/hob/ - Hobbies

what exactly is meditation for you?

for me, there is no visuals ever inside my head, so meditating or even just closing my eyes is severely nonstimulating, it causes my textual ideas, thoughts, and inner dialogue to echo and run rampant, out of control. attempt to silence any of this and i feel like shaking, ill, like i am hurting myself. so i ask for advice

>>40589
I meditate whenever I feel bored or are waiting something. I meditate at the bus stop, meditate on the bust, meditate while watching videos, meditate while eating, and meditate before going to sleep.

I don't ever try to silence myself, because I silencing myself is irrational. Hitting yourself is irrational, fighting against yourself is irrational and silencing yourself is irrational. Whenever I begin feeling an emotion (fear, sadness, anger, pride) I feel that emotion 100%.

The ego says: Meditation is good. or Meditation is bad.
The brain says: Meditation is Meditation.
The Tao says: Meditation is.

>>40737
>The Tao says: Meditation is.

The tao needs to stop passing empty sentences off as wisdom.

>>40737
whats that supposed to mean, i meant literally what are you doing when you meditate

>>40738
Dao is the concentration of no fucks given. Other philosophies of mankind try to change or alter nature in some way, the dao is the flow of the river itself and not the water. The water would be the thoughts and feelings in your mind, the dao would be experiencing them as is instead of trying to alter or add to them. The noticing, the awareness of the thoughts, and the detached observation and analysis of these thoughts is the core of all meditation.
It's not that you're becoming some omnipresent monk-like holy existence, that's the opposite of what meditation in many cultures tries to do. Instead of saying in your head that your experience is bad or this or that, you're only observing and cataloging the experience itself.
Usually, if I told you 'look at the sky and explain it to me', you'd say things like the sky is blue, pretty, grey, stop talking about the sky, who cares? etc.
The alternative is to continue explaining the sky to yourself. That's meditation. The rest of the stuff like chants or guided meditation or vispassana or whatever is all to get you to the point where you connect with your sense experience and the creation of reality that only exists in your mind, only can exist for you.
Literally no one else can exist as you. There isn't an existence button to push. It's not about elation or sadness, it's just pure existence, pure flow. Like a cat, it observes, it's not constantly redefining it's existence.
What happens is that the smarter you are the more information you try to wire around your own personal version of reality. It's your brain saying 'no, no, this is what reality really is like!" when the truth is that your memories, your senses, and your brain itself is composed of nothing but omissions of reality and biases that place you in a certain emotional situation in that reality. This is why someone in bumfuckistan is having a better day than you, because they don't know about porn or smartphones, all they care about is living and not dying. The last thing they thought about was probably what they were doing. They have a low information load, low imagination, they don't understand what the outside world is like and will likely die without ever experienced the joy of anime.
And yet they are happy because their body's health was enough for them. The only difference between you and that guy is that all your learning got in the way of you having fun instead of helping you have fun. There's no use in learning if the information just makes you sad. It's more of a curse than a boon.
This is what modern civilization just assumes you understand. That you're going to be able to handle yourself and make choices for your own best interest and happiness. Most people fail to do this because their minds are concentrated on some compulsive activity so then they get upset every time they did the compulsive thing instead of that thing that they said they were going to do. So they end up with lives full of "I can't because I need to shitpost on wizchan again"

My regular practice has fallen off a bit this month due to my exciting new life of wageslavery. Right now I'm working six nights a week delivering pizza, and I'm still not completely used to it yet. Some days I only manage to get in 30 minutes or so a day, when usually I get in at least a good solid hour. Not that the time is truly what matters of course.

Also studying Kali Kaula by Jan Fries on the side. Tantra is fascinating stuff, be it Shaivic, Shaktic, or Buddhist, and I have a huge reading list of the stuff to study up on. It seems to be the apex of eastern religious practice and stretches their ideas and practices to the furthest level.

>Tried posting the PDF here
>Keep getting file errors

Well here's the place I originally found it. Very informative text, but the author leans a bit to the lib side.
https://www.reddit.com/r/alexandria/comments/3sixly/jan_fries_kali_kaula_a_manual_of_tantric_magick/

Here's a nice little introductory book to Zen practice here, plus a guide that an anon made on getting into meditation. Both are saying the same thing, just in different manners.

>>40752
The i-ching is a intentional collection of contradictory platitudes that are on their face meaningless and if you look deeper into them a waste of time.

>depression
>anxiety
>hate your job
>no gf
>losing a lot of blood every time you take a shit

Just meditate brah.

15 minutes a day, and all your problems will go away.

>>41505
Hi r9k

>>41509
he's a shitty incel but he's not wrong
don't shill on other boards like the gym faggots please, thanks

Minding meditation through mediated media premeditatively.

I'd like to figure out a reason for me to start meditating. But I can't clear my mind and sit in the floor.

>>41521
>tell yourself you can't clear your mind and sit on the floor
>now you're unable to clear your mind and sit on the floor

It's some real basic shit here, but did you ever stop to think the two are related? Tell yourself something positive for once and then go sit on the floor. Eventually you'll realize that you are not the voice inside your head and can exist entirely free of its dictations.

>>41166
I cannot do even the easiest pose even with the help of pillows - legs (esp. knees and hips) start hurting badly halfway through. So I try meditating on the chair, but that way I can't keep the spine straight without making it tense and consequently getting sore shoulders. As for the lying pose - I keep getting a strong urge to turn on the side and eventually fall asleep.

>>41540
>I cannot do even the easiest pose even with the help of pillows - legs (esp. knees and hips) start hurting badly halfway through
Yoga-asana practice could cure all of these issues and leave your body feeling relaxed and flexible, just like meditation does for the mind. It's understandable if you don't want to take things that far right away, but understand that it is possible for you to do these things.

Most meditators just use the half lotus position by the way, even a lot of monks do.

>So I try meditating on the chair, but that way I can't keep the spine straight without making it tense and consequently getting sore shoulders
It always hurts at first for westerners. We sit in chairs with backs in them, and consequently a lot of the stabilizer muscles in our back are underdeveloped. However the pain and soreness goes away eventually with regular practice.

Don't worry about the posture too much right now though, that's something to work on later down the road. Stability of the mind does follow stability of the body/breath, however you can still get a very good meditation in without being in some formal yogic position.

>As for the lying pose - I keep getting a strong urge to turn on the side and eventually fall asleep
If you decide to try laying down again to meditate I would recommend doing it during the time of the day when you're the most energized and falling asleep is completely impossible. For me that's gonna be about three hours after I wake up in the morning. Drink some caffeine too if you feel like it. This method here is extremely potent because you're free of all the background processes of formal sitting.

>>41539
This is all completely possible with just 15 minutes of meditation day.

I've been trying to get into it but it's hard. I haven't really felt like I've accomplished anything of value yet.

>>41544
Lose the judging mind. There is no such thing as a good or bad meditation. There is nothing to accomplish or attain. Just sit.

The desire for shit to happen actually pushes interesting experiences further away.

How long did you have to meditate for before you felt benefits and what exactly were those benefits?

>>41861
Read the post above you. To have any hope of getting the benefits you need to wrap your mind around the concept of doing it without hungering for the benefits. Otherwise it's just a waste of time and an exercise in frustration.

>>40588
only recently I got serious about my meditation, and it only really started showing results after that. It's pretty damn amazing what things you can find inside your own mind given the right creativity. My last session focused for over a few hours on a mantra involving variations of "nothing is […]".

