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 MushroomNSwiss
Fuck off!
Registered: 02/19/12
Posts: 1,093
Loc: Prison showers
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I have an inversion table as well for the herniated disks in my neck. I personally don't like hanging upside down and don't think I could meditate in that position. Although it has been the shit for my neck pain, I just don't think inversion and meditation are for me. It's not a bad idea though and maybe over more time I'll get more comfortable on that thing and can try meditating as well. I'm still not able to do full inversion yet, I'm about 70 degrees or a little more right now. Anymore than that and I get alot of knee pain. Anyway, interesting idea.
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The early bird may get the worm... but the second mouse gets the cheese.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 14,962
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Quote:
White Beard said:
Quote:
MushroomNSwiss said:
I guess that's where I'm confused. I see what you mean about not clearing all thought. But if you are just sitting there thinking, what good is that?
For example, people with depression just sit and think and think and think. Yet, some doctors suggest meditation to help. How would more thinking help?
Maybe you can't clear your mind of all thought, but maybe concentrate on clearing it?
Negative thoughts arise, then they pass away. When you sit quietly you can pick up on this and start to dis-identify with the negative thought patterns, thus they have less control of your behavior. IME.
I have seen people try to separate from negative thoughts, it does not work.
you cannot run away from or shrink them by will,
any reaction to it makes more associations to bind it tighter,
just follow the breath.
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 Breadnbutterfly86
Religion limits human potential
Registered: 02/07/10
Posts: 870
Loc: Wonderland
Last seen: 3 months, 9 hours
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meditation is simply another distraction from death. it is a part of life that people rely on in order to deny death. i respect meditation more than prayer... but like i said, it is a distraction just like religion, money, jobs, hobbies, corrupted morals many tend to follow with no question. it is all about running from death. riding out life until you die naturally or accidentally is denial from birth to death. the only true acceptance is suicide. it is proof that one has truly accepted that death is nothing to fear.
..... meaning it is a way to cope.
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"Don't just do something, stand there!" -Mr. Rabbit-
Breadnbutterfly
Edited by Breadnbutterfly86 (05/27/12 04:02 AM)
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 14,962
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to some people death (obsession) is their meditation not really death, but the idea of death.
if meditation means the control of mental contents to one thing,
and if death means cessation of life,
then thinking of death incessantly is a meditation with the content being death -
if the content of meditation is not about death, that topic is out of the equation. it is another thing.
what is tricky is that "being out of the equation, seems equal to death,
but that is like saying zero rocketships compared to zero bananas is the same topic, zero.
And while that statement has truth it is untrue.
truly it is a thing you do to cope, but it is what you do to cope with being alive, and to cope with being mind.
For fear of death there are many escapist approaches: philosophies and religions - meditation is not about avoiding anything, if you try to push it away it sticks harder. that is what meditation shows.
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Edited by redgreenvines (05/27/12 07:43 AM)
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Jaegar
Stranger
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Out of curiosity has anyone gained anything of value from their meditation of significance?
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Breadnbutterfly86
Religion limits human potential
Registered: 02/07/10
Posts: 870
Loc: Wonderland
Last seen: 3 months, 9 hours
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 Re: What is meditation?  [Re: Jaegar]
#16291917 - 05/27/12 01:17 PM (11 months, 20 days ago) |
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calmness/relaxation.... concentration... a bit of what seemed to be control over the mind...
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"Don't just do something, stand there!" -Mr. Rabbit-
Breadnbutterfly
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Jaegar
Stranger
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Eh i get that with a good nap.
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Freedom
Will swim for food
Registered: 05/26/05
Posts: 5,024
Last seen: 20 days, 9 hours
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Quote:
BlindSoothsayer said:
If you try to clear your mind, what exactly are you doing? Are you sitting there, telling yourself "don't think, don't think, don't think!" Isn't that in itself thinking?
Nope.
