zzz - dream

I used to meditate to help me fall asleep and ignore pain.
It was really useful when I had to fly with a broken wrist.

I don't know what you're supposed to do, but I just focus on lowering my breathing.
Once that's under control I do the same with my heartrate.

>>236
when I meditate I first lower my breath and then try to imagine that there's energy flowing into my body, after that I try to empty my mind of all thoughts for a bit. One technique is to imagine you're building a safe place and go there, I think its called a mind palace
I feel like it leaves me refreshed afterwards, though one time after doing it I just took a nap.

Eastern Buddhist here.

>when I meditate I first lower my breath and then try to imagine that there's energy flowing into my body
This part is good technique.
You need to take long deep breaths, and Imagine trying harmonize with the universe if you will, while simultaneously actively taking note of your body, in the same way you are now actively aware of your breathing pattern, try now to be aware of every cell in your body, people often describe this as trying to take in energy from your extremities to your center.

What you want to meditate upon is up to you, people often say becoming nothing, but this for monks trying to attain Nirvana, so it's practically worthless for you, if you're not living the life of a monk, unless of course you are gambling on the fact you are soon to be a monk in the next life or perhaps plan to become one, the life is peaceful comparable to a NEET, also one thing westerners get wrong you don't have to give up meat, but you can't kill for it so if someone gives you meat you can eat it, my mother used to occasionally give pizzas along with our usual bags of rice and lentils and during my time at the temple I ate meat pizza with the monks, and they would add the pizza towards what was being had at the time of eating.

For examples of what you will want to meditate on these can be things such as, your work or physical activity, philosophy or science, how your current day has gone or your goals for the future and try to keep a single train of thought for your entire period, this means you will be less distracted and more likely to have a revelation.

The longer your periods of meditation the better, and while frequency is good for them and thus you, consistency is more important. Personally I meditate in the mornings and at night for 5-15 minutes to plan out my days and reflect upon them and and extra hour on weekends when I reflect upon martial arts and philosophy.

Like exercise it takes up a bit of time but it's very easy to fit in, people who say otherwise are often frankly lazy, that being said I do meditate quite a lot, mainly because I find it very fulfilling and positive towards my well being and friends who I have taught to meditate have found the same, though I don't believe they meditate as much as I do, I think once a week is enough as long the period of time is longer, at least an hour and keep one line of thought.

>>248
Position wise as a child I often meditated in the full lotus position, but as I grew up I did no flexibility exercises so I am unable to do so now. Nowadays I often adopt the japanese seiza position, simply because I like it and at nights to unwind before bed I meditate lying on my side supporting my head and reflect upon my day and the outcomes backwards this also helps memory. If I don't unwind I am liable to spend the entire night reading or working on my computer and in the process mess up my sleeping patterns and lose the ability to dream lucidly, I am unsure if this is just me or if it could happen to other people.

You could train flexibility to meditate in the lotus position, but hyper flexibility is not something I would recommend unless you have other need of it. Anything other than extreme comfort like sitting in a recliner or lying on your back with pillows is recommended.

Hope this is informative enough for anyone thinking of starting to meditate, or those who have begun to and are unsure of themselves, do remember that the whole process is meant to be introspective so it's about what you want and what you get out of it, though in a purely Buddhist religious perspective it's meant to refine your thought.

>>235

Does anyone have a good guide to start meditating, or advice for someone who wants to get into meditation? I feel like I'm at a slump in my life, and I'd like something positive to work on. Does this starting guide look about right? Anything you guys can add?

>>250
read my post above you and the /fit/ guide both complement each other, the image is good for beginners, like exercise the sooner you start and the more consistent you are in it, the better.

>>250
I've been meditating (somewhat casually) for many years now. That infographic looks like it'd be great for beginners. As has already been said benefits of meditation are mostly derived from consistency.

I found it particularly helpful when I began my meditation to build up a routine that really established to me that I was meditating and not just "sitting here trying to be empty-minded." I found at first I had to seal up my windows and hit the lights as quiet and dimness seemed to make it easier, probably just the lack of distractions. As I got a bit older I found these things didn't effect me as much though that was likely a learned skill of sorts.