I also find value in paying attention to where and what my mind deviates towards. I will actively place myself in binary decision state between my previous selection and whatever I realize I have transitioned into. Doing this really highlights the personal value of things, I think.

Overall meditation seems way too outlandish for most people. They will never be able to breach the conceptual level to even begin learning about how to do it. What this reminds me of is very similar to the average person's disability to engage with the arts and things of fine, non-physical detail. Kind of sad because it would be nice if more people knew these things and were sharing.

>>41869
So basically you can't tell me what the benefits are. Okay then.

>>41872
Alright wiznog, I'll answer your question here.

I've been doing this practice devoutly for multiple years now, however even when all things are exactly the same. Same place, positions, object of focus, method of meditation, you can still get completely different results sometimes and get very surprised on occasion. As one wise man once said, you can't force mystical experiences, however "if you want to get hit by Gods truck, you have to go out and play on Gods highway" which is what we're doing by means of meditation practice.

With that all said though, my typical form of meditation is known as shamatha, which is a Sanskrit word that translates literally as "the cooling of the mind". Basically you just sit down, focus on your breathing in the region most comfortable to you (nostrils for me), and when thoughts come into your head you just tell yourself "thinking" mentally and let them go. Now depending on my state of mind the usual time span goes like this-

>0-15/25 mins
>mind is crazy, spinning whirlpool, thoughts and fantasies endlessly spring up, literally just sitting there with nothing happening, shits boring

>Somewhere in the 15 to 25 minute range
>suddenly and very fast it feels as though my mind downshifts in a very tangible sense, all thoughts and fantasies just drop and either die completely or remain as very distant echoes of what they once were, and a pleasant sense of groundedness in the body appears
>this is what I believe to be the stage of the first jhana

>A few minutes after 1st jhana
>become aware of my heart beat intensely, can feel my pulse over almost my entire body rushing around, and it feels damn good
>the breath starts to feel very good as well

>After sitting in 1st jhana for 10-20 mins
>become so still that the breath has slowed down dramatically, the pulse starts to become distant as well, all thoughts are now completely gone, not even those distant echoes remain. All I have now is an intense sense of energy over my entire body, feels radiant
>Perhaps this is hitting the second jhana, where all effort required is gone, and absorbtion rises naturally into the body

>After sitting in 2nd jhana for 10-20 mins
>most of the energy I had been feeling before is gone now, leaving nothing but a pleasant sensation of emptiness behind, total clarity
>absolutely nothing else matters anymore, and even though they aren't the object of my focus, all of my problems and stresses in my life are now comically laughable

A good chunk of the time I only hit the first level, but even just feeling the first jhana will make me feel extremely peaceful and stoic for the entirety of the day, it also greatly enhances the enjoyment that I derive from sensual pleasures. And again that's just the first level there, the third on the other hand will create such a profound sense of peace, rightness and belonging that will stay with me an entire week.

The funny thing is this is all just noob beginner shit too. There are 9 levels of jhana, the first four on the realm of sublime form, the next four in the formless realms where one completely loses contact with the physical body, and then beyond the formless realms lies NIrvana. Of course I've never experienced such things myself though, only been to level three before at most.

Again to reiterate though, do not crave jhana, do not crave experiences they come naturally when one loses desire and loses the judging mind. Learn to just sit for the sake of sitting alone.

I think this scene here is a good analogy for exiting the typical samsaric mindset and entering the first jhana.

However, even when jhana doesn't come at all there are still valuable things to learn and experience within the typical mindset. For example just sitting there and allowing thoughts to enter and exit without playing with them will show you what your subconscious mind is dwelling and focusing on at that particular point in life.

It'll still chill you out a little bit too. Sitting quietly, even while not meditating can do that.

For the past thirty days, I’ve been doing a little bit of mindfulness meditation, working up to ten minutes. And honestly, I just find it boring. I’m not sure what I expected, but I don’t see a reason to keep it up.

>>41877
No offense, but it sounds like you aren't putting much effort into the practice. Like most other things you get out what you put in. Do you expect to blast off to Nirvana with only 10 minutes of effort a day? My old Zen Buddhist sangha only thing in the area started the brand new beginners off with a 25 minute session, and again, that was for people who had literally never meditated before.

Look at >>41873 and notice how even the anon who has been practicing for years me still doesn't feel anything special at all until on average the 15 to 25 minute mark.

What you should do before quitting is actually go very hard with it, at least once. Decide to sit down for a long period of time, and then go do it. I had some intense experiences with that crude method as a teenager and they're a big part of what hooked me into my own dedicated practice. Go and set an alarm for just 45 minutes and then try it out.

However don't come in here and say that swimming is boring when all you've been doing so far is dipping your feet into the shallow section of the pool.

If y'll dont realized anything in years of meditation, its why you doing it wrong. Maybe is the position, your back is not lined, or lack of right mudras, wrong mantras, or no visualization nor yantras, or not get into the right mindset. Dont blame on meditation for your own faults and ignorance.

At the monastery I visit there's a quote on the wall by the head of the order saying something along the lines of- "The apex of practice is the elimination of the pauses between the inbreath and outbreath. All else merely leads to this." Pretty damn powerful statement there, and so lately I've been experimenting with just this. All day yesterday at work, and during this mornings session, I practiced doing either complete breathing or belly breathing in a slow, soft, controlled manner, not allowing the pauses at all.

On a mental level I've noticed almost a complete death of all excess thoughts and fantasies, as well as a strong awareness of the body. My attention is much less broken as well, and just sits like a big fat toad in the middle of all the stimuli around me, instead of bouncing around like some kid who drank too much Mt.Dew.

Definitely gonna keep experimenting with this here.
>complete breathing and/or belly breathing
>slow and soft
>no pauses while breathing at all, it's a constant smooth motion

This also matches what Patañjali taught about Prāṇāyāma, a word which means literally the elongation of the breath. He taught that such practice is an essential step on the yogic path for the attainment of enlightenment.

>>41890
Good tips, i would also add Win Hof method before meditating. Its funny how oxygen is allucigenic. and feels good.

I tried meditating multiple times but tinnitus ruins it. It's insanely difficult to concentrate on anything when your head constantly feels like an artillery shell just blew up nearby. Putting on music or noise to block out the tinnitus is just as distracting as the tinnitus itself. Any advice on how to deal with this?

>>41893
Why don't you focus on the tinnitus's "sound" itself?

>>41893

Tinitus is reality talking back to you.

>>41893
Had tinnitus my entire life. You'll get used to it eventually.

>>41894
That could work. A bit like a being a fakir driving steel nails into your body, but it could work. It's willpower training if nothing else.

>>41897
Had it since I was about 10 (28 now). When does the acclimation kick in? I don't like feel I'm anywhere close.

>>41893
You expect meditation to be pleasurable and give up when it is not. Usually, one must attain a certain level before demons see your power as too great and attack you with pain and temptations. Rejoice for the demons attack you before you even began to meditate.

>>40739
When I mediate, I meditate. The only thing I am doing while meditating is meditating.

>>41900
One of my very earliest memories in life is asking my little brother if he can also hear that high pitched ringing noise in the room. He suggested that maybe my hearing was just so good that I could hear things he couldn't. I must've been 4 or 5 years old at the time.

Later on as a teenager when things would be really quiet and the tinnitus came to my attention it would really really bother me, and of course when interest in meditation came around this initially fucked with my practice. I think it was meditation itself though that cured me of the attachment to tinnitus.

Yeah, for my entire life I've had a high pitch ringing sound in both of my ears. So what? Don't allow such a minor inconvinience to be your excuse for not practicing.

To be between consciousness and sleep is the goal of meditation imo.

