Meditations

As I see it there are two major aspects to meditation, that I believe can be tackled individually, or together. I think doing one at a time is good for beginners.

Concentration (aka Samadhi, Shamatha)
Insight (aka Vipassana)

Concentration is essentially about focusing your awareness on one or a few fields of experience for periods of time. This creates stability, relaxation, mental clarity and pleasant feelings. Concentration is often seen as a foundation for Insight practice.

Insight is about becoming aware of your sensate 'life', breaking it down into small pieces for examination, Ultimately resulting in you experiencing, well, something... ha! I've not got that far yet. Let's call it a surprise. Some terms are 'Enlightenment', 'Non Dual Awareness', 'Liberation', the 'Deathless', and the 'Happiness Independent of Conditions' among others. Some of the effects of my Insight meditations so far have been strange and interesting. I guess that one could even find them a bit frightening. Stuff like the room I'm in 'disappearing' or even bits of my body 'vanishing' temporarily. That might sound vague, but I'm only just getting my head around this stuff myself. There's a good description from a better authority here.

Eventually the two paths sort of merge, or you can find yourself doing both in parrallel, or one after the other, or using one to get a better grip in the other. One hand washing the other... I think it benefits the beginner meditator to do them separately at first, for simplicities sake.