Any lifelong meditators here?

[Duke Wellington]

On 7/19/2020 at 7:51 PM, spartan max2 said:

Tried it Friday, Saturday, and today. I set my timer for about 20 mins, close my eyes, and take times breaths. 

Im not really trying to control my mind right now I just let it drift.

Don't know if I'm doing it right because it almost feels like I'm sleeping.

Your subconscious is where your emotions bubble up from and you have no control over it.

With your consciousness thats what you use for problem solving. When an emotion bubbles up into it then it gets to work analysing it. If its a negative emotion it gets to work understanding how it arose, what caused it, how to stop it happening again, how to avoid it in the future, and how to take your revenge, etc. If also trawls through your past memories looking for those which have relevance to the current situation. You have control over this thinking behaviour.

Your consciousness is wired into your kidneys making them release a range of hormones that trigger the flight or fight response. Those hormones act on your subconscious, emotions continue to bubble up from your subconscious because of it, and off your conscious mind goes again. Its a loop.

Meditation is about breaking the loop. The best bit of advice is the make sure you eat and drink properly as this impacts your ability to control your thoughts. At the same time breath! What happens is your consciousness controls your kidneys by suspending your breathing. Its the lack of air that makes the kidneys release the hormones. You have to force yourself to breath normally and wait it out while those hormones are used up which are circulating in your blood stream. Takes a few minutes.

Advanced meditation is a little different to what you are practising.

Simply watch the emotions bubbling up from your subconscious, and watch your consciousness getting to work on them. Just watch the process, thats all you need to do. The first time you do it then it takes a few hours but you will notice you develop a third state of mind. 

A watching state of mind that sits between the subconscious and conscious. And in that third state of mind you are detached from both your emotions and problem solving thinking activity. As you are detached negative emotions dont register in the same way, they arent mentally painful.

[8th_wall]

I do one to four hours meditation a few times every 2 weeks or so at the moment.  I don't always meditate with favourite music in the background but I do most of the time.  A lot of it is gaining comfort in the Asana of my choosing at that time.  Then simply Dharana on the visualisation of my choosing at that time until it hits Dhyana and I head off to do something else :).

[Humbled Hypocrite83]

On 7/17/2020 at 12:50 PM, XenoFish said:

Do Easy

This is what I try to do each day as it is basically mindful meditation.

I used to perform both focal (focused attention) and void (no thought) meditation an hour each daily. But I've stuck with the 'do easy' method for over a year now.

What does all that mean?

[Humbled Hypocrite83]

4 minutes ago, Humbled Hypocrite83 said:

What does all that mean?

Exactly  no one answers this

[+Desertrat56]

On 9/3/2020 at 4:21 AM, Humbled Hypocrite83 said:

What does all that mean?

What ever you want it to mean.

[+Sherapy]

On 7/17/2020 at 10:10 AM, spartan max2 said:

Hello,

Any lifelong meditators on UM? If so, what's your routine?

I've dabble with it in the past and have enjoyed it but recently decided I should get back into it. My stress has been building up the last year or so. Current events not helping lol.

I want to try to get back into it. I'm thinking about making trying to out 15 mins aside each day. What has worked for you?

Yes, 17 years and still a work in progress. IMHO. A good way to resume is download the Calm App., it offers guided Meditations. Or one can take up hawtha yoga it is moving meditation, or running works too, I think it is the equivalent, the way doesn’t matter it’s how consistent one is in practice, so picking an approach should be a way that will keep you motivated to practice. Mindfulness can be seeking out experiences that one can practice the things they need to learn has always been the fast track for me, it reveals the areas I am weak and strong in and where I need to refine or (the sweet spot paying lots of attention (mindful) while breathIng naturally ( calm) to meet the moment. It is one thing for me to say how I would be in a hypothetical as to how I really am in actuality, any given moment, 
 

Also, You don’t need advice we all start at the same place and struggle with the same aspects and spend years making progress, getting in sync with the breath and using it as the guide is sounds simple but isn’t easy for ex: inhale to the count of 6 and hold for a count of 6 and exhale to the count of 6 and hold for a count of 6, hold for the count of 6... (uijayi breath) this will keep someone busy for awhile the only thing you need to do from there is practice. Sounds simple, but not easy. Not for any of us, we have good days and bad, if we are not we  aren’t living.
 