Meditation can do no wrong is the common mantra. Most people who are into meditation lead low stress lifestyles to begin with. I've never, ever heard about an avid meditator who led a literal shit life. I guarantee you the ones speaking so positively about meditation here aren't slaves 24/7 to the system. If I was on vacation, or worked part time, maybe I could devote myself to meditation and leading a low stress lifestyle.

>>41925
It sounds innocuous on its own but it can degenerate into cults and other dubious self help groups.
For instance https://www.davidlynchfoundation.org
I feel intense disgust towards the people who use eastern traditions to vomit some sort of watered down pseudo-spiritual and parapsychological new agey nonsense like this. Sprinkle some sanskrit on top of it, have an eastern “master” act as spokesperson and you are likely to see suggestible folks fall for it.
The practice of “yoga” among middle class bitches, as if it was merely some type of physical training, is equally as pathetic and shameful. I wonder what actual hindus think of it.
If you want to meditate to “feel better” or to “improve yourself” don’t lie to yourself by pretending you are on the way to enlightenement.

>>41931
>The practice of “yoga” among middle class bitches, as if it was merely some type of physical training, is equally as pathetic and shameful. I wonder what actual hindus think of it.
Personally I find it hilarious that an eastern system for discovering ones unity with God has ended up in the western world teaching young, upper class white succubi how to become more flexible. This watered down version of yoga-asana is extremely popular too. I could go right now and drive around the wealthy part of town and see about four or five different "yoga" studios there.

I think this is good though. Those truly interested in such practices will eventually discover the deeper roots of yoga and will find themselves falling deeper down the rabbit hole to self-discovery. Even if this only happens to 1 in 100, or 1 in 1000, that's better than 0.

You guys might be interested in this library here. Tantrabro from 8chan's /fringe/ board uploaded his entire library to mega and there's a ton of interesting things to read in there. At present I'm still finishing up Kali Kaula >>40852 and also reading the Hevajra Tantra, a Buddhist text I've heard quite a lot about over the years.

Library
https://mega.nz/#F!ogVAVaTB!_n5E94768ngBAprXiIxfug!xpMxjR5Y

Here's a good discussion we've all had on tantra and its practice. Assembled a pretty damn big reading list from this thread here.
https://8ch.net/fringe/res/98992.html

Anyone ever ask you guys about your meditation practice? I room with some hardcore Pentecostal Christians who give me cheap rent, so my usual answer to them is quoting 1st Corinthians where Paul states very clearly that our body is the temple of the living spirit.

>quiet the mind
>look within
>encounter god

>>41873

I tried meditating and I'm not sure if I'm messing up at this 1st jhana part. I get the intense heatbeat and I feel that something is about to happen, which causes me to get excited. I presume nothing is meant to happen and the heartbeat is supposed to go back to normal shortly afterward? I'm not sure if I am losing focus here or not. Also I get momentary sensual sensations in my dick at this point which throws me off. I do get pretty relaxed after this though, to the point that it's an effort to keep my eyes closed oddly enough, which again messes up my concentration.

>>42015
>I get the intense heatbeat and I feel that something is about to happen, which causes me to get excited

We're dealing with some very subtle forces here. Getting too excited can stop absorption (jhana) from unfolding. However if you try and force yourself to be calm that can also stop it from happening. It's a very fine line to walk.

My advice would be first to just keep sitting longer, usually if you sit long enough all these issues will go away naturally on their own. If however you want to force calm, which should be done sparingly, just do three complete breaths (in abdomen, then middle ribcage area, then finally the top. Exhale in the opposite fashion) or conversely hold your breath after the exhale until you really need air again.

You could also do a breath of fire, ie Bhastrikā (the bellows breath), before meditating. This is basically where you hyperventilate through your nose with abdominal breathing, in and out forcefully about 20 times, and then slowly do a complete breath inhale, and then hold it in until you have to breath again. Then slowly release and breathe normally. This clears up the mind very very fast.

Usually I'll do one before each meditation session, sometimes three to five if my mind is really fucked at the time.

>>40588
Let me blackpill you on "enlightenment" in meditation. It doesn't exist, it's prophets and priests conflating the concept of innate talent and, yes, genetics (in terms of low neuroticism, high IQ to understand multidimensional concepts, etc) and tricking you into thinking that oh wow, with a lot of effort and time I too can become just like Buddha/Krishna/Jesus/whatever!
It's bullshit, there's nothing to become better at in most sessions, just its core mechanics, interactions etc. Once you're done learning those, you've plateaud and reached the "skill" level that your innate talent allowed you to, which is usually the "average" rank in any religion that has ranks. You might be able to grind your way one or two divisions higher than what you arrived at, but don't get tricked into thinking you've actually improved as a spirit - you've simply meditated for long enough with a 50-52% zenrate to have attained more SKILL POINTS.
Oh you're meditating with optimal equipment, taken expensive transcendal drugs, and built a temple surrounded by statues to meditate in a high frequency environment? Doesn't matter, Chad will pick up a meditation pamphlet, meditate for a week and attain complete enlightenment; demolishing all your stats across the board (even adjusting for playtime) because his better innate abilities allow him to. And there's nothing you can do about it.
I'm not saying meditation need to stop, but gurus need to stop selling this idea of a "ladder" because it's total horseshit.

>>42052
>Let me blackpill you on "enlightenment" in meditation. It doesn't exist
You're approaching the practice from a wrong angle already. If one gives a single thought to the attainment of enlightenment, that in itself will keep it from ever being revealed. Fuck enlightenment.

>Doesn't matter, Chad will pick up a meditation pamphlet, meditate for a week and attain complete enlightenment; demolishing all your stats across the board (even adjusting for playtime) because his better innate abilities allow him to. And there's nothing you can do about it.
This isn't a competition. If someone else has positive experiences at a faster rate, what does it matter? You're speaking about this as though it's a video game or something. If Chad blasts off to Siddhaloka and meets Krishna during his first session ever, so what? Really dude it doesn't matter in the slightest bit at all. Stop being so attached to the behavior of others and work on unfucking your own mind first. There's no gamerscore here, and no achievements to be unlocked.

>tricking you into thinking that oh wow, with a lot of effort and time I too can become just like Buddha/Krishna/Jesus/whatever!
Buddha-nature is the natural ground of being. It doesn't come or go, and cannot be forced into existence. All effort leads in the wrong direction.

>I'm not saying meditation need to stop, but gurus need to stop selling this idea of a "ladder" because it's total horseshit.
Have you ever actually read any Buddhist texts ever? They all make it pretty clear there is no ladder, no spiritual gradiations.

From the Treasury of Natural Perfection-
>Ho! O Vajra Speech-Essence, listen! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the first principle - that intrinsic gnosis is unborn and undying - there is not the slightest difference between a person who kills millions of sentient beings and one who practices the ten perfections.
>O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the second principle - that the nature of reality is unstructured - there is not the slightest difference between a person who is always meditating upon emptiness and one who has never even momentarily entertained the idea of emptiness.
>O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the third principle - that gnosis is unconditioned - as to the completion of the accumulations of virtue and awareness there is not the slightest difference between a religious person who has performed countless conditional virtues and a psychopathic killer.
>O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the fourth principle - that the nature of gnostic awareness is unmoving - as to the vision of the real nature of things there is not the slightest difference between a person whose body and language exhibits all the signs of understanding and one who has never cared even momentarily to listen or study the teaching or to think about it.
>O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the fifth principle - that the nature of being is unborn and deathless - as to accessing realization there is not the slightest difference between a person experiencing the torment of hell and one experiencing the bliss of buddha.
>O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the sixth principle - the immutability of gnosis - as to intuiting the natural condition there is not the slightest difference between a person who has restrained discriminatory mental functions and one who has a strong fixated ego.
>O Vajra Speech! I, Samantabhadra, teach that by virtue of the seventh principle - the intrinsicality of pure being - as to potential for fruition there is not the slightest difference between a person who performs all kinds of external offerings, uttering praise and prayers, and one who lives free of all religious activity.
>O Vajra Speech! A person who lives by these seven great self-sprung principles gains confidence thereby in effortless realization, conviction in the understanding of appearance as inseparable from the three gnostic dimensions and intuition that he or she is buddha.

