Meditation people roll call!

vipassana = www.dhamma.org

There is no hierarchy, no gurus, no theology, no religious dogma that goes along with it. There are no fees of any kind, it is completely free and open to everyone, and centers are staffed and run entirely by volunteers funded by donations. The meditation technique is what the Buddha himself practiced. I was also attracted to its combination of simplicity and rigor - the concept behind it is very basic but the practice itself is quite difficult (at least at first).

However, I should probably also mention that I did not learn vipassana in the US or in the presence of other westerners - I'm not sure what centers in the US are like, and I imagine you may find yourself in a class with a lot of annoying new age-ish "seeker" types and/or that guy from Weezer. Fortunately everyone maintains silence.

There is no hierarchy, no gurus, no theology, no religious dogma that goes along with it.

And no results! Ha, just kidding. ;)

With hand on bar, world is silent.

I got some totally chill book on meditation that helped me learn the following things: get comfy when you do it, ie a comfy chair or bed that you like & just close your eyes. Don't worry about emptying your mind or not thinking of anything. Don't worry if bad or negative thoughts come to you, just let them sift through. Don't worry if your mind is "busy," just let the thoughts fly by you but don't really focus on them or ruminate. Don't go into it trying to force some particular emotional state.

You can use a mantra if you want. For a while, mine was actually 'solve et coagula,' haha. Any word I want, not made up ones. It's like when you say any word over and over, ie "chalk" or whatevs, after a while it means nothing & can actually grow to be very amusing. Then I started imagining an image of a turtle & somehow that really works for me.

I liked the book because it was like building your own approach. Once you figured out ways that worked for you, just stick with them and don't act like there are rules & regulations. Or experiment with other things or methods or locations.

He also made the interesting point that if you get places a few minutes early, you have time to relax & never have the stress of rushing or being late, which is basically as good as meditating. Awesome.

a lot of annoying new age-ish "seeker" types

That One Guy That Shows Up in Sandals & A Tie-Dye Asking About "Generating Energy"

He should buy a gasoline-powered anything, or eat a pear, or go for a run...all of which generate energy.

Yes, he should take out his pocket knife and prissily eat a pear.

Haha, I live in Berkeley. Everyone is like this!

annoying new age-ish "seeker" types >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the guy from Weezer

Now now, Abbott. The guy is a bozo, of course, but going for a run spends energy.

It creates energy via the krebs cycle & vellular respiration, ie the energy which you then burn. Potential--->kinetic. Or I could be totally wrong.

I am imagining this guy as the New Age Retro Hippie from Earthbound:

http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/snes/eb/images/clay/newageretrohippie.gif

contemporize maaaaaaan

Hmmm - okay, I was thinking about caloric energy.

Do you guys really have experience with a lot of new age-oriented people ("you may find yourself in a class with a lot of annoying new age-ish "seeker" types") or is this just...stereotyping?

Experience with a lot of people who fall into this negative stereotype, I mean.

dude I live in San Francisco. My mom took me to Harmonic Convergence as a child. I went to school in UC Santa Cruz.

in = at

duh

Yeah. I just bristle a little at the stereotype because the only really progressive things going on spiritually in this country do still fall under the "new age" umbrella.

He also made the interesting point that if you get places a few minutes early, you have time to relax & never have the stress of rushing or being late, which is basically as good as meditating. Awesome.

this is major words of wisdom
i am always running late :/ and i try to breathe it out but what i'm really thinking is 'why didn't you just not run late in the first place?' rrgh

what book is this, abbott? it sounds like my kind of book

xpost

somehow i have managed to avoid a lot of those types. but i have also managed to avoid going to meditation centres and yoga retreats and things.

I don't disagree with that - obviously my own interests veer heavily into what a majority of Americans would consider "new age" or "occult" or "hippie" or whatever. Still, as far as demographics go it attracts its share of irritating people (and conmen, and dilletantes, and ignoramuses) just like any other religious community)

x-post

> somehow i have managed to avoid a lot of those types. but i have also managed to avoid going to meditation centres and yoga retreats and things.

Yeah, by attending a taiji school with a sifu who likes to mix it up a bit we tend to weed out the guys who think that 'martial arts isn't about fighting, it's about peace.'

Uh, what part of 'martial' is confusing you, man?

Now, I'm a wierdo who thinks that if you use violence for recreation, you'll be less inclined to use violence as a way of solving problems (except the problem of violence) but that's a whole other thing.

that is a rather odd idea

Allow me to elaborate then:

A few things about sparring -

It teaches first hand that might doesn't make right.
It teaches first hand that anybody can lose.
It teaches first hand that you never know what's going to happen.
It teaches first hand that what is unknown is especially dangerous and unpredictable.

