How exactly do you meditate?

I've been reading a lot about meditation on ATS and the effects it has on the mind. I know this may seem like a stupid question, but how exactly do you meditate? I'm sure there is "right" or "wrong" way, but where is a good place to start?

Quite simple really.

- Sit down or stand up, doesn't really matter
- Think about feeling better until you feel better
- Blame the feelings on some imaginary beings using as many pseudoscience peddler terms as possible
- ?????
- Profit

Brainwave Entrainment and Qi Gong. Also when I'm on a long run my mind focuses after a few miles down which can also be a very meditative experience.

For me, it was kind of a learn-as-you-go project. But he first thing I worked on was clearing my mind of thought, with the ultimate goal of attaining silence. It's a lot harder than it sounds! The mental buzz that happens all day long is deafening!

Inevitably, when you lie down to mediate (I lie down) thoughts of the day will creep into your mind. The first technique I remember is to recognize when a thought came into my mind and then I'd see it float out of the field of vision. Kind of like credits after a movie or clouds floating along in the sky. The idea is to maintain a 'blank' screen, with thoughts being the thing that clutters up the screen of the mind. It's not easy at first but the more time you can build up between thoughts, the more silence you will experience.

That probably doesn't make any sense at all, but that's where I started. I have had many insights while concentrating on this silence between thoughts.

Scotch and Leona Lewis videos.
But hey, to each his own.

You need to have an intent or you need to know what you want to achieve from it. Without knowing your intent, your mind would just wonder during meditation. And you may begin to see all sorts of strange things during your meditation. I meditate in order to circulate my internal Chi energy. Therefore, my mind would be focusing differently than someone who is just starting out. When you are just starting out, you could barely keep your eyes closed while attempting to quiet your own thoughts.

This is a good site to start out:
www.chikung-unlimited.com...

It is good that you are interested, the benefits are incredible!

Firstly, it is very important to just be comfortable when you attempt to meditate. You dont need to sit in the lotus position to meditate, you can do it laying down or sitting in a chair. Being comfortable in a position where you have a straight spine will make the actual process of meditating much easier. Your mind will make up all sorts of aches/pains and weird sensations in an attempt to distract you. Do not worry about these physical feelings, they will lessen by being naturally comfortable and through training.

Starting your practice learning to develop single pointedness on the breath is the most common way. Once you find your seat/posture, slowly relax and just focus on your breath. In and out, in and out, relax. Some people like to focus on the point in/on your nose where you can feel the air enter and exit, others like to focus on the breath entering/exiting down in your abdomen (breath with your stomach, not your lungs). Your mind will wander, you will become distracted mentally and physically. When this happens gently bring your mind back to your breath. Do not worry about performance anxiety and what you think should be happening, you are just a beginner! It is through your practice that you will find that you can hold your concentration on your breath for longer and longer. Your brain is a muscle and right now it is weak, you are making it stronger and more capable. You will notice more and more benefits the more time you put in (just like going to the gym and seeing your body become stronger).

It is more important to end your meditation feeling positive, like you had a good session, than after X amount of time. Once you feel like you have gained a stronger ability to concentrate on one thing then you can start to expand your practice. Meditation is not about the breath, but like I said that will be the best place to start your practice. Don't think too much about it ie what results are coming, how you compare to others, etc etc. You just need to do it and the results will come!

Good luck!

reply to post by GLantern101


Great question.

You first find yourself a posture that you feel stable in and comfortable but not too comfortable lest you fall asleep. You then relax and then go into the actual meditation.

Meditation can be goalless or towards a specific goal or resuly.

It is probably better to consider a goalless meditation as this is the easiest. Just be in your posture and observe your thoughts. As they rise and then dissolve.

Goal oriented meditations often follow specific schools of knowledge so you would need to check which schools suits you.

An excellent book and website on meditation is

www.spiritsite.com...

reply to post by GLantern101

Good question. Took me years of wading through nonsense and dogmatic ritual to finally realize what it is.

Observation. That's it.