I'd go through phases of meditating with candles or incense which seemed to keep the atmosphere right for me. I'd also go through phases of trying different "techniques" of meditation, some examples being 'meditating' on the sensation of my shower beating down on me while I sat crosslegged on the floor below it or 'meditating' on the flame of a candle, not letting my thoughts wander from watching the flame flicker and the wax slowly melt. I think those were valuable experiences but I've long since reverted to traditional "breath" meditation and stick to that now. With frequency you'll get very skilled at it, I can promise this. Target meditating for even 10 minutes a day and eventually a day will come where you'll be awe-struck: "Did I really just meditate for 30 minutes?"

Currently a meditation session for me can last enough hours for me to refer to it as 'quarters or thirds of the day' but is really comprised of myself and my hookah enjoying the passing time. I'll meditate for 15-45 minutes and then ease out of it, smoking some shisha and then pick up where I left off and meditate again for another period of time. Sometimes I like to listen to piano sonatas or drink tea or even beer as well during these extended sessions. This of course is all very hippy of me and in no way necessary, but does make for a very enjoyable and "healing" weekend morning. I love having a 20minute session on weekday mornings as well, you can get through work or school or whatever you need to do so much easier when you start the day feeling so well-adjusted. Meditating after a work out is a phenomenal experience as well.

After reading this thread I think I'll put some meditation in my pomodoro technique's breaks.

Anyway, I'm not a religious guy, I'm just interested in the time management part and being less stressed.

for me, it turns out that meditating on what i read from the bible, actually gives me answers.

>>248
I meditated for like 20 minutes earlier today, did what you said about trying to be aware of every part of your body but I didn't have one line of thought. I felt like it still helped a little though.

>>255
You don't have to have one train of thought, but the less other thoughts you think about, the more focused and thus, the more helpful your meditations will be. The focus also carries outside of meditation as well as, the physical benefits of being more in tune with your body, pain resistance/muscle endurance if you do seiza and of course any higher thoughts you may have had during your meditation.
Do read the book recommended in the /fit/ guide, Mindfulness In Plain English it is by far the best manual for beginners and when you feel that you have progressed to an intermediate level of meditation you can read other works, such as The Visuddhimagga. PDF Files online will be freely given, but if you prefer a book most if not all Theravada temples will have literature for free distribution, can't speak for Mahayana though.
>>252
>(somewhat casually)

How apt, you wouldn't call a tomcat a tiger, please do note that being idle is not the same as meditation and while you're very much entitled to have a relaxing weekend morning of smoking sheesha and sipping tea, telling people this is meditation is wholly inaccurate and simply breathing isn't the point of meditation but an aspect of mindfulness of which there are well over fifty. Also techniques you've mentioned trying out aren't suited for beginners, and you haven't tried them with the purpose they are designed for, as one would expected of a beginner, meditation under a waterfall is a completely different experience to meditating under a shower and it's purposes can't be realized in the shower, and the purpose of trataka in the dark isn't samatha but to enhance your senses and your 6th chakra aka the third eye. I also recommend that you read Mindfulness in Plain English as a guide for beginners.

You also shouldn't necessarily be "losing" track of time and good timekeeping is a handy skill in life whether or not you meditate, though it kind of depends on what you're meditating about but most for most types and especially ones a beginner could do within reasonable limits you shouldn't really be losing track of time, get a soft alarm for yourself if you need help with time keeping.

>>270
>>270
meditated again with your advice somewhat today, I tried to keep my breathing at the center focus and succeeded for the most part, aside from that my thoughts wandered from topic to topic, but they were all important to me in terms of getting shit done and not whatever.

What I did was, first focused on breathing, then attempted awareness of every part of my body, this was interrupted twice by wandering thoughts. The issue was that thinking about things such as my veins and tendons especially makes me extremely uncomfortable and anxious. However, I still managed to move focus to every part of my body, and felt muscles relax or tighten as I focused on them to maintain posture or focus.