Nobody values peace as much as an old soldier, right?

seems like a different thread, this idea that to practice violence is to learn not to practice it.

True enough. Sorry about the drift.

Do you guys really have experience with a lot of new age-oriented people ("you may find yourself in a class with a lot of annoying new age-ish "seeker" types") or is this just...stereotyping?

-- Tim Ellison, Tuesday, July 17, 2007 11:01 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yes, I has experience. Most recently, a friend and classmate of mine gave me this to read, and very earnestly seemed to think that it would, like, blow my mind, man.

http://www.erowid.org/library/books/images/cosmic_serpent.jpg

Some insightful journalism, some truly laughable "science."

...anyway, point is: yeah, I run into/interact regularly with nuts like this all the time. And I live in MT, of all places!

What are the premises of that book that you thought were laughable?

Do you guys really have experience with a lot of new age-oriented people ("you may find yourself in a class with a lot of annoying new age-ish "seeker" types") or is this just...stereotyping?

-- Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 17 July 2007 23:01

For the record I was describing an actual guy I encountered on my first visit to my local Zen Center.

Also I have been one of these people.

Not in a past life, like five years ago.

My wife works at a metaphysical book shop and I find the other people that work there and those that come in regularly to be, on the whole, very cool and extremely interesting.

You're 21, Hoos. 5 years ago is a past life.

lol for real

I don't believe in reincarnation, but I totally get 'death and rebirth.'

I've been doing - of and on, with a lapse of some weeks in between - basic "sit then follow your breath" meditation for about 3 years now. It's funny how much I miss it once I get back into it. I find that the end results affect me on more of a personal level so I can't get into eventual "benefits" or anything like that. Only that it personally makes me feel mentally much lighter than I would had I not done it. That's it. That's what I get from it. And I love it for that reason.

Why don't you believe in reincarnation, hoos? I'm not going to proselytize to you; I'm just curious why someone would definitively say, "I don't believe in it."

Didn't mean to sound definitive "it does not exist," but I don't think it could; the population explosion of the last century seems to rule it out.

Well, that's an interesting statement, but there isn't necessarily more life on the planet now than there was in prior centuries. Also, I don't know as that souls always necessarily reincarnate immediately.

Also, it's a big universe. : D

Tim, what to you indicates that reincarnation is at all likely?

Being close to spiritual adepts whom I trust and who have knowledge in this area. I don't personally have any conscious knowledge of my own past lives, but I have been given information about them and about why I chose this particular life now. The information made a great deal of sense to me and has helped me to focus a great deal on myself and on what I am doing.

i chant daimoku from time to time... i like the message behind it and it helps me refocus my energies (there's that word haha) to what matters in life, i.e. value creation, my place among the universe, etc.

i like "namu amida butsu" not because i believe at all in the tenets of amida buddhism but i love the way it repeats in my head. i guess that's what makes a good mantra.

Cosmic Serpent is a great book

the fact that DNA emits light did kind of blow my mind

excessively literal interpretations of reincarnation strike me as fairly ridiculous - what is this "you" that keeps getting reborn? how to explain the exponential increase in population (does reincarnation require souls jumping some kind of species barrier)? what is the point of having "past lives" if you can't remember them and need to pay someone money to tell you about them?

however, I am down with the laws of thermodynamics, so if you think about consciousness as a kind of energy (which can therefore never be destroyed, only transformed from one state to another) I can accept the idea that there's this constant field of conscious energy that keeps manifesting itself physically in an infinite number of iterations - but the individual identity, I don't see how that would figure into it. People's personalities and identities are shaped by the interaction of genetics and the environment. The idea that someone in the past was "me" in any literal, meaningful sense is patently ridiculous.

its one of those issues where terminology needs to be clearly defined - what is the "I" that is supposedly reincarnated. One of the things that's become clear to me from meditation (and various readings of Buddhism) is that there is no "I", really.

Well that's what bothers me about modern Buddhism, and particularly branches that really dwell on reincarnation. The Buddhas message was one of letting go of the self in order to escape suffering, and yet here we are concerning ourselves almost non-stop with where our 'self' has been and where it is going. It seems contradictory.

> if you think about consciousness as a kind of energy

My (pop-sci level) understanding of current cognitive science developments is that thinking and consciousness and emotion and creativity and all that stuff that we consider the soul or self or whatever generally is about completely chemically explicable.

