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What is meditation?
    #6444641 -

I guess I always assumed I had a grasp on the concept, but then the other day I realized I actually just had some weird notions that most likely we're true. I always see people in the mountains around here sitting cross-legged for hours at a time, but I guess I don't see the point.
What do you think about while you meditate?
What do you achieve? Does it make you feel better, or just relax the mind?
seems to me like it has potential to be amazingly boring... or mind opening and fantastic.

Thanks!

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Re: What is meditation? [Re: ApJunkie]
    #6444699 -

imagine that there was something that you could do at any moment that connected you to the widest appreciation of now, and the most consistent and even handed expression of gentleness.
practice meditation like that.

actually for each person of each temperment there is likely a different meditation, but when it is distilled down the work is really the same: reconnection with what is happenning, and increase of dignity/gentleness.


--------------------
:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: What is meditation? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #6444706 -

redgreenvines said:
imagine that there was something that you could do at any moment that connected you to the widest appreciation of now, and the most consistent and even handed expression of gentleness.
practice meditation like that.

actually for each person of each temperment there is likely a different meditation, but when it is distilled down the work is really the same: reconnection with what is happenning, and increase of dignity/gentleness.


That makes it sound wonderful, but I'm still not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do. I have a very active mind, and without a somewhat specific idea of what I should be thinking about I'm afraid it'll wander off. Actually, I know it will...

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Re: What is meditation? [Re: ApJunkie]
    #6444792 -

you aren't your mind though

there is no spoon man

that means that the word "spoon" keeps us from actually experiencing what "spoons" really are

direct perception is not what the analytical mind is for, the analytical mind is for analyzing.

so you aren't the thoughts, you are the thinker.........
what to do? someone else more knowledgable will say but my understanding is just do something and keep doing it, either you count your breaths, or you repeat a mantra, and as long as you are doing that, your mind will be cleaned gradually until suddenly you start to have meaningful experiences... so long as you keep an object to concentrate on and do not stop concentration until the session is over, that is rudimentary meditation.


--------------------
I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

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Re: What is meditation? [Re: ApJunkie]
    #6445073 -

That's that catch. You aren't supposed to think about anything. One of the things meditation implies is clearing your thoughts. It doesn't mean that you will stop having them, but instead of getting an emotional reaction to them, instead of trying to think deeper and in more detail about the things that come to your mind, you just let them follow their course, observing them coming and going, mixing, till they stop meaning the world to you. You're seeing them, you are aware of them, but you don't interfere.
It really sounds more complicated then it actually is.
When I first started meditating, it was very difficult for me not to hold to a thought, a worry or even a good though that made me excited.
But that's just in the beginning because you can actually see the difference each day. Each day you become more and more detached, each day, while meditating, your thoughts are passing more and more unnoticed. Until you just are, listen and become a feeling. Then, after meditating even more, there will be days when instant "flashes" come to you... ideas, images which give you a special feeling that makes you feel satisfied.


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs
:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Re: What is meditation? [Re: ApJunkie]
    #6445365 -

If you're talking about Buddhist meditation, the point is to stop having selfish attachments to your impermanent surroundings and self. You want to think of nothing, if possible, and meditate on selfless love of everything. It does make you feel better and relax the mind, but these are short-term effects of meditation; in the long term, the point is to make it so you're not wasting your existence thinking about your loss of youth, or beauty, or the divorce from your spouse, but rather to exist in love and create effects of love for the entire changing universe. In Buddhism, the fact that everything is impermanent and changing also means that we affect it through our thoughts and actions, and in meditation, your thoughts and actions (theoretically) should become selfless.

There are other meditations than in Buddhism obviously, but the teachings of the Buddha are without a doubt the best foundation you'll find for meditation, even if you're not a Buddhist.


--------------------
So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: What is meditation? [Re: Ravus]
    #6445582 -

That makes it sound wonderful, but I'm still not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do. I have a very active mind, and without a somewhat specific idea of what I should be thinking about I'm afraid it'll wander off. Actually, I know it will...

there are several techniques, breathing and mantras were mentioned. either will work. for the breathing technique, focus on the breath feel it coming into your body then going out of your body. feel it consuming your entire being then exiting.

for the mantra, there are several you can choose and they have lots of different meanings. the sound the words make activate different energy. these mantras are sanskrit words, and sanskrit was made by monks who knew about the energy centers in our bodies. om namo bhagavate = om, obeisance to the lord. say the mantra slowly and feel the sounds reveberating in your body. say it over and over.

meditation is tough to start out because we are so used to letting the mind have control. for the first 20 minutes or so the mind is going to chatter about nothing, it may be frustrating. it gets easier and easier to come to a 'peaceful' state.

the benefits of meditation are beyond anything. its like the universe is on your side.

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Re: What is meditation? [Re: ApJunkie]
    #6445632 -

http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/yogasutr.htm

good luck

when i was young, i stopped thinking and got scared and ran downstairs haha

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Re: What is meditation? [Re: ApJunkie]
    #6445799 -

ApJunkie said:
redgreenvines said:
imagine that there was something that you could do at any moment that connected you to the widest appreciation of now, and the most consistent and even handed expression of gentleness.
practice meditation like that.

actually for each person of each temperment there is likely a different meditation, but when it is distilled down the work is really the same: reconnection with what is happenning, and increase of dignity/gentleness.


That makes it sound wonderful, but I'm still not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do. I have a very active mind, and without a somewhat specific idea of what I should be thinking about I'm afraid it'll wander off. Actually, I know it will...


when I say to imagine,
I mean can you imagine somebody doing something like that:
can you imagine someone sitting pretty still in a relaxed state & appreciating what is happenning gently, and not reacting to it so that he can keep appreciating it while still sitting.

If you can imagine that, then you chose a time to do it and decide to do it for 15 minutes, or 1/2 hour.

to do it you probably need a technique, there are thousands, some more personally suited than others but all converge at fascillitating the above.

the practice I use is very simple.
once my position is stable and comfortable I follow the breathing with my awareness positioned on the end of my nose.
the words I hear in my mind are only words that follow the breath"
eg. during the in breath
"beginning......middle... end...."
and during the out breath
"beginning......middle... end...."

if it is a long breath I will think, "this is a long breath"

if I wander, I return.

none of the particulars are important, the important thing is to sit for the period in a kind of aware openness that is not reactive.


--------------------
:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: What is meditation? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #6445815 -

you honestly don't have to worry if your mind will or won't do this and that

as long as you sit still for a period of time and that whole period you are doing your meditation, it doesn't matter what your brain does.

you could be counting your breathing, every single breath, and have 500 thoughts. that's okay.

or you could have 5 thoughts. that's okay.

what matters is breathing. if you stop breathing because you doubt yourself, that is what is not okay.

so each time you sit down to meditate, your mind becomes more still, and that's all that matters.

this is what some Buddhist nuns told me. that even if the sky starts falling you still keep counting the breath.


--------------------
I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

Edited by leery11 (01/10/07 04:22 PM)

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Re: What is meditation? [Re: leery11]
    #6446198 -

Quote:
this is what some Buddhist nuns told me. that even if the sky starts falling you still keep counting the breath.


i like that technique.

i agree, breath is very important for meditation.

meditation is all about going with the flow, and breath is the flow.

in and out and in and out.

something that helps too is to pay attention to the intervals between breaths.

notice the minute moments when your inhale turn into the exhale.

be conscious of your non-breathing.

because that too is a part of the flow, that nothing is moving at all, that all is still, silent, and non-existent..

still movement, silent sound, existing non-existence.

this paradox is true being.

:mushroom2:

:earth: :yinyang: :shineon:


--------------------

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General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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