After that, I took a short break as a result of said pet peeve, but I resumed after stretching out and changing my position. I focused on drawing energy from the world again, this was comforting so I visited my mind palace, tried focusing on my body again (felt better this time) and tried to kill every thought.

I accomplished this for the most part except I was still thinking of what qualified as thought, and realized that my conscious thoughts were the product of voices at different levels of self reflection.

After that my thoughts wandered for a bit to what I needed to do today, and I eventually opened my eyes with the feeling that I needed to report what happened and buy the book you recommended.

>>278
Well I would hope you could get it for free since it's not our way to sell such things, to do so would imply that it was ever ours to impart in the first place, but I suppose the publishers at amazon must eat, I do know for fact pdfs are available online free.
>me extremely uncomfortable and anxious.
This is a stage once you get to this stage of feeling the blood flowing through your veins and cells, synchronize the feeling with your breathing rhythm, then attempt to feel as though energy from the universe was being absorbed through your extremities and making its way to your core through every cell in between and synchronize this with your breathing.

>kill every thought.
This is common misconception, this doesn't have to be the focus of your meditation unless you want it to be, it is somewhat relaxing, but once you get to this part of drowning out unnecessary thoughts you can begin to think deeply upon subjects and as the breathing and drawing in of energy becomes a reflex such as your regular breathing your thoughts on a single subject become much more thorough, and they can be on anything the nature of being, your life, sports you play, philosophy anything really.


Feel free to report how your meditation is going until you feel yourself comfortable at an intermediate level, or even after.

I'm not going anywhere, well I am, but I shall be around to help you on the path.

>>279
I also feel like I should report what I've done every week or so I'll keep doing this, if nobody minds.

downloaded + started reading the book, not super far through yet, and I meditated the other day where I did some things better and some things worse I think.

>what went better
the anxiety. Feel less uncomfortable exploring my body and becoming aware of things, as I tried to do the syncing up between my breathing and rhythm (I dunno if I should call it that, basically the feeling of blood pumping out of my heart and through my veins). There was still discomfort, but it was more manageable, maybe because I now know it's normal. Thinking about veins, tubes in my body has been a source of anxiety (think those mental traps where it's impossible to stop thinking of something until you distract yourself, and you feel like you're going crazy as they continue) a while, though, so I'd be pretty glad if it went away as a result of this. I also instead of trying to kill all thoughts worked to empty my mind of everything I didn't want to focus on at that exact moment, which worked to an extent but my thoughts would wander eventually. I also wanted to sync up with sounds coming in from around me, such as the cicadas chirping or music that's playing, but this feels like it would be extremely difficult at my current level anyway, because I'd have to at least control my heart rate.

>what went worse
Distraction. I meditated in 10-15 minute intervals where I would keep trying to become consciously aware of all of my body, explore around for a bit, take in energy like you said, but the issue was that I had decided to text somebody right before and kept interrupting meditation with responding to messages. This of course affected my thoughts during meditation but in other news I think I have a slightly better understanding of our relationship and some other one. Still bummed that I didn't think about anything like my homework for school or how I was going to fix my schedule on doing it (aka not wait until the last minute). I feel like the distraction made the meditation much less effective today, because things were kind of ehh and I was irritable for the rest of the day. That could be a variety of factors though.

also as a side note that's more /lit/ related I like to get physical copies of books by whatever source, because the idea of building a personal library appeals to me, but also because I like writing in books and then passing on those books to others so that a library of commentary and marginalia interpretation gets built up, and it becomes a kind of heirloom, where each generation gives it new meaning. Which is why I might eventually buy a copy of Mindfulness in Plain English to mark up and eventually gift somebody special.

>>290
>what went better
One thing about breathing technique if you want your session to be a bit more relaxing because of what has happened during your week or day, deep breaths to your belly will help. If you want to be more focused in your sessions when you are meditating breathe with your chest but as deep as you can go.
>what went worse
Well your meditations are only 15 mins or so, you don't have to reply to that text right away, I feel often as though people seem compelled to instantly answer phones at any time, like if I were at dinner with a special someone I would not answer my phone just simply silence it.

