The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (658 page)

(Skt., ‘meditation’, ‘absorption’). In Indian religions, a term denoting both the practice of
meditation
and a higher state of consciousness (generally involving
enstasy
), though the term takes on more precise meanings in different traditions; thus the Buddhist use of the term is distinct from the Hindu—see JH
NA.
In
Tantrism
dhy
na comes to mean
visualization
of one's own deity (
i
adevat
),
ma
ala
, centres (
cakra
) of the subtle body (
li
ga
/
s
k
ma
ar
ra), or
guru
, accompanied by
mantra
repetition (
japa
) and symbolic hand gestures (
mudra
). Dhy
na as visualization is thus the visual equivalent of auditory mantra and corporeal mudra and is an essential part of
s
dhana