the individual, a zarat ha-yahid. Seen from Maimonides' perspective, life is an ongoing crisis full of suffering.
In traditional Dharma it may be considered the logical equivalent of the Sadhanas.
MEDITATION
One practice is called hisbodedus, or hitbodedut (hit-ba-de-DOOT) and literally means "to make oneself be in solitude." Perhaps the best forms of hisbodedus is the Breslov personalized form of free-flowing verbal prayer which is practiced by the individual Hasid and also contemplation of Breathing.
These solitary meditation disciplines began to be esoterically promulgated in the second half of the 12th century by Ya‘aqov the Nazirite and Moses Nahmanides, while the Kabbalah, a later spiritual evolution, provided methods of meditation:
a. Invocations of the conditions of the ten Sefirot which have been explained.
b. Visualization of the Merkabah, the divine throne. or Hekhalot, the highest heaven contains seven palaces. Included within this is the concentration (kavvanah) upon permutations of the divine name and visualizations (yechudim).
These two may be considered as logical equivalents to the Contemplations naming Amitabha Buddha and to the Pure Land visualizations.
Another important Contemplation is upon the the true vacuity of YHVH, that is the contemplation beyond the last conceptualization of Jehova, the "infinite nothingness" of "neither form nor no-form."
This may well be considered as the equivalent to the neither perception nor non-perception meditations and others of the four higher Theravadin Jhanas.