Basically take all your thoughts, feelings, sensory perceptions, reactions, everything, and separate out an "observer" and you be that observer. Observe the cause-and-effect conditioning of your behavior (situation -> feelings/instincts -> reaction) (example: talk with pretty girl -> get nervous -> talk nonsense). This actually works best in real time (contrary to what you read), though usually you start by reflecting on the past. Ideally we should be meditating every waking moment.

Make a point to do it as often as possible. You'll slowly learn a WHOLE lot about yourself. And quickly discover new abilities. I quit (almost) every addiction, and the quitting stuck, only after I started meditating. All it took was observation of the feelings that led me to get a drink (for example), and my automatic and basically unconscious conditioned reaction of actually getting the drink.

It does take a certain amount of humility at first. It's hard to accept that just about everything you do you do unconsciously. It seems pretty counterintuitive at first. But once you experience what it's like to be fully consciously present in a type of situation in which you have normally been unconscious, the difference is obvious.

Originally posted by Whyhi
Quite simple really.

- Sit down or stand up, doesn't really matter
- Think about feeling better until you feel better
- Blame the feelings on some imaginary beings using as many pseudoscience peddler terms as possible
- ?????
- Profit

The question was about meditation not about your rehab program

As for meditation i don't think there is one sure way to mediate . Everyone is differnt depends what your body needs to get into its "groove" of oneness

this is nice video as a good starter ! good luck solider! if you find enlightenment you better come back lemme know !


www.wonderhowto.com...

There are a lot of guides on the Internet. Look for guided meditation or breathing meditation.



I also do hypnosis and posted an intro that I use. It's good for relaxing the body and opening the mind to suggestions.

PODcast on Hypnosis

focusing on the breath is a way to train you into the present moment.

Equanimity is a POWERFUL tool to dissolving your ego.

and diligence and persistance brings exponential benefits - there are good habits out there

Straight spine! Otherwise, there are passive meditations, active meditations, walking meditations. It is a state of mind whereby you are able to step outside of monkey mind into a deeper Theta range brainwave. It's stepping outside of the limitations of the body and breathing. My preferred method of meditation when it is available is dancing to African drums around a fire with my eyes closed, my body seriously moving for 6-7 hours, and my spirit in the stars. Also very important, smile-it helps to open the central channel.

Thanks for all the great suggestions guys!

What do you do in the situation where the persons mind, just doesnt want to stop?

I try to picture pitch black, and just to focus on like a black wall or the such...

cant go a single second without something completely random and unrelated popping into my head.

think about black wall again... less then a second later.. bang, thinking something completely random, unrelated and stupid.


come to think of it... I realy dont think i do anything to stop and relax at all.... When im all stressed and angry, i'll calm down by putting on something mushy, like a Lion called Christian. But never anything like closing eyes and breathing, etc :S

If its not a small thing, the mood will stay and not be shaken untill i go to sleep and wake up the next morning.

And i have gone to bed early a few times because of this as well :S

Originally posted by NewlyAwakened
Good question. Took me years of wading through nonsense and dogmatic ritual to finally realize what it is.

Observation. That's it.

Basically take all your thoughts, feelings, sensory perceptions, reactions, everything, and separate out an "observer" and you be that observer. Observe the cause-and-effect conditioning of your behavior (situation -> feelings/instincts -> reaction) (example: talk with pretty girl -> get nervous -> talk nonsense). This actually works best in real time (contrary to what you read), though usually you start by reflecting on the past. Ideally we should be meditating every waking moment.

Make a point to do it as often as possible. You'll slowly learn a WHOLE lot about yourself. And quickly discover new abilities. I quit (almost) every addiction, and the quitting stuck, only after I started meditating. All it took was observation of the feelings that led me to get a drink (for example), and my automatic and basically unconscious conditioned reaction of actually getting the drink.

It does take a certain amount of humility at first. It's hard to accept that just about everything you do you do unconsciously. It seems pretty counterintuitive at first. But once you experience what it's like to be fully consciously present in a type of situation in which you have normally been unconscious, the difference is obvious.