From the Hevajra Tantra
>There is no being that is not enlightened, if it but knows its own true nature. The denizens of hell, the pretas and the animals, gods and men and titans, even the worms upon the dung-heap, are eternally blissful in their true nature, and they do not know the transitory bliss of gods and titans. No buddha is found elsewhere in any of the spheres of existence. The mind itself is the perfect buddha, and no buddha is seen elsewhere.

Here's a PDF of the 6th Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra. It's a very famous Zen text that the students of Master Huineng recorded from his teachings. He was an illiterate, low-caste woodchopper who profoundly influenced Zen (Ch'an) in China and beyond. Anyways in this short collection of his teachings he really bashes upon the idea of enlightenment coming from meditation practice. He even goes so far as to call constant sitting a disease of the mind. How could not moving ever conjure forth the Buddha nature? As though it isn't right here already.

This dude here is the last master of Trika, ie Kashmir Shaivism. I love how passionate he gets in this video here.

Been stepping up my game more lately. It starts to feel really good about the 30 minute mark.

>>42078
I'm afraid the post you are replying to is a copypasta. I don't know the context or origin but I've definitely seen that post before when talking about competitive online video games. He's just switched up the terms to be about meditation instead.

>>42222
Yeah, it became extremely obvious when you pointed it out, and since then I've seen it in several forms around the site. At least it's fun and new copypasta.

Started doing the nine stages of a corpse visualization again recently. It helps out quite a bit with stabilizing the mind, helps alleviate lust as well as attachment to the physical body which is of course ultimately a corpse.

>gut is swelling from intestinal gasses
>skin is becoming bruised
>skin is blackening from exposure
>gut bursts, spreading gore everywhere
>the body is now a blackened, gore covered abomination
>rot sets in, everything is stinky
>animals arrive and begin to consume the decaying flesh
>the corpse is now a mostly clean skeleton
>eventually even the bones fade away to dust

Also been visualizing things from the perspective of sitting on top of my own corpse as it decays, so I resemble one of the classic Hindu/Buddhist deities that sit on corpses for shava-sadhana practice.

>>42477
How do you even visualize corpse? Since most people don't see corpses and their decomposition processes, do you look at gore images online or do you just fill in with your imagination? I don't think imagination can fill in the shock value that you are supposed to meditate on. The practice are traditionally done in front of actual corpses after all.

>>42489
This post contain proselytizing rant and personal interpretations.

Your understanding is wrong. The image I posted simply summarize Buddhist theory of self. I thought it was good because it is compared to Descartes' "I think therefore I exist". Descartes view is based on the belief that thoughts cannot arise without a thinker who is himself. The Buddhist belief that the existence of thought does not prove the existence of a thinker ego as a discrete psychological unit. Sure there are brain activities and train of thoughts which lead to new thoughts, but that does not prove the existence of self and the thought that I exist may be no different than the thought that the weather is nice. One's personalities and beliefs are treated as no more than thoughts that arises more frequently and consistently than others.

On the belief that suffering is not real, I think it refer to your thoughts and not physical atoms. One's suffering are usually magnified by one's thoughts of the suffering. The stoics have a similar idea of manipulating one's impression of an experience. There are children who bawl when they scrape their knee and children who acts like nothing happened. There are wizards who panic in social situation and wizards who doesn't care. People who can't stand blood and fanatic Christians who self flagellate. Changing one's perception of suffering alters the magnitude of suffering. This is done through conditioning and unconditioning such as in meditation.

>>42491
Then it's only logical meditation proves futile for some, for perception differs from one mind to another

>>42492
Maybe, even I don't believe that meditation is not some magic bullet that can solve all problems. All attempt to improve our lives must be based on the axiom that things can change, else there is no way to have a rational motivation for it. Meditation is no different. Being a practice to change one's perception, one must first believe that one's perception can change from meditation. The belief that one's perception can change is probably not something that can be proven. I personally believe it in desperate faith. As for the belief that meditation can change one's perception, there is this Pali word Ehipassiko which means come and see for yourself. If you have practiced your meditation doesn't see how it helps then you can find something else.

>>42494
*even I don't believe that meditation is some
It's a pain to not be able to edit post.

>>42494
>rational motivation
It doesn't seem to exist from what I've read. The mind collects feelings from the body and then attaches that to events, this doesn't stop happening so it's more like you're being driven to attach yourself to certain types of thinking on an unconscious level because of how your mind personally learned how to function in this world.
This includes your day to day thinking and imagination too, if you believe that any given activity is horrible and life is horrible it's your convictions you've gained over time influencing that thinking rather than life actually being horrible. Even when it's bad, you still have to believe it's bad.
One of the five hindrances to the first level of meditation in buddhism(jhana) is faith in the practice. If you're thinking 'this shit is stupid' that influences the rest of your mind.
The main problem is that most of us are thinking with the Modular Node Network all the time, the monkey brain, trying to figure out what the world is and what's going on at all times. Trying to redefine our existence and learn from it, rather than observing and experiencing it. The more you are stuck in the analyzing monkey mode, the better you get at doing it, since the more you think a certain way the stronger that type of thinking gets. Like if you repeatedly think about your life sucking, the life sucking neuronal path is an arnold schwatzinigger. Your brain is built to think about life sucking, so no wonder people would be reluctant to accept a different kind of thinking when they already have such strong thoughts.
Meanwhile, meditation is training to engage the observation mechanisms that are the primary means of living and existence. It's returning your mind to the more childlike, relaxed, and engaged state, and given the property of the mind above where thoughts get stronger the more you think them, the same has to be done with observation.
Saying 'meditation doesn't work' isn't true. What's happening from what I've studied is that the person is stuck in the instinctual mechanism of familiarity and the strength of their thoughts, negative or positive. Their mind is resisting the new type of practice and because of that, they will say anything and make any excuse but the truth is that they don't understand that change has to be pleasurable to stick. The mind instinctively won't turn down something that it thinks is going to be awesome.
The common approach to changing thinking and habits is that "it will suck, it's work, you'll just have to buckle down and get your bootstraps in order", however this is why there is such a high failure rate.
Not to mention all this negative thinking is getting stronger as well when you go to do the habit, be it meditation or whatever else.
If you work on your thinking and guide yourself towards making the task familiar and pleasurable, then it's much easier to accept.
What's happening is no different than a martial artist performing a technique incorrectly. The person is thinking thoughts that lead their mind further away from the new habit, and this cycle of strengthing resisting negative thoughts makes the person even more a slave to whatever they were doing before.
This isn't including people with rare neurological conditions, but in most cases for most people, they are just swimming in ignorance about how the mind works and/or stuck in the flow of their strongest thinking and unwilling to part with it.
This is partly why therapists was clients willing to change, because about the best a therapist can do is be a social support encouraging healthy thinking habits.
The reason why meditation has endured is because it works, and the reason why it's not adopted is the reason why everything isn't adopted. It's strange, it 'doesn't feel right'.
Individual perspective is difficult to change because of familiarity and the pleasure principle. Being aware that your mind is doing this, reminding yourself that this is why you feel what you feel, and then planning a way to have a familiar and pleasurable experience for a new way of thinking is the most likely to work.
Information about new techniques is fairly useless if you can't apply it to enrich your life. I can't think of anything more worthless than reading about something that will certainly help you change your current thinking, only to deny it because of your current thinking.
It's like hanging around an asshole then asking yourself why you don't have better friends.
Now this doesn't mean I support meditation in particular for everyone, I just wanted to make the main point that if you have the concern about your mental state, the way to change it certainly isn't to keep doing whatever you are doing. Thinking whatever you are thinking is the problem.