On the issue of your schedule I suggest mixing your work/studies with play but with work first, I wake up early in the morning and do some non weighted exercises, just a set or two of sit ups, squats and push ups, then I eat breakfast if I am not fasting, outside of breakfast I only eat one meal a day so my eating is not time consuming, it has the added side effect of meaning by skipping only one meal I can fast for 24 hours intermittent fasting is a good practice, this is a monk practice I adapted. Then I go to work, when I come back I relax an hour or two, then I start my exercise, 30 mins rowing, cycling or running then I lift weights 3 times a week with rest days between, so mon/wed/fri or tues/thurs/sat usually the former. Other than that I mix up my time with reading and either browsing the web or playing video games.

I just realized my free for distribution copy of Mindfulness in Plain English has a website for the foundation that printed it, Http://www.budaedu.org. If they don't have Mindfulness in Plain English in the list just email the site maintainer and ask about it, since they must evidently have it.

>>236
When I meditate I usually think of nothing. Maybe it's just me but really at anytime I can just go into deep thought. This time well, I just don't think I just let everything happen. Idk if you feel me or not.

Has anyone tried some of the "meditative" martial arts?
Right now I'm interested in Tai Chi, as it focuses in meditation, health and some self defense, but I'm not that into the whole martial arts thing. I'm not even sure I'm using the right word.

Anyway, experiences?
Side question: can one learn one (Tai Chi?) without a trainer?

>>292
ok, it's been a while but I've meditated 2 times since then (every weekend), and got a little farther into mindfulness. One of my objectives is to up the meditation to twice a week, and move up to consistently daily.
>first time
I must have become aware of my heart an veins / blood almost immediately after meditating, went through the same steps I did before without being distracted this time. Things were less uncomfortable, but I didn't feel like there was a huge sense of deepness to it, although I /did/ gain some insight towards my feelings about religion. There was not much beyond that, except I felt motivated to work throughout the day and must have done so much earlier than I would have otherwise. I believe it lasted 30 minutes.
>second time
Felt a little less deep. It was harder to become aware of every part of my body, but that's because there was more distraction. A bit further in, however, the distraction stopped an it felt even better than before. I can't remember if I gained anything worth mention that time. I skipped some steps early on as well, which may have created some issues. My thoughts did not wander as much as they had before, which I consider a success. The session was about the same length.

Unfortunately, I'm still a high school student so there are some parts of my schedule that are impossible to change, but I like what you do and I think I'll steal some of it.

I was reading a bit on meditation and awareness yesterday and there was one thing bothering me. Can you do the awareness meditation while doing something monotonous that doesn't require much thought at all? Or do you have to give your full attention to meditating?

eg, I used to unload containers at a warehouse fairly quickly and once I got used to carrying boxes one by one from one side to another, I often dazed off into thought with minimal focus on what I was doing. Could meditation work in something in situations like this?

>>334
I think this would be very difficult, but not impossible. Like you'd need a lot of practice with a steady increase in stimuli to tune out before carrying boxes around, but I'm not sure.

>>322
Chi Gung http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong

>>336
>>336
Nice, I'm getting some vids about it.
Personal con, it seems very focused in chi. I can't sincerely believe in the concept, and don't want to force myself to it. Anyway tai chi's moves were nice and relaxing for both mind and body.

>>335
I see, thank you. It would be interesting if you could jog around a park or treadmill while meditating. Would help a lot with the boredom in these kind of activities.

