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nicechrisman
Interdimensional space wizard



Registered: 11/07/03
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Tibetan monks
#19096115 - 11/06/13 03:57 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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So I went down to Laguna Beach today because I just happened to end up with a wednesday off due to a freak of scheduling and they have a kirtan singing at the UCC church down there every Wednesday morning.
The traffic was absolutely FUCKED on the way down there, but I managed to keep a good head about the situation even though it meant I would be late. So I get there and park and start walking up and thought I saw a monk out of the corner of my eye- you know the shaved head, purple and orange robes, the whole nine. I peek in where the kirtan usually takes place and nobody is there but there's a whole Tibetan style shrine set up in the church. I see activity by the back door and go in and there's monks selling some wares, and lo and behold, the kirtan is JUST ending as I get there. Feeling a little disappointed, but also wondering what's with the monks because they've never been there before. So I go in the bathroom, and come back out and everyone is up by the shrine and the monks are doing this really cool throat singing. Kinda like this . I sat down and closed my eyes and had a really nice meditation while listening to them. It was really a pretty amazing harmony of sounds and helped me enter a pretty deep state.
After they finished, they brought out this gong that was made in Thailand to commemorate the death of a famous monk. It had ended up in Santa Rosa California, until these monks found it. They are now bringing it to India with them to their monastery. The gong had the most amazing sound, and really catapaulted me into one of the most intense meditative states I've ever achieved.
After that 4 of the monks sat around a mandala image that was drawn on piece of plywood and started making a sand painting. The precision and their ability to work together as one unit were really inspiring to me.
I ended up buying a sandalwood mala from them as well as some really nice smelling incense.
I then walked around Laguna Beach and came across this while walking down street I had walked by many times before.

Interesting experience. I've had many funny sychronicities and fortunate occurrences in my life lately. It's amazing how much more frequently these kinds of things happen when I meditate on a regular basis. Why do I keep running into monks?
-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lily
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mushroom_sandwich
semi retarded



Registered: 04/17/12
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that chant sounds so amazing. how would you recommend getting into meditation? I have a hard time sitting up straight due to back pains.
-------------------- “I believe in a long, prolonged derangement of the senses to attain the unknown. Our pale reasoning hides the infinite from us."
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nicechrisman
Interdimensional space wizard



Registered: 11/07/03
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You can always sit in a chair. Find one that has the right posture for you. Or you can use a traditional cross legged sitting method and just start with short increments and work your way up. Or you can do some hybrid of the two, which might be best overall.
-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lily
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mushroom_sandwich
semi retarded



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thanks really been wanting to get into it again since I quit smoking weed.
-------------------- “I believe in a long, prolonged derangement of the senses to attain the unknown. Our pale reasoning hides the infinite from us."
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nicechrisman
Interdimensional space wizard



Registered: 11/07/03
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Yeah it is good stuff fo sho
-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lily
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mushroom_sandwich
semi retarded



Registered: 04/17/12
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would you recommend meditating in silence or to something like in the video you posted?
-------------------- “I believe in a long, prolonged derangement of the senses to attain the unknown. Our pale reasoning hides the infinite from us."
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FruitOfLife
Professional Package Handler


Registered: 05/21/12
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complete silence
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nicechrisman
Interdimensional space wizard



Registered: 11/07/03
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I've always been a silence guy myself. That's what most of the old school guys taught, so I figure it's a good place to be. Sometimes I'll use chanting music or something if there's a lot of distracting background noise. Eventually though, I think it's good to be able to welcome the distracting background noise as part of the practice.
-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lily
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mushroom_sandwich
semi retarded



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I'll go ahead and stick with silence then, at least for now. I usually do Zen style meditation, would you recommend anything else? All tips are welcome!
-------------------- “I believe in a long, prolonged derangement of the senses to attain the unknown. Our pale reasoning hides the infinite from us."
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nicechrisman
Interdimensional space wizard



Registered: 11/07/03
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The more I study the different styles of meditation, the more I see that they are mostly essentially the same. I do meditation where I try to focus my attention on my breath. The parts of the breath I focus on change from time to time. That's one of the bigger distinctions I can find between zen and vipassana is that zen focuses more on the feeling of the breath IN the body, where vipassana focuses more on the sensation of the point where the air is entering and leaving the body- the tip of the nose. I kinda mess around and try both and other things too. Sometimes recite a mantra in my head if the breath meditation isn't really vibing for me. My best advice would be to read lots of stuff from lots of different methods and see what works for you. That's the beauty for us Westerners is that we aren't forced to adhere to a particular path, we live in the melting pot, where we can have exposure to many different things. I would say however, that once a favored method is found, it may be a good idea to delve deeper into it rather than "dabbling".
-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutelely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lily
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hidenseek1
Its got all the dinks.
Registered: 12/22/12
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one time was stoned and drunk and coming home there was these well dressed brown skinned men in my lobby humming some arbic shit, it was really confusing and surreal for me, then i started thinkin they were going to bomb the place
musta just been some middle eastern version of Johova witness type deal though
-------------------- You can drink at 7 A.M., because the Beastie Boys fought for that right -------------------------------------------------------------------------- pons asinorum -------------------------------------------------------------------------- lsd and the vietnam war changed music forever
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