Meditation does not mean concentration, it does not mean contemplation: it means getting beyond the mind. Concentration, contemplation, are both of the mind. Meditation means getting unidentified with the mind, seeing the mind as separate, knowing the mind as separate, witnessing the mind but not getting identified with it. Slowly slowly as witnessing grows, the distance grows between you and the mind. Soon the mind is a faraway echo, and finally you cannot even hear the echo; then you are left utterly alone.
That needs courage, hence very few people have been able to know their own selves, and very few people have been able to become Buddhas. Before one can become a Buddha, one has to pass through a death — of the mind, of the ego, of all that we think we are. We have to lose all that we think we possess, then only can we possess the eternal.