Meditation people roll call!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csyCrcpDs58#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsFlrdXVFgo&feature=related

nishijima is awesome.

I started a meditation class today, and I will now be attempting to observe the part of me that observes twice a week. We only meditated for 10 minutes today, but it was long enough for me to kind of internally freak out. We went around in a circle afterward and briefly discussed what we noticed, and I accidentally gave out the biggest hippie-fried answer out of anyone in the room. But I couldn't help it - I really did notice a long repeating rhythmic phrase between two hums on opposite sides of the room, my head really did feel like it was in a box, and I saw some weird shit on my eyelids.

er... that's how I feel most of the time!

OK, that sounded a bit flippant, sorry. What I mean is that as far back as I can remember, I've been able to drop into that kind of state pretty much instantaneously. I'm not claiming that it's proper meditation or anything, but it's an ability that's probably one of the key things that's stopped me from going crazy over the years. If I get too stressed, I can insta-meditate for a few minutes.

This thread reminds me that I really should try to make time to practise TM more often. Everything Jon Lewis said upthread holds pretty much true for me, too: the industry surrounding it is more than a little dubious but there were some truly decent and committed people involved. I read somewhere that there are now "unofficial" ways of learning the technique: if anyone has any experience of that, I'd love to hear it.

Anyway: it works wonders for me, and I really don't know why I fall out of the habit of doing it. Because I'm a knob, I guess.

was toying with the idea of doing the vipassana course that's coming up soon enough for a while now. but the timetable sounds a bit scary maybe and am also worried abt hemp-wearing types

4:00 am Morning wake-up bell
4:30-6:30 am Meditate in the hall or in your room
6:30-8:00 am Breakfast break
8:00-9:00 am Group meditation in the hall
9:00-11:00 am Meditate in the hall or in your room according to the teacher's instructions
11:00-12:00 noon Lunch break
12noon-1:00 pm Rest and interviews with the teacher
1:00-2:30 pm Meditate in the hall or in your room
2:30-3:30 pm Group meditation in the hall
3:30-5:00 pm Meditate in the hall or in your own room according to the teacher's instructions
5:00-6:00 pm Tea break
6:00-7:00 pm Group meditation in the hall
7:00-8:15 pm Teacher's Discourse in the hall
8:15-9:00 pm Group meditation in the hall
9:00-9:30 pm Question time in the hall
9:30 pm Retire to your own room--Lights out

so i've been thinking of starting to do this

like, 20 minutes a day of just simple meditation

yday and today i did 10 minutes each, just sitting peacefully focusing on my breathing

i really have a lot of stress/anxiety to deal with, i feel like this might help a bit?

and i have so many voices in my head, its like a fuckin pinball machine in there. i'd like to be able to slow that shit down.

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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.

― s1ocki, Tuesday, July 17, 2007 10:17 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark

just noticed this! it's still true, maybe i should use it!

adam do you still do it? hoos?

any tips/thoughts would be great. we dont need to talk about past lives & stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPh59jOoiEs

When I'm on my game I'm doing 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night, but realistically lately it's more like 30 mins a day on days when I'm not really doing anything else in the morning.

Resist the feeling that you might be "doing it wrong" or wasting your time or "not really meditating" if you get distracted. Eventually those feelings will come up, because they always do. They're wrong.

THAT mantra quote is one of my all-time favourite must-be-underrated comic moments.

Delivered almost as a throwaway line in that scene, it says SO MUCH about so many things...

A friend of mine has gotten into buddhism recently and suggested I try metta bhavana, which is meditation on one's emotions and "lovingkindness", its good for self-image and such. Breathing/posture exercises I also want to try more of. I need to make some changes, I'm a bit of an aimless wreck.

Resist the feeling that you might be "doing it wrong" or wasting your time or "not really meditating" if you get distracted. Eventually those feelings will come up, because they always do. They're wrong.

― some droopy HOOS in makeup (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Wednesday, October 20, 2010 6:36 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i liked the zazen thing that said, if another thought comes up, just take a mo to acknowledge it and let it go on its merry way

yeah, be like, "thought."

whats up thought, i gotta peace

i was doing ten minutes a morning for a while, i guess i was a bit calmer overall. i started after picking up a book called "start where you are" which imo was a pretty good place to "start."

http://www.amazon.com/Start-Where-You-Are-Compassionate/dp/1570628394

i'm a newb but lots of advice therein^^ seems pretty clear and practical.

no newbs allowed

jk

vgrrl: are you meditating up there?
hoos: my cushion is still sitting in my closet uninflated
hoos: which is probably some kind of metaphor

why do u have to pay to learn tm, seems like a total red flag w/ the word bullshit on it

been doing this for about two weeks now. about 10 minutes a day. not always very successfully but taking it in stride and going easy on myself. i think once i stop wondering "has it been 10 minutes yet?" i can start doing it for longer!

