Medidation...

[Boerseun]

Been wondering about this one for awhile...

 

People (from Bible-thumpers to renowned psychologists to Zen Buddhists) nowadays are praising 'medidation' as a necessary part of the daily ritual in order to achieve better mental, spiritual or even physical health.

 

But nobody can tell me 'how' to medidate, or what its all about.

 

Wikipedia has a hard time pinning 'meditation' down; it seems as if anybody can invent a mental regimen and lay claim to that being bona fide 'meditation' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation

 

So - what do you do when you 'meditate'? Maybe I'm doing it already and simply don't know about it, seeing as there are literally hundreds of flavours of 'meditation' out there.

 

I think that most of it is a load of gunk, advertised, marketed and sold for the singular goal of financial gain and benefit for the writer of the specific 'new tantric pathway to mental health and wellbeing', or some other similar-sounding horse manure.

 

So - to cut it short:

 

Do you meditate?

How do you meditate?

Have you received any mental and/or physical benefit from it?

[InfiniteNow]

I study martial arts and we meditate sometimes. I don't know too much about it, and don't do it everyday to get the full benefit, but have gained from it quite a lot of power in my strikes and inner calm in general. I'll share what I know here. Maybe it will be a jumping off point for someone else who has actually studied it.

 

Find a place where you are relaxed and away from distractions like sound, light, bad smells, comfortable temperature, etc.

 

Close your eyes.

 

Focus on the point between your eyes and upward a bit.

 

Breath in through your nose and imagine the air flowing down your airways and into your belly (about three finger widths below your belly button and an inch inward). This spot has many names (dantien, chi-hai, and many others). It's pretty much your center of gravity and also a big ocean of energy if you believe in that sort of thing.

 

Hold the breath in that spot.

 

Breath out through your mouth pushing all of the air out as if you are trying to push your belly button back to your spine.

 

Repeat.

 

That's about it from what we do, but much like anything else, there are tons of variations. We do this to really get fired up and our strikes are devastating after about 45 minutes of this. Some people mediate like 6 times a day and don't sleep (much).

 

But start slow, just go somewhere quiet and relax. If you are standing, keep a slight bend in your knees and your spine straight (as if you were hanging from the ceiling by a hook on your head), your arms to your side and your palms facing the floor (as if you are trying to touch your finger nails to your elbow). If you are sitting, again, keep your spine straight but touch your finger and thumb together. A small pillow under your tailbone helps with comfort if you will there a while.

 

Ultimately, it's about breathing and rhythm. You can vary this, but you want to be consistent with your count. Breath in for 6, hold for 3, breath out for 6. Or something like that. Everybody counts at their own pace. Again, do what feels right.

 

Good places are in nature, and I've heard that it's best to do this as the sun rises. Like there is more energy around for you to gather. Ultimately, you are breathing in the energy around you and breathing out the bad **** that you have collected physically and mentally.

 

Okay, I used to make fun of people who spoke like this, so I am going to stop now. Cheers.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

InfiniteNow

[Buffy]

Don't worry. Hypography qualifies as meditation... :rolleyes:

 

Ommmmmmm,

Buffy

[Tarantism]

Do you meditate?

 

I have meditated at least once a doay for about three months.

 

How do you meditate?

 

well, im pretty sure that it is different for everyone, but i tend to just sit or lay down in acompletely comfortable psition and concentrate on what is on my mind. sometimes its amazing what i find.

 

Have you received any mental and/or physical benefit from it?

 

benifit? yeeeeaaaaahhhh probably. not physical, for sure, but mentally what i have achived is simply soundness of thought and more farmiliarity with the way that i like t think and feel. i have actually, while medatating, had words come to me that i have never heard before taht told me how i felt. im not implying anything spiritual, but more a different state of mind.