Meditation is not about controlling thoughts it is about letting them pass by (accepting that they are transient by nature while getting to the silence that is already there.  Mindfulness is an ability to maintain balance and sustained attention ( equanimity) for the purpose of clarity in ones daily living. 

On 7/18/2020 at 12:37 AM, Tatetopa said:

Can I ask, which practices you found most helpful and what you might recommend based on your experience?

Just my two cents,  the way one meditates is immaterial what matters is that one is consistent in practicing..The most popular ones are TM transcendental meditation which is mantra based and moving mediation as in Hawtha yoga. I like both TM and Hawtha yoga which I have done for years including (teachers training) has served me well as I am motivated to practice yoga every day.I have extended my practice to mindful living for the past 4 years as a result of the skills I have learned in Stress Mgt. therapy. At current, I work for a Neurologist who incorporates mindfulness into the work environment, meaning no added stress. Self care and stress mgt. tools being used are a big aspect of a mindfulness lifestyle. 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by Sherapy

[spartan max2]

Thanks. I got lazy with it again and haven't done it for a couple weeks. I find it hard to stick to for some reason lol.

[+Sherapy]

On 7/17/2020 at 2:35 PM, Cookie Monster said:

For stress?

Step 1: You encounter a threat to your emotional or physical well being.

Step 2: In response to the threat your brains sends a signal to your kidneys telling them to release adrenaline. It also makes your posture go rigid which is part of the mechanism that suspends your breathing.

Step 3: Your brain detects higher adrenaline and responds by activating the problem solving part of your brain. It makes you search for what made you stressed, how it happened, how to stop it, how to avoid it in the future, and trawls your memories looking for similar events which might have relevance to the current one.

Step 4: The focus of the problems solving area of your brain on the stress sends a signal to your kidneys telling them to release more adrenaline. Your posture is kept rigid. And around and around it goes. The longer it continues to more stressed you become.

You fix stress by:

Step 1: While you cannot stop the feeling of being stressed you can stop yourself thinking about what caused it, how it occurred, how to stop it, how to prevent it happening again in the future, and stop yourself trawling through your memories.

Step 2: Force yourself to adopt a relaxed posture and breath normally.

It takes a few minutes to get rid of your stress because you have to wait for your circulating adrenaline to be burned off.

If you want something that shuts down stress fast then smell lemons. Keep smelling them, the stringent smell overrides the stress response, and keep smelling it for a good 5 minutes to break your focus.

 

On 7/19/2020 at 11:51 AM, spartan max2 said:

Tried it Friday, Saturday, and today. I set my timer for about 20 mins, close my eyes, and take times breaths. 

Im not really trying to control my mind right now I just let it drift.

Don't know if I'm doing it right because it almost feels like I'm sleeping.

Excellent, you did the only thing you need to do and that is you pay attention to your breath. 

[+Sherapy]

1 hour ago, spartan max2 said:

Thanks. I got lazy with it again and haven't done it for a couple weeks. I find it hard to stick to for some reason lol.

Self compassion is important too. 
Do not judge ( be hard on yourself), trust your process and your wisdom, mindfulness is a journey, not a destination.

 

Just my two cents. 

[quiXilver]

Started in my late teens with single minded focus, intense randomly arising visualizations/vision. 

Free hand rock and tree climbing and skiing were inroads to samadhi, but would end as soon as the activities ended... and could not be sustained.

I got into martial applications, Chung Moo Quan, Shao Lin Five Animals and Jeet Kun Do in my late teens as well.

I was externally focused and uninterested in internal applications until I became crippled years later and was walking with a cane, or stuck in a chair for a couple years.  Then I had little choice but to turn inward.  To escape the constant pain, (i loathe pharma pain meds) I began running my old kung fu forms in my mind.  I ran them over and over as furiously and with intense visualizing focus until local awareness dissolved in them and forgot the pain. 

This was another inroad to samadhi and when I met my later teachers it turns out this was an ancient and effective means of opening the energetic meridians and fostering a foundation for subtle energy work in higher forms of internal training.

Single minded visualizations turned into emptiness and stillness.  This became a playground/escape/exploration ground for some years (8-ish). 

 

And then I met Master Zhou (18th generation lineage holder from Wu Dang).  I learned two forms of Qi Gong from his lineage system and within a year and a half my body had fully healed.  I'm now whole and work 12 hour days sometimes several months in a row with no issues.