>>42535
>Now this doesn't mean I support meditation in particular for everyone, I just wanted to make the main point that if you have the concern about your mental state, the way to change it certainly isn't to keep doing whatever you are doing. Thinking whatever you are thinking is the problem
Good post here. Thought and the unruly mind in general is the issue, but forcing yourself into a state of stillness isn't the best tool for all people. Now it is a highly effective tool, and the one of my own personal choice, however as they say "different strokes for different folks".

Master Huineng the Chinese Ch'an (Zen) Master called constant sitting a disease of the mind. We've had the Buddha nature right here with us all along, how could it be discovered by unnaturally freezing the body for hours at a time? For certain people the historical Buddha had different methods other than just meditating all the time. As I recall there was one mentally retarded fellow he simply had sweep the floors all the time and focus intently upon that action as it was performed, and supposedly this eventually brought the dude to full Enlightenment.

With that said though, stillness of the mind does directly follow stillness of the body and stillness of the breath. If anyone here at wizchan were to sit down in a stable position for 30 minutes and pay attention only to the breath, then their mind would sit down in a stable position as well. It's from such a position that jhana naturally unfolds, and that thoughts may be analyzed and worked with in a productive manner.

>>42540
>As I recall there was one mentally retarded fellow he simply had sweep the floors all the time and focus intently upon that action as it was performed, and supposedly this eventually brought the dude to full Enlightenment.
You're telling me the Buddha scammed a retard into being his servant? "Uh, yeah dude, just clean my house. You're totally gonna get enlightened."

>>43298
>retarded guy feels good about himself
>Buddha gets a clean house

There's literally nothing wrong with this.

>>43298
Retard would have been a janitor no matter what, Buddha put him in his proper place and also made him fully present.

>feeling tired from a long day
>also quit caffeine 5 days ago
>still need to get in my malajapa for the day
>bought pack of nicorette gum
>take one piece and chew it
>gum now has me super wired from 4mg of nicotine
>going off innawoods to do Cundi Dharani

Gonna limit my usage of this gum to two times a week at most.

I'm going to try getting rigorous with lucid dreaming practices so I can start meditating in dreams. Has anyone here tried this?

>>44367
>meditating in dreams
If you meditate regularily then find yourself dreaming about meditation that's a bad sign. You're not supposed to dream about your current life. You can dream about the future, the past, alternate realities and nonsense but not your current life.

>>44371
what

>>44371
>If you meditate regularily then find yourself dreaming about meditation that's a bad sign
I meant I'm going to induce lucid dreams with the intention of using them to meditate, not that I would just meditate so much that it would happen in dreams sponteniously.
I am interested to know why you think it's bad to have dreams about your current life. If I'm not mistakes, dreams are mostly made up of random short term memories, right? So It makes sense that they often alude to stuff that's happened recently.

>>44367
ive had this happen and my practice wasnt even that rigurous. it was "ok". i've quit meditating since a while ago. made me way too complacent and i feel like it took away from my ability to multitask

>>44373
Dreams can be about your past, things that could happen in the future, symbols, and archetypes that represent things that affect you, other worlds or random nonsense.
If you dream about playing a game that you play in real life, it means you've been playing too much. If you dream about working, then you need a vacation. If you dream about people you know and they look like they do now and act like they usually do then it means you are spending too much time with these people. Usually these dreams are utterly mundane. The video game characters don't suddenly come to life, your co-workers, your work documents don't try to eat you and your family members don't suddenly turn into monsters. It's a super boring dull dream about doing something you usually do too often in real life. It's your mind's way of telling you to take a break.

>>44617
Source: Your Ass

>>44620

I just know man, it's like ingrained and I just know

>>44620
Why are summerfags so rude. Can't wait for wizkids to be forced back to school and learn some manners.

It's great.
I think you can have some pretty radical insights, which are often verbalized but almost never taken seriously.

I came across this talk a while ago. I think it will be really helpful for people who are having trouble with focus in meditation, but also anyone else. Only thing I would add is he is detailing a specific way of doing things, and not everything said necessarily applies to all practices (though some of it does too).

are there any traditional meditation methods soecifically targetting people with aphantasia? the only thing i know that might be apllicablr would be zen because you can do it during any other task, im not confined to the empty void in my head, but it's not the kind of meditation i want. i want to sit down and imagine and see shit. seems incompatible with aphantasia.

>>47910
Most meditation practices focuse quite a bit on turning off the images and thoughts in your head. Not put images in your head.

Maybe what your looking for is guided imagery based meditation but if you truly do have "aphantasia" then I doubt it would do much for you.
More new age but you could give this guided meditation a shot and see if it does anything for you.

>>47911
most methods ive been interested about have some form of visualization at various stages of the meditation

>How has your meditation been going?
I've been meditating lying down, because it lessens the discomforts of my body, making easier for me to achieve the state where my mind is pretty quiet and I can spot unintentional thoughts and prune many thoughts before they fully form. From there I've been trying to focus on personal faults to find what I could do do be less of a shitty person. I've had some good results lately in day-to-day life. I've at least been noticing better how many little evils I do and degeneracies I am subject to. My hope is that by spotting all of my evils I can figure out a way to slowly disintegrate them, but I have no idea how to do that through meditation yet.

>What have you realized about the nature of consciousness?
Pure consciousness is an existence-permeating phenomenon and the substance of consciousness is uniform. Certain material patterns like brains, drill down into consciousness like a vortex in the ocean that reaches all the way to the sea floor. The sea floor is the sensible material world and attention or soul is usually at the sea floor. To continue with the analogy, rejoining pure consciousness is like raising the attention to rest at the ocean surface, taming the vortex in the process.

>Do not you meditate like the impenetrable black building or the clear white building?
huh?

>>47909
Thanks the explanation and guidance really helped when that inconsiderate and selfish succubus would not stop coughing.

I picked up Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, because I figure I am a fidgety skeptic.

A little disappointed by some of the normie suggestions (hey, dudebro, you can meditate while having sex, maaan), but the actual instructions are highly wiz-friendly.
Also, the anecdotes are fun if you can laugh at normals making fools of themselves.

Thoughts?

Any tips on making it a habit? I've only ever done it for a few days at a time before something or another interrupts my streak and I can't motivate myself to start again. I definitely feel a difference before and after, and I'm sure I'm doing everything right.

I'm trying to read Mindfulness in Plain English but I'm a brainlet. Can someone summarize meditation for me?

Take long walks in the dark to relax.

>>40588

There is a type of meditation I'd like to get some feedback on: the Higher Self.

It's very simple: you stand still, take your time to flush your mind and enter a tranquil a state in whatever way you prefer and tell yourself "I want to meet the Higher Self". He will come to you.
He may appear as blinding light at first, but after a while it will pass and you will see its shape.
The Higher Self can take a really wild variety of forms. Generally speaking though, it always looks "cool", perhaps because it is formed during childhood and remains that way (pure personal speculation).