The running thread got me thinking about this.

When I do long distance runs, I really believe this is akin to meditating. The whole listening to your breathing, concentrating for a period of time, being in the "now", even the ability to solve problems that have been bothering you, etc.

I used to meditate for 45 minutes every morning, but now I find that walking or cycling gets me in the proper frame of mind much easier.

That makes complete sense to me, as running has that same effect on me.

i have been wanting to start a meditation practice but have only been sporadic, though it's definitely something i want to engage in more.

I do meditative exercises but I've come to it through drama class, the deep breathing is used as a way to remove muscle tension and boost your voice, works very well and the sense of relaxation is amazing.

We also use these rubber balls a lot, probably more on the muscular side of things but I find them amazing.

They're called Miracle Balls and look very QVC and lame, but I find them amazing as part of meditative exercises as well as more active stuff.

I had a 1-hour formal meditation last night at a public center with some monks present, guiding the process and chanting a bit. It's the longest session I've ever tried, and it was also the first time I'd done it in public. When they woke us out of it, I was sort of upset because I felt like it was 15 minutes max. I really did not believe I had been sitting there for an hour. There were a few instructions -- a mantra, a visualization, etc. -- but I pretty much ignored them most of the time and just let my mind wander. There were 2 or 3 different times when I felt like I was falling out of my body and snapped open my eyes and was extremely disoriented for a few seconds afterwards. Basically it felt like during that hour I was experiences many different conceptions of time.

It was a great experience and I would love to try this again, perhaps tomorrow! SO MUCH seemed to happen even though all I was doing was sitting still in one place.

my bf has enrolled in a study through brown u. on the effects of mindfulness meditation practice on anxiety & depression & post traumatic stress. it's pretty intense , v interesting. he's asked to do at least 40 mins on his own each day in addition to a weekly 3 hour instruction plus a full day retreat. it's a neuroscientific approach, and it has involved him wearing an appliance to monitor his brainwaves during sleep and having EEG while he looks at 'stressful images' (burn victims! simulated domestic violence! wtf). it's all pretty nuts imho, there's some info on the lab here: http://www.brittonlab.com/

Any tips on how to get started on meditating correctly? I just fall asleep.

:(
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/vipassana-guru-s-n-goenka-dies/1176659/

So the last time I regularly meditated was almost 20 years ago. It was so hard for me to stay with the breath that I basically decided I couldn't do it.

Long story but I started again recently and ... it's mindblowingly different. I'm way better at staying with the breath, and when my mind wanders I'm able to bring it back without getting mad at myself. I feel like this honeymoon can't last but right now I'm pretty excited.

The trouble with me and meditation is that my anxiety issues mostly manifest themselves through percieved breathing difficulties, so concentrating on my breath freaks me out.

i thought like one point of meditation was to realize that you really can't control a lot of your mind's eye and to accept the wandering, as it were- become comfortable with the ugly thoughts as well as the good

I've found that mantra meditation is more comfortable for me than breath focused meditation.

What’s a book on mindfulness that is useful that is by someone besides thich nhat hanh. I’ve read many books by that guy and loved them but would like to branch out

I've heard realllly good things about Pema Chodron, this book in particular https://www.shambhala.com/taking-the-leap-1448.html

thanks! the subtitle makes it seem like exactly what i need

I've been kind of frustrated with my meditation practice ... my first year had a bunch of fireworks, and then the last year or so hasn't really had any. On the other hand, I have better emotional awareness than I've ever had, including feeling emotions I'd literally never felt before, like eg feeling a sadness that has nothing to do with depression, a kind of healing grief.

Still, I miss going on retreat and things reliably getting wild. I'm not supposed to crave any particular type of experience in meditation but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Things not getting wild might not be the worst thing. My best friend had a psychotic break while on a meditation retreat and has never fully recovered.

Fair point, sorry to hear that.

I read about that kind of thing happening in The Buddha Pill and although I could certainly imagine it, hadn’t known of anyone it happened to firsthand or secondhand, sorry about your friend.

I have been using this live app which is on sale for another day at 80% off/streetteam

A good Pema Chödrön article was discussed in class this week. Will try to post a link in a bit.

https://tricycle.org/magazine/meditating-emotions/

Charlotte Joko Beck has been an influential read. TBH these days I do more reading about zen than actual sitting.

Did my first Zen thing last weekend, short Zoom retreat with Roshi Joan Halifax. Really dug it. Will check out Charlotte Joko Beck.