Or put another way - there is no body/mind divide. The mind is a product of the body, specifically the brain, and that's about all there is to it.

excessively literal interpretations of reincarnation strike me as fairly ridiculous

you know, you can say that, but then are you also saying that people who do have illuminations about the subject also strike you as fairly ridiculous?

not sure what a less "literal" interpretation of reincarnation might involve.

Just in terms of reasoning through it it simply doesn't make sense to me is all. Could be that it happens, but I have no rational model which tells me it is possible.

> not sure what a less "literal" interpretation of reincarnation might involve.

The whole "Lion King" circle of life returning to the environment as wormfood and nourishing future generations with your body (and if you're lucky) your genes and thoughts thang.

Yes. That's why I have babies.

Good posts. Definitely a thread I wish was more active - an online Sangha is really valuable to me.

I wonder if the biggest thing is making it ritualised. Not in the sense of needing specific tools or incense or whatever, but in the sense of building it into your life. Have a routine, a place to go, a specific goal ('to be calmer' is fine!). And committing to it. I genuinely think it does need to be every day.

The second thing is to remove any expectations - from yourself and the meditation itself. You're not there to clear your mind, or become an olympian breather or a ninja of a concentration. You're there (to use the Pali word for meditation) to become 'familiar with'. That's the practice for me (and the dual meaning of practice/practise is so perfect here).

Third thing is how you can/might integrate meditation into your life. That integration of what you 'learn' about mind in meditation is the journey really, for me at least. Having a Buddhist framework for this helps me no end, but it needn't be that way for everyone. You can work this out as you go. You might be never need or have to.

And here's the thing, for me at least: shit is sloooow. I knew pretty quickly that this thing of ours was transformative but it takes its sweet time. I'd dig being kicked by a donkey and finding enlightenment that way but this slow unveiling makes total sense.

The simplest version of the 'meditation of breathing' that I know is this. 20 minutes, each 5 minute chunk being on at different aspect of the breath.

1. Count at the end of each breath. Count to 10 and go back to 1.

2. Count at the beginning of each breath. You're almost anticipating each new breath. Count to 10 and go back to 1.

3. Observe where the breath enters the body. So you might concentrate at the nostrils, the back of the throat. If this is too subtle, you can place your hand on your belly and feel it there.

4. Concentrate on the breath as a function of the whole body. The whole process.

It's weird how much time you can spend thinking about counting - am I doing it right? Am I being too 'loud'? Lol. I go for the 'soap bubble' approach. I'm not there to count, as such, but I want to acknowledge the concept of, eg, the in breath finishing, so I send up the most delicate of soap bubbles with a number on it.

I NEVER make it to 10 because I'm always distracted. No matter. Just go back to 1.

That's it. No expectation. No rewards for being good at breathing. No great unveiling order enlightenment.

I use these bells as signal for moving between each stage. It even gives you a minute or so to get comfy. (Posture matters, but that can come with time.)

https://www.freebuddhistaudio.com/audio/details?num=LOC63

20 minutes! god yeah my practice isn't that formal. my big limitation is that i do have scoliosis, kyphosis, chronic back pain... i can't maintain any one position for too long. i wish i could. i tried doing a lovingkindness (i'd call it "metta" but i can't do the diacritical properly) in-person with someone who's, i forget the word, but he's got an extensive background in buddhist meditation, for like four hours last year, and the back pain kept getting in the way.

i've been doing guided meditation off and on since before covid, 2018 or so. i do find that i struggle with establishing structure in my life in general. lately i've been doing, at the suggestion of my DBT therapist, short lovingkindness meditations - like 10 minutes or so, really basic shit - daily, and it's absolutely been transformative. i was really in a bad place and the lovingkindness meditation just turned me around completely.

my meditation practice didn't start out as being a DBT thing, but it's very connected to DBT lately. i don't think of it as "real" in a religious sense... it's very much westernized secular stuff. rather than sinking into a deep meditative state, what i strive for is to be able to re-center myself in the moment when i start spiraling. i _am_ a lot better at that when i used to be. i basically don't have SI at this point, at a lot of it is me being able to re-center myself when i start spiraling. it also really helps me deal with intrusive thoughts.

i hesitate to mention this, but a lot of my meditation focus is related in some way to my thoughts about kink and sex. orgasm for me is very much a matter of "letting go", and i have a _lot_ of trouble doing that, particularly with a partner. it's the ADHD... reaching orgasm does take a long time for me, and my brain has a tendency to show up in the middle and say "Hey, when was the last time you thought about the Armenian Genocide?"

i say "sex and kink" but kink is a categorically different thing for me. it's not sexual and at the same time it's not-not sexual. like that's not the focus or the purpose, it's just part of who i am. there's this weird thing where if my body can't wander off, it helps keep my mind from wandering off. it doesn't even have to be restrictive, just something like a simple diamond harness, which i have done on myself, helps. i'd like to be more emotionally comfortable with self-bondage, because i have found it effective, but there is a lot of shame, self-judgement, and emotional baggage involved. of course that's not for everyone and i know a lot of people are gonna have their own judgements around it, which is fine!