After you've seen him the next step is to go towards him. After trying to do so a few times, you can also try and ask him the very apt question:
"Who am I?"

That is all, sorry in advance if this sounds pretentious, I am curious to know what other people will experience.
Thank you.

>>50198

Sounds dangerous in an occultic way. How does one "flush my mind"? I've never meditated before, but I'll try this soon if I'm told it's possible for a someone less than a novice.

Also, could I ask him other questions? What's he going to tell me after I ask him who I am?

I've also had a dream where a man bursting with light grabbed me with its jaws by the stomach, so it makes me weary.

>>50198
>>50209
>Sounds dangerous
This
Don't take shortcuts.
Some say psychedelics let you know yourself and the world around you, but it's only a glimpse. You have to grow up to the knowledge you gain. Think of it as giving a child like, ten thousand bucks. He will most likely spend it on toys and games. And let a person earn this money himself, he would be much more careful spending it.
I've never heard of this kind of meditation, but if I was to try it, I'd ask someone trustworthy and experienced, like a buddhist monk, not anons.
But then I am a loser basement dweller, so don't take my advice seriously. Just be careful, it's your mind and it's really hard to fix it once you break it. I know.

>>50209

"Flush your mind" was a colloquialism, just don't be excited or distracted.
You can ask him whatever you want.

>>50213

The Higher Self is literally you, a part of yourself, hence the name.

>>40588
how has meditating benefited you guys? what does it make you feel like? ive never tried it and im curious

I tried to combine aspects of mindfulness meditation with a certain theoretical perspective I have. The general point of mindfulness is to be able to see through the illusion of internal events, to realize that they are constructions of the mind rather than external events. General descriptions of meditation can get pretty vague and I think a lot of the practical value of it is lost because people miss out on the details. On the outside, it seems like everyone is doing the same thing: sit in a comfortable position, focus on the present moment, observe your thoughts/feelings/internal events and let them pass by gently bringing back your focus to the breath.

I've actually been trying to find/create a technique that can effectively dissolve any internal experience and I somehow ended up accidentally on a modified version of mindfulness meditation. I have a whole theory about why it works, but here's the general gist of the technique:

1. Find an experience you want to dissolve. Usually, this is something unpleasant like a negative emotion, intrusive thoughts, a bad memory etc.
2. Re-create it vividly in your mind, observe it, really feel it and experience it, notice the details etc.
3. Gently move the experience to another more preferable state but still staying in the same "context" - meaning, do not run away from what's causing that experience, rather transform it into something else you want. For instance, if you are scared, you don't imagine the situation as less dangerous to you, that would be changing the context. What you would do is change the experience of that context, if that makes sense.
4. Stay a little in that state by observing it, noticing how it feels, all the details etc.
5. Now, move back to where you started, into the unwanted experience again and try to again feel it deeply, experience it, notice all the details etc.
6. Repeat from step 3, moving back and forth between these positions. You can combine it with breathing in and out if it makes it easier to remember these states as you re-create them.

So, from doing it myself, it seems that 2-3 passes are enough for the experience to dissolve leaving in its place a neutral feeling as well as the same "context" not being triggering anymore. The point is to vividly experience your own ability to construct and deconstruct internal events. The reason why you "over-react" to these internal events is because you're trapped in the illusion that it's external i.e. event A is causing my experience B, when in fact, it's just your mind creating the experience automatically/reflexively (based on past experience, certain rules, god knows what).

Here's why I think it works, in theory. Humans are verbal creatures and we have the unique ability to map stimuli to abstract concepts and relations. As a consequence, we can construct experiences internally, like consciously with daydreaming and imagination. Sometimes, we fall pray to our own illusions and mental constructs. People can, for instance, suffer because of very abstract things that they nonetheless associate with very real things like security, comfort, pain, being helpless etc. We suffer mostly because of the 'meaning' of external events instead of actual events. This meaning is internally constructed but nonetheless feels like a very real barrier. Like, a person can't feel good about himself because he doesn't have any achievements. It's really weird when you think about it, but it's almost like you need permission to feel good because the achievement is usually quite abstract and isn't directly causing a dopamine spike like a drug or food or sex.

The reason why this technique dissolves the experience is because you vividly bump into the experiential knowledge that you are constructing it. More technically, it's triggering memory reconsolidation by disconfirming the knowledge that it's a real experience which updates the memory of experience and its automatic/reflexive nature is lost. I think a lot of psychopathology is the result of memories of these constructed experiences. That's also why we are so psychologically frail in childhood, because we're that much better at falling for our own constructions and then they stay with us, popping up in specific contexts automatically and freaking us the fuck out.

Any opinions from long-term meditators? Is there any type of meditation similar to this? Did I miss the point of mindfulness?
It'd be cool if somebody tried this, just so I know I'm not psyching myself out. I'm trying to improve the technique because it only dissolves experiences from a certain context and doesn't generalize completely. It also still requires focus which can improve with a bit of practice but I want to lower the cognitive load needed for this technique so it can be used effectively in real-time, almost like in the background.

I hope this doesn't sound like schizo rambling. I can sort of back up most of what I say with research, but I've been starring at it for so long I might actually be just seeing what I want to see. God, if I only had one person that I could shot ideas back and forth with but everyone I know in real life is a dirty normie and people online are lazy, slow and not really interested. If anyone wants to talk about this shit, hit me up: voidx (at) airmail (dot) cc

>>50305
You should look into qualia, storehouse consciousness, and the general theory of perception. It will probably help hammer some stuff out.

As long as you properly assemble the base, and strongly establish several concepts of mechanics about your srnse of self and the process that the external reality slowly gets filtered down to what you percieve inwardly (inner reality), you can achieve pretty much the same without precise meditation. I can tell you that it is certainly very much possible if you dedicate some time to it and make some discoveries about it for yourself.

Ultimately, learning to see and think of your own mind as a garden is very beneficiary in the long run. Water what you want to grow, weed out what you do not wish to grow, replant that which you wish to change.

>>47910
Late reply, but the tactile visualization exercises in this book were initially developed for blind from birth people to use. Tactile visualization is much easier for most people to start with than visual, and it can expand into visual if your mind starts spontaneously generating images to go along with the sensations.

Would some wizards perchance try some of "my" methods to meditate as well? I'd like to have some second hand opinions. I am aware that these ideas are far from new or original, but I would like to ask still.

There are in essence 3 techniques, which I do in order as I'll post them.

First would be the relaxation. Sit down comfortably, close your eyes and give yourself a minute or two to unwind a bit. Then, try to actively feel your bodyparts. Your hands, legs, torso and head. Focus on the feeling of each bodypart. If you need to visualize, imagine these parts connected by a line.
After you establish these feelings of your physical body, try to piece by piece relax every muscle in your body (segment your whole body to limbs and each limb to parts - for example, your left leg should consist of your foot, lower leg and upper leg). Take your times and only move on once you feel a limb properly relaxed. You can imagine a ball circling around the part you are currently relaxing, or just repeat the mantra that "every muscle in my xy is being relaxed". Go through your entire body like this.
Once you have your arms, legs and torso made like that, do the aame to your face as well, and then, and this could sound pretty retarded try to "retract" your consciousness to only your brain. focus on your brain only. Once you feel comfortable, slowly part by part, extend your "consciousness" back in your body.

That would be the first method. I myself have gotten pretty good results, as I felt my body fall asleep during it a couple times, but I am not sure if it's due to the technique or not.