 

hypography is more of a way to spilll the thoughts of my medatative experiences.:)

 

:rolleyes:,

tartantism

[sergey500]

Yes AND No. I do Tae Kwan Do, so i must meditate there...I try to clear my mind, but I can't. Its too analytical, too full of thought, so I focus on the color white. If I am forced to meditate, I just sit there clear my mind and watch movies, tv shows, anime and any other type of media i once saw and stored in my memory. So I do meditate, i just suck at it.

[Tarantism]

Yes AND No. I do Tae Kwan Do, so i must meditate there...I try to clear my mind, but I can't. Its too analytical, too full of thought, so I focus on the color white. If I am forced to meditate, I just sit there clear my mind and watch movies, tv shows, anime and any other type of media i once saw and stored in my memory. So I do meditate, i just suck at it.

 

 

sergey perhaps the reason that you cannot clear your mind of thought is because you are forced to meditiate. maybe, sometime, you should try meditation on your own, whenever you are in the mood and you can completely relax. perhaps you will get different results. maybe.

[Racoon]

Another point I might add, is that Meditation or "Medidation" is about calming your mind. As you sit and breathe, Try to not think..., When a thought pops in your mind, Let It Go; Like a cloud passing briefly overhead. :lol: It's a little tricky, because even the thought of "no thought", is Still a thought!

 

Relaxing your mind and circulating your breath should help your brain form Delta-waves, (if my Psych 101 is still any good), which is Optimum Brain Wave Frequency. :P

 

In the Long Term, regular Meditation and a Mastering of Chi-Kung is supposed to circulate Chi properly to your internal organs, allowing them to keep you healthy well past a 100 years! :shrug:

[sergey500]

Tartanism, Oh but I do meditate when i have time...no IF i have time. And silence. But for my own martial art purpose.

 

Trailing away from science and going into martial arts....

 

Since you're greatest enemy is yourself, knowing you're weakness will make you practicly undefeatable. So in mirror i memorized all my movements, how much they hurt and how i react in actual combat. Then I imagine going up againt myself. In that state of meditation i am in a whole different world. The mind is my limit. Mind = Limitless.

[arkain101]

Meditation is also known as stillness. There are explanations as to why it works and how it works. How it works is it creates alot of positive results for people. Why it works is it is said to allow you to meet half-way with celestial entities. This sounds very strange, but even though you speak nothing and think nothing in deep meditation, you are infact sorting through alot and communicating alot.

 

This download book is everything Meditation and the spiritual parts of it.

http://www.new-birth.net/booklet/keys.PDF

 

There are thousands who are using meditation techniques to hold communcation with our spirit friends. http://www.tmarchives.com is a gigantic archive of these transmissions, that people have been instructed to start collecting and organizing for the correcting times to come in our future. They hold meetings in groups and record the transmission onto a tape.. whether they hear someone else speak physically or have a member of the group speak I dont know.. but there is alot of usefull things there.

[arkain101]

http://www.urantiabook.org/web_intro1.htm

 

Also there is this book. The Urantia Book. It is a very unheard of book but holds in it some of most accurate historic information than any other book you may get your hands on, more realistic than the bible. It is not a religious book it is a book written which I am guess through stillness transmission. Where there is an unkown, it holds its tounge and leaves it an unknown..

I am going to get into reading it myself and see what I think.

But share the news of this book, it is more or less to be call the book of earth, the book of truth. You see Urantia is the name of earth according to the celestial system. (celesital meaning the life of life where we go after mortal death - incarnate death)

[arkain101]

The Goal of meditation is to be of god and to meet god half way.

 

The term god even needs to be re-explained. God is not human, god does not think like us.. We live here on earth and come from somewhere and when incarnated here we have ego and think like our brain thinks. However, silence and peace and energy is as best as I understand to say how god communicates, through light, and energy. As soon as you realize that god is nothing similar to anything we know, your understanding of this god source becomes clearer.

You cant go somewhere and find god sitting on a chair.. God is everything from electrons, light, to the universe, and everything at once.. god is the word for everything that is, your consciousness, your body, this earth, this universe and everything..