Good posts yourself, Chinaski. The most recent book I read is Becoming Yourself: Teachings on the Zen Way of Life by Shunryu Suzuki. I found it really helpful, especially this quote: "It doesn't matter whether your practice is good or bad. If you accept your practice as your own, then that practice includes everything." I was stunned when I read this because I have/had such a problem with judging myself and finding myself wanting. Not holding myself to a standard that I had mostly made up myself and was causing me such fear in my daily life really has made all the difference for me.

Kate, somewhere there's a story about Shakyamuni Buddha allowing one of his followers to lie down for meditation because that was the only way they could do it. You might try it?

I agree with servoret that lying down could work? I wouldn't be prescriptive about that sort of stuff - whatever works!

And 100% agree with the metta stuff, Kate. I've found it transformative too. But I think I always need a guide with it? There are too many 'moving parts' and I need someone to keep me on track. When it works though. Shit.

like 10 minutes or so, really basic shit - daily, and it's absolutely been transformative. i was really in a bad place and the lovingkindness meditation just turned me around completely.

oh man this makes me so so happy to hear kate. you can tell in your posts too! servoret i've also heard that lying meditation is an option (xpost to chinaski). i know there are certain effects associated with certain postures but i'm of the mind that however one can be comfortable is ok. i will let myself shift and move around a fair amount during meditation. or idly pull at hairs in my beard lol. i think a little bit of automatic movement, sometimes that feels ok to me.

judging myself or like ranking my meditation experiences has been a challenge for me too. sometimes they're very dramatic. sometimes they're quiet and neutral and matter-of-fact. sometimes i feel the gentlest purest love and sometimes i am blinded by deliriously absurd humor. sometimes they're messy and i spend most of the time thinking about stressors or work. welcoming and celebrating all of them is what i try to do too. with the messy ones, always at least once i come into awareness. that's just baked into the fact that i'm practicing. one idea that has stuck with me, again this is out of the centering prayer people, so use of the word "god" is prevalent, but it's this idea that meditation is about developing a relationship with god. and because god encompasses everything that i am, everything in me, it's about letting that be held by god and realizing god is able to be itself fully through me and in me. we hang out. the silence is me listening and then god listens back.

chinaski and servoret are giving awesome advice. for how to start and how to approach things. the 'unbroken block of time' thing has been interesting to me. it strikes me that the most important thing is to give yourself enough time where you can both lose track of time and stretch yourself out a bit, if that makes sense. i agree that frequent and consistent practice, at least daily, is important. in order to give the transformative stuff an opportunity to start soaking in.

i like to move myself to not-thinking if i catch myself thinking during meditation, because that's always a place of truth, but in all honestly i feel like sometimes the thinking i do after losing myself in meditation for a while is better and more intentional than than the thinking i do at random times during the day. or the thinking is more integrated somehow. i've found myself able to come to moments of resolution regarding all sorts of things in life in that space of half-quiet half-contemplation. that resolution is always something along the lines of, stay open, stay receptive, keep hold of the thread of god, of silence and presence. it can't lead you astray because it doesn't really lead at all, it occurs and asks you to witness it fully.

oh to be clear i absolutely do meditate lying down when i'm at home. on a firm couch. even lying down can be a problem for me sometimes... i do need to see a back doctor, quite honestly. but the lovingkindess meditation, with a guy named stephen snyder - it was great, he was great, i just do tend to get really fidgety. hypermobility _seems_ cool in theory but in practice it just means that i spent years putting my body in stress positions cuz i was so disconnected from my own body... i just have to adjust my practice to allow for the fact that i absolutely _am_ going to wind up fidgeting a lot, that fidgeting is just a normal part of my daily life like pain is.