The second technique would be done after I find myself completing the first one, but I think it could be done individually as well. The technique itself is pretty basic. If you can visualize, imagine yourself sitting at the edge of a small pond that is not disturbed by the wind. Imagine the water's surface as disturbed, then project the idea or symbol that tge lake represents your mind. Each ripple is due to you thinking about something else and not focusing. Think and feel that water, given enough time will always return to standstill unless disturbed, so whenever a disturbance occurs, observe the ripples it created and see it sloely rescind back into calmness. If there's a particularly strong distraction, imagine a curvy wavy line representing the ripple, and imagine it slowly flatten over time.
Repeat this until the lake looks undistrubed and perfectly still. Take your time to do this.
Once the lake has been still for a while, get up and walk on the top of this lake as it was solid ground. If it is still disturbed, stop and wait until it is calm again before moving forward. Make your way to the middle of the pond, then slowly sink yourself into the water. Remind yourself and focus on the idea that this pond is your mind, and allow yourself to slowly sink more deeper and deeper. See top of the lake slowly go further and further away. Consciously sink into your mibd as deep as you are confortable with, then a little more, then stop sinking and keep your current level. Observe and keep note of the feelings you feel, and play aroubd at the stage you managed to reach. Once you have played around, slowly see yourself rise up to the top of the lake, then completely out from it. Try to feel the refreshing breeze as air contacts your skin once again to completely seperate yourself from the time spent underwater.

And lastly, resume your position at the edge of the pond, and now focus on the air around you. Feel your body and whole self become as air. Slowly stop focusing on a specific goal or idea and let whatever happens happen. Try to be as free in your mind as the wind. If an idea strikes inside, do not brush it aside. Let your mind play with the idea and put effort into it as it feels like. Let the rains go for a bit. Once you feel yourself coming off of your state, slowly reassert control and rematerialize yourself beside the pond. Then take a deep breath and open your eyes.

Those would ve the techniques and methods I would like to ask fellow wizards to potentially try out. Feedback would be very welcome. I myself usually go the full length, (the techniques in order) which can take anywhere between 35 mins to 1 and a half hours. While I would say that each individual part cpuld be done seperately, I would not recommend doing the last one if you are not already focused and in the state for obvious reasons.

I stopped meditating. Ive stopped believing that self improvement exists. I became so depressed that I am happy again. Like integer underflow.

>>50655
What I do is move my consciousness away from my brain and personality. It doesn't seem to require any preliminary relaxation techniques since the core of the idea is to straight-off cut your point of awareness from your body and mind. At the beginning it feels like you're watching what you're experiencing on a TV screen instead of seeing it yourself, sometimes it helps to feel you backing off from your body.
The state that this results in is extremely passive, meaning not able to affect changes, but after examining various objects and concepts from this point of view I realized that there is another component to it as well. Each "thing" seems to be constantly perpetuated by some sort of active force. As though the universe is constantly expanding effort to maintain reality. Each thing is like a nexus through which the effort from the active force is parsed through. I suppose this is the meaning of the sigil of the Tao.

>>50672
I see. I shall try dissasociating in a more general, broader term as well. Life or rather existence, just like chaos is a state that must exist in constant motion. The idea that there is a force that upkeeps reality does sound naturally fitting.

But I digress. My idea with the conscious bodily focus lays more in line with solidifying the feeling of the body internally, manipulating it and exploring the mechanics it has. It isn't disregarding the self or body altogether, but rather (I) seek to experiment upon it.

To show what I mean, try this: sit down then try to kick without moving your leg at all. As your body gets the signal to kick, but also gets the signal to not move itself, you'll probably feel a rising urge to have your leg actually perform a kick. Kicking will start to appear "rewarding" just to fulfill what you want your leg to do. In the same manner, the body relaxation and withdrawning the consciousness only into the biological brain itself (the center, not personalitywise, but by it's pure meaning) serves more to test these faculties and experiment upon them.

Same with the idea that you aren't consciously aware of your limbs at all times, and most of the actualities of using them are delegated to the unconscious instead of the conscious mind.

Recently instead of trying to keep to a schedule I've been meditating for as long as I want (over some minimum) whenever I don't feel driven to do anything else, instead of killing time or giving in to depression and going to sleep. It's definitely a good way to do things if you feel like your life is spent eating empty time.

>>40588
I tried to meditate but I can hardly keep it up for 5 minutes. Every second while I was "meditating" was just my insides exploding from boredom and me not being able to wait for the 5 minutes to pass.After trying on and off for a while I just quit and I can't even have the motivation to get started. I have a very severe case of internet addiction, I would appreciate any and all help. And I really hope you guys can tell me something other than "just shut the fuck up and get on with it"

>>53067
Next time you try break down the urge to check the internet and the urge to escape boredom.

So when you are focusing on your breath and you start to feel the boredom repeat ' I am experiencing boredom'. And as the urges to do something else arise pay attention to the physical actions, ' I am feeling the urge to go on the computer. I am feeling the urge to move towards the computer. I am feeling my hand anticipating using the computer mouse'. Maybe even 'i am waiting to hear the timer'

The idea is to have those urges and feelings but build a calm around them, naturally modifying them in the process. Urges, feelings, thoughts - notice, label, observe.

It can be hard. I struggle a lot some days and others it is easier.

>>40589
>it causes my textual ideas, thoughts, and inner dialogue to echo and run rampant, out of control. attempt to silence any of this and i feel like shaking, ill, like i am hurting myself. so i ask for advice
This is literally what meditation is about, or rather not acknowleding those thoughts that run through your head. Your goal is to think nothing, to have a blank and empty mind, solely focused on the inner sensation of breathing for example. So you sit down, close your eyes, make sure your comfortable and try to think of nothing. This obviously wont work and things from your past, future and present will come up. When a thought comes simply acknowledge it's there and let it pass away. Like a car driving past you and slowly getting quieter. Yes it will be hard, it's like training a muscle at the beginning.
>>40737
My man, watching videos and being fully immersed or letting your thoughts run wild at the bus stop is not meditation. It's pretty much the opposite.

>>53067
5 minutes isn't bad for a beginner, I could barely go for 2 when I started out. Boredom is normal for beginners too. Boredom is okay, be bored and watch your boredom. >>53068 is good advice, except imo it's better to be aware of these thoughts without put them into words. Also ignore "modifying them in the process", of course it's true because the mind isn't a rock, but your goal isn't to get rid of boredom or induce calmness, it's to be aware of what is.

>>53126
>Your goal is to think nothing, to have a blank and empty mind
Eh, no. This is a huge misconception. Meditation is being vigilant and aware, not acting like a vegetable. In Zen if your teacher thinks you look braindead you get whacked with a stick.

i can't even warm up in less than 15 minutes, 30 is pretty much minimum to feel any effects for me, and a proper meditation session takes 1,5h

>>53129
Is this a response to >>53127 ? It's great that you have such good concentration, but it's pretty low of you to use that attitude towards a beginner. Like a maths major posturing big to a child who can't add.