When I try to clear my mind I do "rise above" myself. I don't get many complete thoughts at all. There are periods of silence and then I see what crkhd just described in giving up nicotine thread,
Quote:
You will notice there is this silent spark before every craving. Then comes the thought "I need a smoke" - NOT before!
before every thought is a feeling, there is a movement of consciousness that is trying to pull the thought into being. Rather than a spark I would describe it as a movement in consciousness - but the spark analogy works because it is a small thing that sets a larger thing in motion. This spark or movement is the awareness being pulled towards thought, but before it gets pulled in I just move it back to my body or breath or vision or whatever else I'm focusing on. It could even be a dynamic process like driving or walking.
There is a sense of peace and silence without thought.
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Edited by Freedom (05/27/12 02:33 PM)
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White Beard
Registered: 08/13/11
Posts: 5,170
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Re: What is meditation? [Re: Freedom]
#16292346 - 05/27/12 03:21 PM (11 months, 20 days ago) |
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That's a pretty good description.
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White Beard
Registered: 08/13/11
Posts: 5,170
Loc:
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Re: What is meditation? [Re: Jaegar]
#16292347 - 05/27/12 03:22 PM (11 months, 20 days ago) |
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Quote:
Jaegar said:
Out of curiosity has anyone gained anything of value from their meditation of significance?
Nope. Just lost a bunch of stuff. 
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 14,962
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Re: What is meditation? [Re: Jaegar] 1
#16292437 - 05/27/12 05:08 PM (11 months, 20 days ago) |
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Quote:
Jaegar said:
Eh i get that with a good nap.
you know, you probably can lower your blood pressure with a nap.
look no further.
occasionally some people need to have the ability to function and to be calm with a clear disposition.
oddly this (silent meditation) is a thing that is done only by the self within the self.
there is no purpose to converting people that are not interested, and there is no external math teacher to be tricked into thinking you did your homework.
I can say that a person who has failed to learn their way in meditation did it wrong, but the truth is I really don't know. I cant see inside them - only they can see what they are doing. you have to teach yourself to meditate from the instructions. you can get hints from people who do it, but you can waste a lot of time deferring to others.
It is even possible that some people cannot and may not ever ever be able to put their obsessive internal dialog aside for 15 minutes which has to be done to actually start to do mindfulness meditation.
but to answer your snarky question between yawns about gaining something through meditation, yes, I have gained a lot, but it is not real-estate, and I cannot cash any of it in for dollars, but I can appreciate a child's spirit, and the moment one enters the room we seem to be old friends.
people find that pretty mysterious; it also happens with dogs, cats etc. people are not threatened, and I was not like that before.
a nap never did that for me.
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MushroomNSwiss
Fuck off!
Registered: 02/19/12
Posts: 1,093
Loc: Prison showers
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I tried it for the first time this morning. Started out simple. Put on some Japanese flute music that happened to be just 8 minutes long. I started there just concentrating on breathing. It's only day 1, but I'm going to continue it and see how it goes. Gonna keep em short for now and just get into a good habit of relaxing and breathing and see what happens.
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The early bird may get the worm... but the second mouse gets the cheese.
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zannennagara
Found in Space
Registered: 09/26/08
Posts: 433
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Re: What is meditation? [Re: xFrockx]
#16293701 - 05/28/12 04:46 AM (11 months, 20 days ago) |
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Writing, to me, especially poesy and journaling, seems similar in some ways to much of meditation as described here - which I do "formally" only on rare occasions - and I wonder if it could/should/can be classified as a kind of discipline.
Through the fingertips, but maybe moreso the pen, one can seem to concentrate the frothy squall into its particular molecules by focusing on a specific idea, sensation, memory, pun, metaphor - mantra? - and exorcising it, in a sense, in so doing reaching for and usually finding holographic transcendence in that molecule. Every few words the pen rises to a chew-toy and thought seems to halt as the proper, individual, unusual mode of description presents itself, often slowly, with a rhythm or an evocation. The word-search may present a sort of stumbling block but there is absolutely nothing else clouding the mind.
In the process, as the thing comes out in its peculiar and distinctive way, an empowered, uplifted, animated yet serene feeling of satisfaction and broadening emerges, much of the time. I once spent nine weeks traveling in a foreign country and this practice became my most reliable source of nourishment and preferred form of entertainment.
