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PowerTrip
Polypharmaceutical Shaman



Registered: 03/07/05
Posts: 1,148
Loc: The void
Last seen: 11 years, 4 months
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Describe your preferred meditation technique
#5985173 - 08/21/06 10:14 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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For those of you who meditate, describe your preferred method. Where do you sit, how do you sit, what do you focus on, is it based on a traditional religious practice...etc
I'm just getting back into it. I sit on the floor in a half lotus (working towards full). I focus mainly on breathing, using techniques I picked up from studying zen.
-------------------- I spit reality, instead of what you usually learn and I refuse to be concerned with condescending advice cause I'm the only motherfucker that can change my life
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery


Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Describe your preferred meditation technique [Re: PowerTrip]
#5986155 - 08/22/06 09:20 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Should I be ashamed?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Cowgold
Bullshit


Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 12,486
Loc: .
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Re: Describe your preferred meditation technique [Re: PowerTrip]
#5986820 - 08/22/06 02:26 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Work. Stay busy, then I'm done, then I feel good.
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koppie
astral projectile


Registered: 07/23/04
Posts: 2,653
Loc: cloud hidden
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Re: Describe your preferred meditation technique [Re: PowerTrip]
#5986950 - 08/22/06 03:32 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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To start with an excerpt from Dogen's Fukanzazengi, which although over 800 years old is still the basic text for zazen, my preferred method of meditation.
Quote:
A quiet room is good for zazen. Eat and drink moderately, don't entangle yourself in delusive relationships. Just leave such things to themselves. Don't think about good or bad, right or wrong. Don't give rise to the mind's common concepts, the judging of thoughts and observations. Don't sit to become an Awakened One because you can't fabricate a Buddha out of sitting or lying down.
In the place where you practice spread out some thick matting and place a round cushion on top of them. Sit on the cushion with your legs crossed in either the full lotus posture or the half-lotus. This means place your right foot on your left thigh and your left foot on your right thigh, loosen your clothes and belt keeping them neat. Then put your right hand palm up on your left foot and put your left hand in the palm of your right, the tips of the thumbs touching lightly. Find your posture, leaning neither to right nor left, forward or back. Your ears should be aligned with your shoulders, and from the front, your nose in a direct line with your navel. Place your tongue against the roof of your mouth keeping mouth and lips closed. Your eyes should be open and you should breathe gently through your nose.
Once you have found your posture, breathe in and out deeply, sway left and right and then settle firmly and steadily. Think of not-thinking. How do you think of not-thinking? Be Before Thinking. These are the basics of zazen.
The method of breathing is what I believe is called 'reverse breathing' which means that while breathing out you push your diaphragm down, pushing on your intestines and extending your stomach, until your lungs are completely empty. For breathing in, you pull in your stomach and expand your chest. If you've emptied your lungs completely, this breathing in happens more or less automatically, when you relax your diaphragm.
When meditating at home, I usually sit in full lotus (the result of natural flexibility and lots of practise) on the floor or on my bed on a zafu (round meditation cushion) facing a blank wall to minimize the amount of visual distraction. (as stated above zazen is practised with eyes open)
Concentrating on the outbreath, you can let all thought go (I'm only a beginner, so thoughts start to come back quickly , but apparently these periods become longer with practise until you can spend long continuous periods of meditation just being pure awareness)
I find that simply breathing out in this manner pushing down on the intestines, generates this heightened concentration accompanied with a feeling of falling backwards as if my consciousness is about to tumble out of the back of my head. (It has never left my head, so I guess enlightenment is still a long way off )
Here is a modern guide illustrated with photos.
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Maitereya
bohemian

Registered: 03/24/06
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Last seen: 11 years, 4 months
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Re: Describe your preferred meditation technique [Re: koppie]
#5987053 - 08/22/06 04:14 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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i usually focus on the breath. i dont control my breathing i just breath and observe myself breathing. if i meditating on the breath then i also focus on the energy, prana, in the air that i am breathing like its empowering and giving me energy. this is of course after the mind is blank, which takes anywhere from 1-20 minutes.
i also use mantras, but thats when im doing more advanced meditation. first i clear my mind by focusing on the breath. then if it feels right ill use a mantra and focus on the energy centers.
when, i meditate is differnt. sometimes i sit down and try to meditate and my mind is filled with thoughts and it takes 20 minutes to stop the mind. other times i accidentally come across a good time to meditate when my mind is already quiet.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

Registered: 04/21/05
Posts: 4,587
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Re: Describe your preferred meditation technique [Re: PowerTrip]
#5989608 - 08/23/06 02:10 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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I have an excellent five step process that never fails. Nothing, especially not traditional forms of meditation, has been able to completely quiet my mind as much as this technique.
1. Drive to Goa party. 2. Dance. 3. Repeat step number two until severely fatigued. 4. Sleep (Optional). 5. Drive home.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
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Re: Describe your preferred meditation technique [Re: PowerTrip]
#5989647 - 08/23/06 02:23 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Gomp
¡(Bound to·(O))be free!


Registered: 09/11/04
Posts: 10,888
Loc: I re·side [primarily] in...
Last seen: 11 months, 10 days
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Re: Describe your preferred meditation technique [Re: PowerTrip]
#5995032 - 08/25/06 03:14 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
PowerTrip said: For those of you who meditate, describe your preferred method. Where do you sit, how do you sit, what do you focus on, is it based on a traditional religious practice...etc
I'm just getting back into it. I sit on the floor in a half lotus (working towards full). I focus mainly on breathing, using techniques I picked up from studying zen.
I sit anywhere, anyhow, focusing of what I focus on. Based on experience.
Breathing with the nose!?
Quote:
From:www.answers.com Nose breathing
Nose Breathing refers to the state of inhaling and exhaling through the nose.
It is considered superior to mouth breathing for several reasons. Breathing through the nose has numerous health benefits due to the fact that the air travels to and from the external environment and the lungs through the sinuses as opposed to the mouth. The sinuses do a better job of filtering the air as it enters the lungs. In addition, the smaller diameter of the sinuses create pressure in the lungs during exhalation, allowing the lungs to have more time to extract oxygen from them. When there is proper oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange, the blood will maintain a balanced pH. If carbon dioxide is lost too quickly, as in mouth breathing, oxygen absorption is decreased.
Nose breathing in public is considered to be more socially acceptable and attractive than mouth breathing.
I think I might have heard somewhere that you mainly "take up" oxygen when exhaling... But, never mind that unless you know it to be true.
I always share a "new" meditation technique when posting in these kind of threads, so her we go:
Imagine a point say where your belly button is, and half way through your body, so it is inside you..
That point, a size of "a cell at the time", is disappearing into pure nothingness. If vacuum was a molecular cavity, you could consider each molecule of your body, from that first point, then on throughout the body.. Even beyond the limits of you skin!
I'll elaborate if needed/wanted, as I wrote this in a hurry...
 
"Do not abuse Earth, ..just use it!" -Unknown :p
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