 

Four and a half years ago, I met and studied with Wang Liping (another 18th generation lineage holder, but in Longmen Pai tradition).  From him I learned the Five Elemental/Organ Cycle, Stillness, Third Eye projection/cleansing, Tree Work and Sleep Meditations. 

 

[+Sherapy]

11 hours ago, quiXilver said:

Started in my late teens with single minded focus, intense randomly arising visualizations/vision. 

Free hand rock and tree climbing and skiing were inroads to samadhi, but would end as soon as the activities ended... and could not be sustained.

I got into martial applications, Chung Moo Quan, Shao Lin Five Animals and Jeet Kun Do in my late teens as well.

I was externally focused and uninterested in internal applications until I became crippled years later and was walking with a cane, or stuck in a chair for a couple years.  Then I had little choice but to turn inward.  To escape the constant pain, (i loathe pharma pain meds) I began running my old kung fu forms in my mind.  I ran them over and over as furiously and with intense visualizing focus until local awareness dissolved in them and forgot the pain. 

This was another inroad to samadhi and when I met my later teachers it turns out this was an ancient and effective means of opening the energetic meridians and fostering a foundation for subtle energy work in higher forms of internal training.

Single minded visualizations turned into emptiness and stillness.  This became a playground/escape/exploration ground for some years (8-ish). 

 

And then I met Master Zhou (18th generation lineage holder from Wu Dang).  I learned two forms of Qi Gong from his lineage system and within a year and a half my body had fully healed.  I'm now whole and work 12 hour days sometimes several months in a row with no issues.

 

Four and a half years ago, I met and studied with Wang Liping (another 18th generation lineage holder, but in Longmen Pai tradition).  From him I learned the Five Elemental/Organ Cycle, Stillness, Third Eye projection/cleansing, Tree Work and Sleep Meditations. 

 

Interesting, thank-you for sharing. I have been using meditations for pain in my shoulder and it has been  successful, a lot more than than I expected. 
 

Glad to hear you are doing so well. 

[Humbled Hypocrite83]

On 9/4/2020 at 9:22 AM, Desertrat56 said:

What ever you want it to mean.

Oh that's Nifty!!! Lol!

[Ajay0]

On 7/17/2020 at 10:40 PM, spartan max2 said:

Hello,

Any lifelong meditators on UM? If so, what's your routine?

I've dabble with it in the past and have enjoyed it but recently decided I should get back into it. My stress has been building up the last year or so. Current events not helping lol.

I want to try to get back into it. I'm thinking about making trying to out 15 mins aside each day. What has worked for you?

  I enjoy meditating in the beach on weekends. There is a lot of prana or chi in the beach or in the midst of raw nature, and this greatly aids meditation. The more time I spend in the beach, I can perceive a tangible increase in my sensitivity and state of meditative awareness. Fasting, eating fruits for lunch or breakfast, cold water baths, sitting under old and large trees, also helps in deep meditation, as per my observation.

 If the beach or forest is not nearby, you can go to the park and meditate in a quiet corner over there.

[MainerMikeBrown]

A psychotherapist who I used to see told me that everyone who gives meditating a real shot, a real chance, gets at least some benefit out of it.

[quiXilver]

Benefit definitely comes but often after some serious challenge, strong disorientation and outright discomfort.

 

It is no bright and shiny thing, coming to terms with our mis-identifications, false assumptions and formerly held 'impenetrable assumed truths' about life.

I'm reminded of a couple of very resonant quotes by Adyashanti regarding the pursuit of awakening, which adroitly point out that sincere meditation is not meant to be fun, enjoyable or immediately beneficial, it is meant to cut through falsehoods and embrace the deepest muck within us... indeed in some folks, some forms of meditation can pre-empt and catalyze an all out mental collapse and this is a reason why some gurus, and advanced practitioners will withhold certain teachings, shy potential students away (to weed out the merely curious) and to outright refuse to teach some who hover on the edge of mental imbalance.  It is not a pursuit that is appropriate for the feint of heart.

Quote

Most of us want to feel better, we don't actually want to see that we're misperceiving things.  But that's the core of spirituality.  And the only way to really wake up is to realize that the way you perceive yourself is not true.
Adyashanti

Quote

“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It
has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier.
Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth.
It's seeing through the facade of pretence.
It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”
 Adyashanti

 

Meditation is not about seeing unicorns and feeling great.  It is about systematically coming to intimately interact and relate to how our perceptual models of life are innacurate and full of false assumption.  Most of the foundations we hold as impenetrable, when encountered at their source, are revealed as less than vaporous phantoms bestowed upon our young minds by family and society... neither of which are usually very balanced to begin with...