i'm very into... i mean my relationship with christianity is complex. angel marcloid talks about her relationship with christianity, and her practice relates to this idea of god as "the great allower". and that's how i see god. i am personally angry at god for _being_ an "allower", for permitting things which i believe ought not to be permissible, and god - i was raised in the christian tradition, so when i communicate with god, it's jesus - just kind of shrugs and says yeah, i hear you, i understand what you're saying, and it's not up to you. not in a "fuck you" way, in a very kind of _validating_ way. like he's ok with me being mad at him and judging him for the way he does things. he's not gonna change the way he does things cuz i'm mad at him, but he's ok with me being mad at him.

one of the things that's helped me since my earliest days is that i do have the attitude of... it's ok for me to fuck up meditation, it's ok for me to be "bad" at meditation. meditation for me isn't about how deep or far i can go, what spaces i can explore, it's the practice of returning to the center, again and again and again. so in fact when my mind wanders off, as it does, i celebrate that, because that's another chance for me to return to the center.

time is one of the hardest things for me. when i was young and i still thought jello biafra was cool, i had the LARD record, and there was a song on that called "i am your clock". part of my ADHD is that i'm pretty time-blind. it's one of the things that keeps me from relaxing... there's always too much i want to do and not enough time, and so often i feel like i'm "wasting" it. i don't feel that way in meditation, mostly. i don't feel like time i spend meditating is "wasted". it's just that time doesn't always go the same speed. when i spend time meditating, when i'm really present in the moment and not doing anything else, time passes much slower than i expect.

i have, though... in a number of ways i've developed this sense of being. i'm aware of this inner core i have of joy and peace... i just get disconnected from it a lot because of the way the world is, because i do need to protect myself. one of my favorite things to do is to just lie in bed and exist. i don't mean sleeping, i mean just, like, feeling my body, feeling how much it's _my_ body, and experiencing the joy that comes with that. i think there's upsides to everything, and one of the upsides of having the life i've had is that there are things i just don't take for granted. my body might hurt, my body might be slowly breaking down, but it is _my_ body and will remain so, for as long as i'm alive. i'm not always happy with my body - a lot of times it irritates me, pisses me off, it doesn't do things that i'd really prefer it do, and i don't take care of it as well as i'd like to - but it is _mine_.

the other thing i have cultivated over time is curiosity. i'm naturally someone who does have a lot of curiosity. i can look at something and say "oh, that's interesting". i don't meet the standards fucked up patriarchal capitalist society demands of me, and i mean, they're impossible rules. at least i can meet my own standards.

anyway i'm gonna give the 20 minute meditation a shot and see how it goes.

that was interesting. really interesting. the time passed much more quickly than i expected. the main thing about the guided meditations is that they tend to have a voice interrupting really often, so i can't really get too deeply into a meditative state. after the third five-minute period, i actually had a startle reflex to the gong. i don't know if that's typical. i do have a real issue with hypervigilance. anyway it was nice. just taking a break from the constant monologue in my head. the other problem is, like, re-engaging with the world after doing it. i really enjoy nonbeing.

yeahhhhh i love all of this. love "the great allower".

i definitely have the startle reflex every once in a while when my phone goes off!

re-engaging with the world after doing it. i really enjoy nonbeing.

great news, you can enjoy nonbeing any time you want!

i started up twice a day again and i'm experiencing this thing that used to happen when i was doing twice a day a few months ago. i'll be driving around and everything about the experience in front of and around me - visually and sensually - has this staggering massiveness to it! all of the expressions of everyone in cars passing by. the trees become these endless seas of life. it's awesome! maybe even a little overwhemling. i feel stoned but i'm not stoned. and like my ability to handle "doing things", logistically speaking, is just smooth and humming along, so like if someone brakes suddenly or whatever i'm there, ready to respond. like feeling nonbeing as i glide through its fathomless depths also allows me to be present to "doing things" right now.

Just did a 10-day retreat ... over Zoom ... in an apartment building in the middle of a busy city ... in Albania. It was great! Would you believe I've been gorging on retreats for eight years now and only now am I learning to relax?

Think I've mentioned before feeling confused and somewhat discouraged about what was happening in my practice. Don't feel that way any more. Starting to understand some ways I got confused and made things harder than they need to be.

I also had a nice little experience in a 10-minute mini-sit during the retreat when I realized "hey, the 'you' that gets attacked by the inner critic ... that guy is made up!" Not sure if the nice lightness I've been feeling since the retreat will last but that felt important.

(Not the first cool experience I've had in a sort of tossed-off, informal "well this sit doesn't really count it's just for fun" - probably doesn't mean anything)

I also realized that I've never done metta using my own face as the, er, object. I use other people's faces because it helped stimulate metta. I guess I unconsciously avoided uisng my face because it brought up more complicated feelings. I think this will be a good practice for me.