meditation
 

does anyone here meditate?

i tried it a couple times a while back and honestly found it pretty useless. they said to still your thoughts and try focusing on one thing, like your breath. i can't really do that. my mind just keeps going no matter what. even when i try not to think, i will notice thoughts pop up in the back of my mind. and then i'm like **** i'm thinking about something. and then i'm like **** now i'm thinking about me thinking about something. and then i try to refocus my thoughts on my breath but honestly i find my breath pretty boring. and then i'm like **** now i'm thinking about trying not to think about stuff. i usually lasted maybe 5 mins tops before i got bored and decided to go do something else.

i always assumed this was just my failure at meditating, but then i was listening to sam harris's recent book on meditation when i was at work today. he was saying how a lot of people who think they are meditating are really just thinking with their eyes closed, and that it takes some practice at mediation before you truly realize how distracted by thought you really are. i thought this was interesting since it didn't take me any practice at all to notice how distracted i was. i'm pretty sure this means i'm a guru but who knows.

itt post any meditation related thoughts in this thread

try self hypnosis first.

how do i do that

I have a killer app.But turn the phone on airplane mode,because its insanely hard in a hypnotized state to answer the phone.

what's it called?

i honestly want to believe you. sounds interesting to be hypnotized. but my gut feels like it's bs

I've never actually just meditated but I used to do this morning yoga right that always ended with laying down and breathing + soothing yoga music. It's the only time I ever had a clear head, all the others were exactly what you described where I just sat there thinking with my eyes closed. It's a really hard state to get into.

i was watching some buddhist monk give a talk online and he said he had no problem giving up sex cause the joy he got from meditation felt better than an orgasm

i think he's a bald headed liar

Hold on let me look.I equvicate it with being in the half awake half dreaming a really lovely dream ,on your day off state.

i have sleeping issues where i get stuck in a state like that sometimes during the transition from waking to sleeping and vice versa. except in my case the dream is usually dull as all hell

Lucid dreaming is one of the greatest things in life. That sounds awesome Rox.

When I went an actual Zen meditation service I had much better results than trying it on my own. It's hard to keep the right posture and to focus on your breathing for even twenty minutes but if you accompany it with a reflection on the 8 fold path it can help you find a positive direction in life.

It's actually really hard work. I'm too lazy so I cheat with weed.

With weed? That just makes me think even more, f that noise.

Yeah. Weed isn't the same direction but it gives me a singlemindedness. I can't clear my head when I'm stoned but when I listen to music I'm more focused on it and more fascinated by it than I am when I'm sober.

I'm selling SPACE keys and CAPS if anyone is interested.

Try meditating with your eyes open. If thoughts come, don't fight them or try to ignore them, just focus on counting your exhalations (up to ten, and then start over from one). After that, try counting your inhalations. Supposedly, this helps you to learn to concentrate without exerting a great deal of effort, and eventually you'll no longer need to count breaths.

Try to remember that the goal isn't to experience a "vision", but rather to feel what it is like to exist without any mental outflows (i.e. as matter rather than a living being).

concentrate on what, my breath? i'll give it a shot but so far i find my breath to be pretty uninteresting.

mental outflows = thoughts?

edit - but yea my intention wasn't to experience a vision. i've just seen stuff saying there are benefits to meditation and i wanted to give it a fair try

one time when i was pretty high i tried to "meditate." it wasn't meditation as described by any traditional practice, more what i assumed was meditation while i was stoned without doing any real research on it.

basically i just felt like there was energy in my brain and i tried to push it all to the front of my brain. it felt like i was pushing liquid or something towards the front of my head by just concentrating really hard. i dunno what i did but honestly it did something.

it felt like a religious experience or something, everything turned really bright and beautiful for a moment and i thought i had made some sort of breakthrough. honestly the closest i've ever come to that feeling was by doing cocaine (at least i assume it was cocaine).

but then i came down from that euphoria and realized it wasn't nirvana or any **** like that, just a drug experience. but i dunno wtf i did because marijuana has never made that happen to me and honestly it seemed like i caused it with my 'meditation.'

I like the idea of meditating but have never gotten the hang of it. I don't like the idea of losing an hour of my day doing nothing, so I stick with doing things meditatively. Helps with my anxiety for sure.

I don't meditate, but I looked into it awhile ago (as most modern teens/young adults eventually do, out of curiosity). Hopefully I can shed some light on what I meant.

You have to hit a target before you can hit the real thing. Concentrating on your breath is just a way of honing your focus. Natural functions like breathing seem uninteresting at first, and there's a long way to go before meditation really makes sense. There's a reason why Buddhists/Taoists have a fascination with dust/dirt/matter: the smallest things in life at first seem uninteresting as hell, but they're absolutely fascinating at the same time, being the fundamental building blocks of existence.

If it helps, many monks-in-training find it useful to think about a certain type of poem/riddle, often referred to as a "Koan", in their free time. If you look some up, you might find them helpful, or at least good food for thought. One of the most famous Koans is "What did my face look like before I was born? What will it look like after I die?". Another well-known one is basically a short story, where a famous monk is asked whether or not animals like dogs can attain immortality/enlightenment, and he responds with the word "Mu", which translates roughly to "The question can not be answered, as there is no correct answer", or "all possible answers to the question are simultaneously correct and false". What do you think he meant by that?

My favorite Koan is a paraphrasing of a story about an infamous monk called Puhua, who was very eccentric and basically the Batlord of Buddhism. When a fellow monk asked how his day was, Puhua responded by flipping over a table of food. The next day, the same monk asked him again how his day was going, and Puhua flipped the table over again. After that, half of his peers regarded him as a genius who could say a thousand words with a single action, and the other half were convinced that he was just flat out crazy.

It is cool brother.I was apprehensive at first. I didn't want to wake up like the Manchurian Candidate...But it feels like acupuncture afterwards.

that was pretty good. i'd join that guy's cult for sure.

You're susptible to anyone who is flamboyant and spouts nonsense with a gaggle of big booty bitches in tow.

Wanna join my cult?

I thought they got shut down. You resurrected it?

sure why not

really my ideal cult would have a female figurehead

Oh no, this is my brain child. The student has become the master.

Lemming.

is that what the magic hockey puck told you to call me?

Go fuck a tree.

as a top or a bottom?

So how do you swindle your money?

Both. You have to take control and force the tree on yourself.

I think you're only potential failure was giving up when you got bored and deciding to do something else. Boredom would be something to look at as your first emotional challenge to overcome. This partly the point of meditation - to overcome displeasing mental states (which requires acceptance of them). You practice in your home consciously, and overcome boredom - but with practice, you can overcome boredom at any time and place. The hipster zen practitioner like myself usually utilizes it for emotional discomfort and creative problem solving in research and music. Very serious monks get to the point where they can do the same with extremely unpleasant mental states like those inflicted by physical pain.

Of course, I'll remind you that this is only partly the point of meditation. The main goal is control over your own mental states. There's a lot you can do with that with a little imagination (like get into "the zone" when you need to perform or make a memory palace).

Walking is my meditation.

posting on mb is my meditation

100%. just moved to a new place and its got woodlands and rolling hills all around it. makes for some great walks while listening to music.

.

Sounds like astral projection to me, man. You should see a doctor.

Astral projection is awesome. Don't go to the doctor.

Same here man. Every day. I've been hiking the Palisades twice a week as well. Sh*t's good for you.

Walking is the ****. Sometimes I buy a nice pair of shoes and ruin them in a week by walking around forty to fifty miles. Then I would go to Nordstrom Rack and exchange them for a pair that'll actually last.