goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
I can stop thinking for about six hours everyday. For free.
my zen training - 100 days of meditation
- Thread starter Jazzz
- Start date
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure how much I think each day. I wonder if you can get some sort of helmet with a meter attached to measure these things.
Like a pedometer for walking, but a brainometer for thinking.
blimey, I bump my own OP, and then 28 replies show up!
thanks for the all the support!
That's just the half of it. When you can browse urban75 live from a ZX Spectrum with no internet connection, you will understand.
Whilst there are similarities with the states, they are not quite the same, for one, you can get shit done after meditating.
today I did half an hour in half-lotus. I'd never done that before, felt the real deal getting one leg fully up but of course it hurt after 10 mins in and my legs were completely numb. "don't quit!" a voice said. Finally the alarm went (yay!) and it took me a few minutes to unravel my legs and get them to recover
thanks for the all the support!
Well, I believe a basic meditation regime has scientifcially proven health and performance benefits. And some of the monks and yogis who really practise can develop some extraordinary abilities, like being able to sleep outdoors 15,000ft up in the Himalayas with light clothing. But really it's an internal quest. I know you have been a drummer. Perhaps you have once played a gig where it was going really well, and for a while you 'lost yourself' and just became one with the music, and the drums almost played themselves without your conscious effort? I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that the goal of a zen practitioner is to have access to that state of being whenever he or she pleases. How much would that be worth?
That's just the half of it. When you can browse urban75 live from a ZX Spectrum with no internet connection, you will understand.
Whilst there are similarities with the states, they are not quite the same, for one, you can get shit done after meditating.
I'm counting breaths to start with - this may change, maybe I will drop the counting or get a koan. I'm doing extra meditation which is my own thing. But yes it's silence in the mind rather than focusing on a mantra, or pretty picture, or something. I have a candle going though.
today I did half an hour in half-lotus. I'd never done that before, felt the real deal getting one leg fully up but of course it hurt after 10 mins in and my legs were completely numb. "don't quit!" a voice said. Finally the alarm went (yay!) and it took me a few minutes to unravel my legs and get them to recover
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Are you paying any money to anybody for this?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
That's not the question.
temper_tantrum
The beauty of the ride
Edit: I used to find that the nose-breathing-thingy used to help with meditation. I don't know why, kinda repetitive and also focussed on the act of breathing. Do you know what I mean? Alternating breathing?
8ball
Decolonise colons!
So far once a week there is a group session which I've gone to, third one coming up. I make a contribution to the room hire, which is £7.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Meditation is just prayer for weirdos who can't address the thoughts and mind state to a jewish zombie like what normal people do
Yeah, but's jazzz doing it, not you. You choose your own ways, but i'm interested to know how often you come across men in boxes.
There's thinking, the conscious action, then there's thoughts that just come to your brain from no apparent cause. Which is it for you? Coz six hours of cessation of thoughts is pretty impressive!
AnnaKarpik
Queen of all she surveys
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
If he's Catholic, every time he goes to confession, which is what JC2 is alluding to.
Best of luck Jazz, and I hope that you find some kind of calm centre by doing this...but remember, it's the journey, not the destination, that's important. The whole 'peak performance' switch can be attained in many different ways, and ultimately it all comes down to practice.
editor
hiraethified
I've tried and I got thoroughly bored.
That's not to say that it might not work for others, of course, but for me it was dull, dull, dull. If I want to relax, I'll watch a film or listen to some calming music. Or have a nap.
That's a pity. But it's not all bad. Because to me listening to music is a great way of meditating, so perhaps you're already doing it without knowing! Jazzz' example for you about drumming where the musician gets lost in their own music is another example. My personal favourite method is having a smoke in a hammock in a bungalow on a white sand beach.
Even watching a film, like avatar for example, great meditation occurs.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
xes
F.O.A.D
I wouldn't call watching a film/telly meditation, it's more like hypnosis. Zonks you out and turns off the brain. But it fills it with pretty pictures and loud noises, so it's a far cry from actually meditating.
Jazzz, I recomend trying lots of different types of meditation. Especially anything with kundalini in the title. (do that shit right and it'll blow your tits off) Keep to your 100 day thing, to prove to yourself that you can do it and carry on to what you want it to bring, but try lots of different types along the way. If you go into a big beautiful garden, you don't just stop to smell 1 flower.
Jazzz, I recomend trying lots of different types of meditation. Especially anything with kundalini in the title. (do that shit right and it'll blow your tits off) Keep to your 100 day thing, to prove to yourself that you can do it and carry on to what you want it to bring, but try lots of different types along the way. If you go into a big beautiful garden, you don't just stop to smell 1 flower.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I don't go to confession.
Well, perhaps you might define what you think meditation to be. And in any case, the verb meditating almost is an oxymoron against itself.
I would suggest meditation takes place whenever we're living in the current moment, and not thinking. We are passive receptors who just let life happen, with no judgment. Maybe you have a different kind of meditation you're thinking about.
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
I call it sleeping. I may dream furiously for a while in REM sleep, but the rest is relatively thought free. Isn't this what sleep is for?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I watched Avatar tonight. What came to mind, was that every philosophic or environmental issue that came down off that screen, got up there in the first place when it was penned by a group of scriptwriters in a suite of offices somewhere off Santa Monica Boulevard.
And at what point in the nearly three hours of the movie did this come to mind? Or did it pervade the whole movie?
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Right from the start, when I thought "what a load of cliched contrived bullshit, I cant believe anybody would really take any of this seriously"
editor
hiraethified
Except it's not 'meditating'.
It's relaxing and listening to music. Nothing more, nothing less.
YouSir
Retired from Urban
'Meditating' is just a term, I assume that most people, when they're getting into the music, find themselves drifting away slightly and giving up on their normal, dominating, thought patterns. Call it meditation, call it relaxation, whatever, I think it's a fairly universal experience regardless.
Cid
Proper break this time
Well quite, after all "Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders" is a pretty clear statement against that sort of thing.
Meditation, particularly zen/cha'an is different to the meditative experiences you might find in music etc. It's similar mind you, it just goes deeper in a way.
I learned cha'an with Shaolin monks, during Qi Gong sessions... The teaching was very minimal, mainly just the sifu saying 'inhale, exhale' a few times. Posture was like this:
I had two very intense experiences with that kind of meditation, never replicated in all my experience of drug taking... Even for me, having a pretty rational outlook and friends with similar attitudes, they were profoundly moving and affected my beliefs at an almost sub-concious level (ie I still rationally believe that when I die I simply cease to exist, but at another level I can't help but believe in those visions), for someone living in a world where any occurrence would be related to religion they must have been utterly incredible.
