Meditation people roll call!

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.

Some people find her kind of a downer, but I love her.

What’s the diff between zen and other practices?. I have fucked with TM but have had way better results w mindfulness over the past 6 months.

Roughly speaking, the difference is the lineage. Zen developed in Japan, branching from the Chan lineage in China. Zen lineage-holders were teaching in the US from like the late 1800s. It falls under the big umbrella of Buddhism, places more emphasis on meditation (zazen) then some other other lineages.

IANABuddhist nor an expert on these matters btw

Been doing this for over a year now. No silver bullet or Buddha pill but it definitely helps.

You’ve been doin what? I’ve fallen off the wagon a little and need some inspiration to get back on.

I just can't get motivated these days, life is too messy.

I've had some intense experiences with meditation that feel transformational at the time but then I just end up digging another hole to crawl into.

recently i've found that reading about mindfulness has been as productive as actually meditating. I don't think that's the way its supposed to work but hey whatever floats your boat, right?

switched to lovingkindness practice a few months ago. was initially kinda ... awkward? but less and less so. i'm more repeating the phrases and letting my heart soften than getting a good care bear stare going, so far.

For all the supposed extra time I have in my life in the pandemic, my motivation has been a struggle. I seem to be able to keep up for a month or so, then I hit a week stretch where I can't be bothered at all.

I've been using headspace, which I know a lot of folks don't really love, but it was great when I was first getting into meditating years back. Now I just use it out of momentum. Lately I've been using it as a handy timer, essentially, while I've been playing around with metta meditation.

The one thing I really, really don't like about headspace is that, unless I am doing something majorly wrong, the completely silent timed meditations don't have any sound effect when the time expires. So I end up being way more conscious about the elapsed time than I should be.

Insight Timer yo

I keep hearing that's good, I need to look into it before my headspace renews in December.

recently i've found that reading about mindfulness has been as productive as actually meditating. I don't think that's the way its supposed to work but hey whatever floats your boat, right?

― tobo73, Thursday, October 22, 2020 8:30 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

switched to lovingkindness practice a few months ago. was initially kinda ... awkward? but less and less so. i'm more repeating the phrases and letting my heart soften than getting a good care bear stare going, so far.

― lukas, Thursday, October 22, 2020 8:33 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've never technically practiced loving kindness but I get the feeling it's very in line with my values, I've come to think of the goal of meditation as turning off my 'monkey mind' and just letting things sort themselves out.

Mindfulness respectfully tends to rub me the wrong way, based as much on the adherents as the actual concepts (NOT a personal dig). It does seem to take a very theoretical approach to a practice which is most effective when approached empirically.

Believe this is improving my hearing

Yeah I have found it sharpens the senses.

I'm looking for an intro to meditation book for a friend. Someone recommended Pema Chodron's Start Where You Are, and sure, Pema Chodron is awesome, it has pretty flowers on the cover and the title sounds right. Should be perfect for a beginner, right?

page 17:

The next slogan is "Self-liberate even the antidote." In case you think you understood "Examine the nature of unborn awareness," let go even of that understanding, that pride, that security, that sense of ground. The antidote that you're being asked to lib- erate is shunyata itself. Let go of even the notion of emptiness, openness, or space.

I used 8 Minute Meditation which was a survey of various practices and an easy intro.

Hmm. I assume you are saying that book may not be right after all, lukas.