>>322
Rather than meditation they're just exercise which is good for your body and hence your mind, you can teach yourself tai chi but it's probably easier to do so in a group, I wouldn't really put money onto the thought it can be used for self defence nothing will come up to sparing or actually fighting in that manner.
>>323
Try reading a book on philosophy, just a few minute a day and meditate to it. 'Mindfulness In Plain English' is a good one, a more western book to meditate on could be 'The Republic' or 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' are good for a beginner. Stirner's The Ego and It's Own is good for intermediate level, though for the highest level of understanding you must meditate on your own thoughts and discover yourself, but a book will help you on the way.
>>334
You can meditate in such a way, the Japanese are found of doing such a thing, but make sure your work really is monotonous, no checking of labels etc otherwise the thoughts will distract you.
>>338
Meditation shouldn't be boring, either you aren't meditating or your thoughts are boring. You can as stated here previously meditate on anything, playing football or rugby, fencing both western and eastern etc.

>>339
>Meditation shouldn't be boring
Sorry I meant to say that the monotonous activities are boring, not the meditation.
I find meditation exciting since I usually have a lot going through my head. Meditating feels like lucid daydreaming (if that makes sense), though I'm not sure if that means I'm doing it wrong or not.

>no checking of labels etc otherwise the thoughts will distract you
Yeah I've noticed this a lot. Anything that disrupted my work disrupted my flow (I found out there was a word for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29) and took a while to get me back into it.

Saw radiant basically by accident, walked around in complete bliss and completely out of any kind of pain or suffering for a week before it faded (no drugs). Sexual orgasm is ridiculously plain compared to that, even disgusting.

Can predict next action someone will take and see how anyone feels/thinks just by being near them. Can tell/automatically know if someone is lying from intonation of voice. Can see over and under any human abstraction. On the negative side - got to know that practically all people are lying, greedy, hateful pricks, even if they act out good on the outside.

There are techniques that give you 'super-powers', but no one will give them to you.

Basic technique is uninterrupted (by taught, etc) focus with sustained evaluation. Like focus on breathing, air going in/out your nostrils.

>>339
it's been 40 days or so but don't think I've given up on meditation

I've meditated a few times, sometimes with reflection on readings (a little on the ego and its own, as well as some other things I've read) and learned a fair amount about myself in the process. Sometimes, though, my thought seem to just wander about a little. I'm not forgetting to pay attention to breathing, however, and I bring myself back when things go too far. Bodily awareness hasn't improved too much, because I'm focusing on trying to be aware of my breathing without actually controlling it
I think I'll follow what mindfulness in plain english and yourself have advised me from here on, thank you so much.

>>345
>practically all people are lying, greedy, hateful pricks, even if they act out good on the outside.

you can also realize this just by walking around and being keenly observant of everyone and everything around you.

>>1226
Different paths, same destination. It's like there are lots of ways to solve a maths problem but only one answer. Though the answer that people are lying, greedy, hateful pricks is a surface one. There's a lot more going on beneath.

For a long time I thought meditation was just some dumb religious hippy soykaf. Many recent studies have turned their attention towards meditation and it turns out it's actually quite mentally beneficial. Even better is that it doesn't require you to become delusional and believe in karma or whatever. If you're at all interested then I suggest reading Waking Up. Sam Harris is a neuroscientist better known for criticising religion.

Also Mindfulness in Plain English for those who suggested it. I'm only up to the second chapter and it's already claimed meditation can give you psychic powers and vipassana will show you the reality of the universe. Protip: it won't.

>>1365
Why the heck are you reading the book if you know it's full of crap?

>>1368
I've seen suggestions for it in a bunch of different places. Always in the context of it being a good how-to for vipassana meditation. So while it might spurt soykaf claims, it could still be very useful. Just need to filter out and disregard anything delusional. Which is just one reason why I'd suggest reading Waking Up first.

Though as yet I haven't read any further so I still don't have an opinion on whether it's of any use at all.

In which way you think meditation helped you?

More specifically, did it do you any good in a situation where you felt strong resentment toward someone? I have some kind of child-like behavior whenever I feel my trust or integrity had been abused and always enter in an ice-cold mutism for whoever hurt me while hate wrenches my hearth and guts in the meantime. It lasts hours after the said person is gone. At the end I feel sad and empty. I don't know if this caused by too much pride, childish reflect or plain pussyness mixed with the common decency of not going into passive-aggressive mode. I would like this soykaf to end anyway, or at least controlled.