>>53133
i see the "just a few minutes a day, you can even meditate in an elevator" advice all the time, and it just didn't work for me. more like the complete opposite - if you're experienced, you can get into zone instantly, and reap the benefits of meditation, even if from such small amounts, but as a beginner it's like "am i meditating yet? i don't see any difference, why should i bother, meditation is such a scam"

the key skill for a beginner is the ability to recognize when you're in a meditative state, and when you're not. it's like getting the balance on a bike for the first time - otherwise you can go for years doing something that is just breathing exercises, visualization, relaxation and whatnot

and to get that skill i don't see any other way around, but to sit down your ass, and power through. at first in an hour long sitting you can expect to get a few minutes of pure concentration, but it's absolutely critical to see how it should feel like, to establish the baseline

my concentration is shit, this is why usually it takes me 15 minutes to calm down, and i know people who can get into zone pretty much immediately. the 30 minutes mark is kinda anecdotal, it's what i need to stop anxiety attacks (but it works!). and 1-1,5h is a pretty standard amount, if you look at public sittings, offered by buddhist communities

i don't know, it may be discouraging going around, telling people that these 5 minutes of meditation won't do shit, but if they don't see results, they'll drop it anyway. i mean it's not totally pointless, since you're kinda working out your concentration muscle

I would like to get into a bit of yoga, but unless vipassana meditation, you can do it wrong, and I don't bother to try finding non charlatan guru where I live…

I'm doing some simple apasana and deep breaths controlled. Once able to be in nice apasana for half and hour I plan to try some pranayama.

>>40588
>what exactly is meditation for you?
Mainly trying to silent the mind so I can feel more subtle sensations.
I've practice only vipassana meditation - being aware of the sensations of your breath at the nostrils, while recalling awareness when awareness is lost or thoughts arises.

>>53067
It's normal. When I started vipassana meditation, it felt literally like a hell. Never done a more easy to do task, never felt so bad, trembling, and wanted to stop such task. After the first session, I knew something was very wrong and meditation could help me.
That's the only video I've watched about meditation https://youtu.be/cz7QHNvNFfA

At first I tried to force myself 30min after waking up and before going bed, and could not pass more than 5 minutes… So after three days of miserable failure I lowered to 15 min sessions. Within 5 days I always could keep meditation until the timer rang.
You won't get the benefits in your daily life in short term, but you do see improvements in your "meditation skills" within a week or two - in the form of being able to gently tame the mind/race thoughts and be calm.
For people like us that lose tons of time in non productive or pleasant stuff, I think trying meditation during a month it is one of the best stuff to do (and try hard I mean)

>>53146
i just want to point out, that the core technique of vipassana is body scanning, and what they teach in the 1-3 days of the course is anapana (following your breath), which has to teach you to focus, and notice subtle sensations around your nostrils (since you'll be using the same technique to notice sensations around and inside your body). anapana is also a fallback technique, if you can't concentrate, or when you start losing focus.

>>53148
I didn't know. I am a complete ignorant in the subject. I've never tried to study about it because I know it won't help me in the practice. Apart from the dhammapada I haven't read anything buddhist - hatha yoga and sutra yoga are the other indian texts I read.

I've tried three times to enroll in these 10 days courses but never been able - I guess there are a lot of people F5 non stop, because they got filled in no time (minutes?).
Have you gone to one? If so, how much did it help to progress? (I would prefer not spoilers about the course itself, as it is one of the few look forward to do).

>>53149
Those courses scare because i've read that you're meant to talk about your experience at the end as some essential part of it or something. The whole time I'd just be wracked by anxiety about that coming up

>>53150
Oh, in my area the website stays you are supposed not to interact with people, not even eye contact, and the last day if you wanted you could share your experiences. If it wouldn't be for that I would had never tried to get in. The website also gives wizzy vibes, idk.
I feel more Buddhism stuff in western are used for normies to know other people and say they do this and that.

oh, as to progress, before that, most of my knowledge was strictly book-wise, like i kinda got the concepts on the intellectual level, but it's another thing to experience them first-hand

like with the goose koan (how to get a goose out of a bottle without breaking it), it went from "well, according to the buddhist doctrine, logically it should work such and such", to "there's not bottle, there's not goose" you get on some internal level. maybe i'm just imagining things

buddhists got a lot right, because they follow something akin to a scientific method. like for example you have formal sitting poses, why should i be forced to use them, then you learn, that they have the least strain on your tendon, the biggest area of contact with the ground, so it doesn't block your blood flow etc. and same applies to the buddhist theory of mind, it's a product of experimentation, with meditation used as a tool

now, what they didn't get right, is that they interpolated the theory of mind on the whole universe. "there must be reincarnation, because thoughts appear and disappear" that is just pulling things out of ass

>>53149
wrote a lengthy reply, then realized i've been spoiling the shit out of it, so i'll leave just protips:

they're pretty hardcore when it comes to pain, like if your legs hurt (you quickly learn to correct your posture to minimalize it), or when you get headaches, back pain - pain killers are not allowed. you're supposed to dissolve the pain with your concentration. well, fuck this shit, if you're a beginner make sure to take medication with you (no one is checking your stuff, it's up to you)

bug spray is a must, so you don't get mosquito bites, sitting there itchy would suck. some nasal spray, if you get a runny nose, and you have to work with your breath, that would suck as well. last but not least, baby wipes, knowing that your ass is nice and clean makes sitting so much more comfortable

>>53153
Thanks, most of what you wrote already knew/assumed, mainly because the schedule is in the web and because when I filled the form always though that I didn't know if I'd be able to sit for that long - but since it passes some months until the course I was like: I'd practice on sitting for long once I know I got in. I've never take painkillers, but guess if I go I'd bring some just in case. The nose is also something it worried me, because when I get slightly temperatures unbalances in the body my nose starts outputing mocus really quickly and most of times I'm unable to stop if for hours. I won't do it during summer or spring for that reason.

Until recently I used chair to meditate, now I use siddhasana, but over the time I tend to bend forward. Is there any pose you/they recommend?

I don't know about after lifes. In the same way I've never thought about a human-like God was running the world, annihilism was natural to me - how cannot be? And I just hope this is the case and all ends once dead. Yet, for me it's clear universe (we deal with it) is pure mental - even if it emerges from another universe.
To be honest, I feel middle way reality would be more cruel than the other two…

>>53155
they don't give any instructions about sitting pose, just to keep your back straight. i used half lotus with a blanket under my knee, to level them out, and it was ok. i haven't had any serious prior experience with sitting for a prolonged time. from a group of 100 people, about 4 or 5 dropped out (mostly guys 50+), i suspect because of discomfort, but its not like i had a chance to talk about it with them

>>41873
>>41874
Yo, quit the bullshit. I did this every day back in highschool while trying to sleep through class. It's what happens when you are too awake to go ito REM sleep, as far as I know. If you need that much practice to ignore your surroundings and doze off, then something is/was wrong elsewhere in your life. This state of consciousness is not the solution to your problems, it's just restful.

>>41919
More like the description of meditation.

>>42052
Too true.

>>42078
Stop drinking the Flavor Aid. None of that shit exists, don't use it as an argument as if it helps your point. Besides, 42052 isn't talking about genuine believers anyways, just cult leaders and scam artists who want your money and/or servitude. TlDr that copy-pasted block of text.

>>42491
*sarcasm* Right, don't think about it and it won't affect you.*sarcasm* People like you are why we can't have nice things.

>>44371 >>44617
Hold up, why is dreaming about your life a bad thing? At what point does something become the past or future? One day? An hour? A minute? A week? The length of your short-term memory? >>44620

I stopped reading this thread after this point. So… bookmark.

Started the book "the mind illuminated" and it's a good clear step by step guide even if you don't get much peace or joy from meditation, which I don't. focuses on intention to begin with rather than relying on the experience being beneficial like many others do.

>>54720
That's one of the mont boring books i ever read, couldn't even get through the first chapter

>>42477
sounds dumb
pick up lifting instead
so you can leave behind a beautiful corpse :)