Something I'd like to add that I didn't address, a stumbling block when I first started. Meditation (observing everything going on within you) is not the same as self-analysis (assigning words to what's going on within you and thinking about it logically). Both have their place, but meditation is much more powerful in terms of changing your bad habits, making you a better person, changing your life. Self-analysis at best can speed up this process, but without meditation is actually worse than useless (because you are processing bad input).

Here's the important thing. The "observer" that I mentioned above does not speak. So, in the example above, when you are talking with the pretty girl and getting nervous, the idea is not to think "now I am nervous." The idea is to bask in the nervousness. The observer does not use words. The observer can observe words (when thoughts are the object of scrutiny at the moment) but does not use them itself.

This can be tricky at first, which I think is why a lot of teachers like to teach beginners to focus on simple things like breathing. I suppose that can get you in the habit of observing sensations rather than thoughts, but (and I speak only for myself) I found it tedious and did not see the merit of meditation until I started observing my emotions.

So the observation of the cause-and-effect conditioning in your psyche should not be in the form of an intellectual "this happens then this happens" but should be a wordless understanding of how a feeling, sensation, thought, or action leads to another.

Words are secondary and come from training in language since childhood. Simple sensations and feelings are primary; language in fact is ultimately a (highly conditioned/trained) derivative of these. So observe these, and you get to the root of matters. The power of sidestepping your language faculties and going straight to your core cannot be overstated. Anybody who meditates will tell you this.

That's not to say a powerful intellect is useless. "Connecting the dots" after lots of self-observation can help quite a bit. But self-analysis without actually being in touch with your primal center can lead to false conclusions (garbage in -> garbage out) and can make you even more neurotic, as many smart people who say they "think too much" can attest.

But I feel I've already corrupted my ideas here with too much language. Too much babbling. Read my first post; it's a better one.

Originally posted by TigaHawk
What do you do in the situation where the persons mind, just doesnt want to stop?

This was another stumbling block of mine when I first tried meditating. I had always heard it is about "quieting the mind". So I would try to force my mind to "shut up". Then I would get really anxious and the worries about how I'm not doing it properly would flood in and the whole process would go to crap.

The problem was I didn't know what meditation was at the time. I thought it was quieting your mind. It's not.

The whole "quieting your mind" thing is actually a common effect of meditation (which is why you hear meditators talk about it). But it's not what meditation is.

Meditation is simply observation. Observe your thoughts. Don't worry about thinking or not thinking. Just watch them. If you do this, you'll often find your thoughts quiet down on their own. It's as if they don't like being watched (or maybe it's just that "your CPU is in use by another process"). But YMMV. Sometimes I observe my thoughts and they don't quiet down. But that's okay, because the observing is what's important.

So remember, observation. That's the key word.

Since I can't make a thread and really don't know why since i've posted quite a few times I guess this is the appropriate thread to ask this question here. Before I get into my question i'll go into a little detail first. I once saw the Jesse Ventura conspiracy theory episode about manchurian candidates. A guy was hypnotized and told 2 code words. The hypnotist told the guy in the hypnotic state that he would recieve 2 phone calls and respond differently each time. The first call he was given the code word and he began limping. The second call he stopped limping. The person had no recollection of this happening to him until he reviewed the footage afterwards. So my question is if it's possible to be hypnotized to excel the process of reaching a meditative state. This intrigues me alot. I've tried viewing several youtube videos to hypnotize myself but it did not work on me the slightest. Regardless of that outcome I was wondering if anyone knew any articles, information, or videos that talks about the subject. If this works it might be a great way to add on top of meditation.

Do what feels right man.

Breath meditation.

Walking focus meditation.

Lam
Vam
Ram
Yam
Han
Oum
Ng

reply to post by seedofchucky

The question was about meditation not about your rehab program

yeah, whyhi should change the ragged robin avatar for one of Sir Miles Delacourt.

As for meditation i don't think there is one sure way to mediate . Everyone is different depends what your body needs to get into its "groove" of oneness

getting back to topic there are many forms/ways to meditate just pick the one that suits you best

the one i use is called "stopping the internal dialogue" though some might argue it isn't

i also use the following: www.abovetopsecret.com... though again, some might argue it isn't

as others have posted there are forms that are goal oriented and others that aren't