 

Being in meditation is how you put yourself aside.. your ego thoughts, and communicate in silence to god.. the invisible existance that resides within you, you cant see it, no one can see it, is your fragment of god.. and when you let it play, (go in stillness) this is going to god, turning to god, even without physically going anywhere.

I speak from many resources and my own understanding... There are alot of different ideas on how people look at a god(s) and religions, but obviously there is basics like I am speaking of, basics that apply to everyone and anyone and do not involve differences, or judements, or lables..

[Turtle]

http://www.urantiabook.org/web_intro1.htm

 

Also there is this book. The Urantia Book. It is a very unheard of book but holds in it some of most accurate historic information than any other book you may get your hands on, more realistic than the bible. It is not a religious book it is a book written which I am guess through stillness transmission. Where there is an unkown, it holds its tounge and leaves it an unknown..

I am going to get into reading it myself and see what I think.

But share the news of this book, it is more or less to be call the book of earth, the book of truth. You see Urantia is the name of earth according to the celestial system. (celesital meaning the life of life where we go after mortal death - incarnate death)

 

___By all means read the Urantia Book. I have read it entirely & then some and I have it under discussion here at Hypography in the Theology Forum.

http://hypography.com/forums/theology-forum/3199-urantia-book-who-couldve-hoaxed.html

___I have read & listened to a lot about meditation & I learned it is about everything not read & listened to. It is more or less my normal state of mind.:lol:

[arkain101]

___By all means read the Urantia Book. I have read it entirely & then some and I have it under discussion here at Hypography in the Theology Forum.

http://hypography.com/forums/theology-forum/3199-urantia-book-who-couldve-hoaxed.html

___I have read & listened to a lot about meditation & I learned it is about everything not read & listened to. It is more or less my normal state of mind.:lol:

 

Oh yah?

 

Might be so..

 

I do know that it lowers my heart rate.. softens my breathing and shuts my mind down for awhile.. which is healthy both mentally and physically for long lasting health.

It did help me with learning self-realiztion and truth, but I rarely meditate as much as I would like to.

[Boerseun]

...and what's with the whole 'Clearing Your Mind' bit?

 

Is it actually possible?

 

I mean, how would you know your mind is 'clear', unless you think 'Hey, whaddaya know - my mind is clear!' and then you've just ruined the whole 'clear mind' thing by having you consciously realise that your mind is 'clear'.

 

I think the only, or at least the closest, we can come to a 'clear mind' is the deep sleep period prior to dreaming.

 

I mean, it stands to reason: the moment you realise your mind is 'clear', your mind is 'not clear' anymore... it should not be possible to consciously realise that you have a 'clear mind', or to consciously experience such a state.

 

Is the concept of a 'clear' mind merely a mythical construct to differentiate between the spiritual 'haves' and the spiritual 'have nots'? In which case I still hold that the spiritual 'haves' (priests, gurus, etc.) are suffering from a bad case of spiritual pretense.

[Buffy]

I'm similarly dismissive of "mind-clearing," although that may have something to do with the derision i feel about the Scientological concept of "clear" (poor Katie! Run! Save yourself while you still can! Abort the Demon Child!...whoo. okay. I'm better now....). :lol:

 

Really, as far as doing your self some meditative good, its plenty enough to move around some of those deck chairs in your brain. Think Differnet (sic), you know? "Clearing" is as hard to do as dumping the entire contents of your garage in the dumpster without looking. Its hard and its pointless. Just pick something random thats a noying, scold it, and throw it out. Save the rest for your next session. Feel better about yourself. Now back to the grindstone....

 

Are you hip to Sri?

Buffy

[bpjg2fat]

a cup of tea wipes my mind clean. such peace.

[Queso]

ON the topic of meditation,

you could have found me in the lotus position

perched on a warm rock

somewhere in the santa cruz mountains earlier,

 

yeah, but the sun went down.

and i scurried back to the city.