I imagine painters get this too; I think creativity encourages this kind of mentality. I'd be hyperbolizing to pretend all is delight and bright rainbows (with heaping pots of gold, like all your wealthy artist friends), but more often than not stopping and allowing yourself to envision beauty/peace/alternatives really feels like the best kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
I think the book Writing Down the Bones espouses a similar idea. After having echoed it myself it seems more likely that art-making (or its numerous analogs) can be properly considered a form of meditation. What do the meditators think?
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quinn
medicine woman
Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 4,773
Loc: (usually) above sea level
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Quote:
which I do "formally" only on rare occasions
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if only i
had learnt to count
i might know more
about a larger amount
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 14,962
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Quote:
zannennagara said:
....
I imagine painters get this too; I think creativity encourages this kind of mentality. I'd be hyperbolizing to pretend all is delight and bright rainbows (with heaping pots of gold, like all your wealthy artist friends), but more often than not stopping and allowing yourself to envision ...
as a painter, I have to say that painting is a different kind of thing from mindfulness meditation even though I am mentating without words, I am not "keeping still" - even though I am connecting with parts of existience that are not normal daily experience, the mental contents are shifting around a great deal without me keeping attention to that domain.
so from my point of view, it is not like mindfulness meditation and the results of it - while they might modify your blood pressure readings, will not result in center-ing, though it will result in better writing or painting.
The centering effect is due to adding gentle centering associations to each distraction that you recover from using awareness. (when you practice meditation, this is the real work you are doing - everything else is a side effect. jhanas, visions, floating etc. are not the goal at all)
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 14,962
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it's about coming back to the center
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newusernewmind
Stranger
Registered: 05/30/10
Posts: 105
Last seen: 10 months, 27 days
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Could the transitory effects on the mind be compared to tripping at all? And has anyone here ever had strong visuals from meditating?
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 14,962
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among the occasional side effects of meditation are jhana's or absorption states.
these states are like the various degrees of psychedelic resonance and overlapped signals in the cerebral cortex:
a) slightly clear and airy (light headed)
b )tracers, echoes, richer colors, lingering words, vibration (enhanced point of concentration -feedback)
c) formation of geometric energy patterns (in any or all senses)
d) lingering personality fragments that seem to be semi-autonomous which may merge with the fabric of experience. (i.e. talking chairs, or musical walls - or visualizations of spiritual masters sitting on one's head etc.)
e) full on delerium (flying, being in heaven, having psychic powers)
f) amnesia (inaccessible experience)
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meditation seldom does all of this, but it can, and most meditators report that (to some extent ) a degree of this has occurred during their practice.
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again this is all side effect from meditation - not the purpose of it - even so, some meditators are upset when the side effects do not occur, they need to get past expecting any side effects.
for me I usually have some side effect up to (a), (b) or (c) above, and if there has been any psychedelic (d) and (e) are likely if I am left to my own devices.
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I have not really seen any psycho kinesis, levitation, or magic, and I think that might just be delirium - as it is an extreme type of thing that only occasionally gets reported - weirdness - but who can say. who needs to say?
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DoDahDay
Stranger?
Registered: 10/10/10
Posts: 285
Loc: Bat country
Last seen: 4 days, 7 hours
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Re: What is meditation? [Re: Jaegar]
#16293986 - 05/28/12 08:25 AM (11 months, 19 days ago) |
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Quote:
Jaegar said:
Out of curiosity has anyone gained anything of value from their meditation of significance?
I used to have to count my money six times before Id believe I had it counted right, couldnt stand to sit still, used to be a huge jerk til I was able to SEE what I was doing all these years. You gain insight into what you were never taught to see.
It also taught me how to not hold on to material possesions so dearly. You learn whats important in life.
Edited by DoDahDay (05/28/12 08:31 AM)
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 14,962
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Re: What is meditation? [Re: DoDahDay]
#16294114 - 05/28/12 09:44 AM (11 months, 19 days ago) |
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since these are changes in your personality and habits, it might not be right to say meditation taught you those things; although it probably helped you transform your self, such that these habits no longer control you.
this is different than being taught something, and it is different than being trained - as when a dog is trained with treats or punishment.
the transformations that occur from meditation practice are more like little awakenings from the grip of automatic behavior patterns.
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