[Duke Wellington]

Meditation is about realising when a thought happens in your mind there is a resulting emotional response and affects on your body.

It teaches you to control your thoughts, and to ease your physical response.

[XenoFish]

What's the point really, we're all going to die anyway. 

[+Desertrat56]

6 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

What's the point really, we're all going to die anyway. 

Some think the death of our physical body is not the end of us, some don't.  But you could just decide that whether there is an afterlife or not, the point might be to enjoy something while in a human body on planet earth.  I am not talking about hedonistic attitude, but rather an attitude of appreciation, relax once in a while.  Find something you like about someone you find difficult.  It may not matter in the big picture but it will matter to you and those who interact with you now.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Desertrat56

[XenoFish]

5 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

Some think the death of our physical body is not the end of us, some don't.  But you could just decide that whether there is an afterlife or not, the point might be to enjoy something while in a human body on planet earth.  I am not talking about hedonistic attitude, but rather an attitude of appreciation, relax once in a while.  Find something you like about someone you find difficult.  It may not matter in the big picture but it will matter to you and those who interact with you now.

Life is work. There is no rewards. We die and are forgotten, all our efforts are in vain. We can spend our lives pretending how great we are, but we're plant food in the end. No one cares about us as much as we pretend they do. Enlightenment is pointless as well. Just another way of fluffing up the fragile human ego. 

[+Desertrat56]

Just now, XenoFish said:

Life is work. There is no rewards. We die and are forgotten, all our efforts are in vain. We can spend our lives pretending how great we are, but we're plant food in the end. No one cares about us as much as we pretend they do. Enlightenment is pointless as well. Just another way of fluffing up the fragile human ego. 

Have you never felt joy watching children play or peace sitting under a tree?  Maybe you expect too much, work too hard.

[XenoFish]

1 minute ago, Desertrat56 said:

Have you never felt joy watching children play or peace sitting under a tree?  Maybe you expect too much, work too hard.

I'll tell you the same thing I told my wife. I don't remember what happiness feels like. To me, it's all a waste of time. Life is a waste of time in and of itself. I can't imagine a god that cares or any "value" that supposed enlightenment brings. There is little to no point in spiritual pursuits. There isn't a bit of magic in this dying world. 

[+Desertrat56]

4 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

I'll tell you the same thing I told my wife. I don't remember what happiness feels like. To me, it's all a waste of time. Life is a waste of time in and of itself. I can't imagine a god that cares or any "value" that supposed enlightenment brings. There is little to no point in spiritual pursuits. There isn't a bit of magic in this dying world. 

I agree with you about enlightenment, I think it is a waste of a good life, unless it comes from just living as it happens rather than from seeking that as an endeavor.  You don't get enlightenment from seeking it.  And it is not about finding a god that you resonate with, it is about finding yourself.  Even happiness is not something that can be pursued or sought, as it is never related to the external world, it is related to your inner life, how your thoughts, expectations, etc. make you feel.  You are in a space that seems to me to be a preparation for change.  Maybe you feel betrayed by your beliefs and are looking for something to replace them.  It happens to a lot of people, and you are still here, you didn't leave the planet so there must be something you still hold on to.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Desertrat56

[XenoFish]

People paint enlightenment with rose tinted glasses. When you realize that everything is fake, that we live in an imaginary society, with imaginary rules, and imaginary money, even imaginary religions. You see just how fake it all is. Then your left with a bitter realization that you're just a pawn in a game. 

[+Desertrat56]

4 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

People paint enlightenment with rose tinted glasses. When you realize that everything is fake, that we live in an imaginary society, with imaginary rules, and imaginary money, even imaginary religions. You see just how fake it all is. Then your left with a bitter realization that you're just a pawn in a game. 

Yep, so the next step is to step out of the game somehow, examine what you are attached to and decide whether it serves you, what you can ignore or accept in society and what you can change for yourself, not anyone else, just you.  I think your cabin is a part of that, you are moving, you just don't feel it yet.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Desertrat56

[SeekTruth]

55 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Then your left with a bitter realization that you're just a pawn in a game. 

You're.