Login

**robvalue** · January 16, 2015 at 2:53 am

So I went to the meditation class. It had way more Buddhism in it than I expected based on the advertising. There was a very useful underlying message to it, and useful techniques, but by golly it was caked with a load of horse shit. Especially for the first lesson.

My mind was working like a bull crap detector, I just can help it. It seems to me like some people need little stories and pretend characters in order to practice the techniques or to see the point of it. The word spiritual was thrown around endlessly, and there was even a mention of "infinite future lives".

I did come away with useful ideas, and techniques, but honestly it was about 30 minutes of useful stuff and an hour of preaching nonsense. It's a shame, because that is enough to put me off going back.

I'll continue to learn about the meditation techniques from other sources and to practice it though. I do think there is a strong message of trying to achieve inner peace, and I think that is important.

**The Grand Nudger** · (This post was last modified: January 16, 2015 at 9:32 am by The Grand Nudger.)

Try these.

Relax, get in a comfortable position. Brethe in for 4sec, hold for 4secs, out for 4 secs (that's my standard). Imagine that you are standing on a windy ledge. Visualize a single thing that troubles you, or the first thing that comes to your mind as a piece of paper. Put it in an imaginary envelope, and then let it go. Watch it flutter out over the ledge. Repeat this until things that come to your mind leave just as quickly, or until you no longer wish to meditate. If you reach a point where you feel that your mind is quiet, or at least quieter...try this next bit (or try the next bit from the word go)

Imagine that you are sitting/laying next to a glass sphere filled with liquid light - and that you yourself are a glass container in the shape of "you". When you breathe in, visualize some portion of that spheres contents draining from the sphere, and filling you from the bottom up. When you breathe out, visualize an even smaller portion of the spheres contents going back from you - to the sphere. Everytime you finish a breathing cycle, you should be slightly more full of light, and the sphere should be slightly less so. Continue until you are filled/no longer wish to meditate.

Those are my two alltime favorites - if I really want to sit back and relax my thoughts. -Or- you can take a hit of that sweet, sweet cheeba. Up to you. Angel

(inner peace, for me, is best achieved by high temperatures and hard physical labor, btw - many roads lead to Rome, eh? In the summer I feel like a plant or a colony of cells with roots below and leaves above, just doing things - permeable, I suppose you'd say. In the winter I feel very much like myself-and-nothing-else, distinct, dormant, calcified - impenetrable.)

**thesummerqueen** · January 16, 2015 at 9:30 am

This all sounds incredibly complicated. I just get naked in a hot bath with a glass of laphroaig.

tantric · (This post was last modified: January 16, 2015 at 9:41 am by tantric.)

The Western Vehicle is a work in progress....and the painful reality is that spiritual babble appeals to most westerners. That's why they go. I'm all preached out, so here's a link to a parable. I don't really agree with it, dressing stuff up in order to get people interested is deceptive, but that's how life works.

How you sit is very important - legs zazen, pillow under your butt, hands cupped in front of your, shoulders relaxed, head up. They point is that you're going to be sitting still for a while, and you need to be in the right posture or you'll get cramps. Tip - once you assume the position but before you start, squeeze your ass tight once. It helps 'set' your body in that position.

Okay, here's the trick. You're sitting and breathing (know how to breathe). That's all. You're going to sit there and watch what your mind does. Transfer your point of reference so that you aren't the voice in your head, but the person who hears that voice. If it helps, count from 1 to 10 and back to 1 over and over. The voice needs to be occupied, and while meditating, you are more than that voice. Feeling that, being aware of it, is very mind expanding. (this is zen mediation, btw)

**The Grand Nudger** · (This post was last modified: January 16, 2015 at 9:35 am by The Grand Nudger.)

Ill try to work your bathwater into my routine next-time I get the bug... Angel

You mean, :gasp: all the spiritual mumbo jumbo is charlatanry Tantric? Who has two thumbs and would've thunk it?

**thesummerqueen** · January 16, 2015 at 9:37 am

(January 16, 2015 at 9:33 am)Rhythm Wrote: Ill try to work your bathwater into my routine next-time I get the bug...

"My" bathwater? Gonna steal some and use it for voodoo, Irish? Wink

**robvalue** · January 16, 2015 at 10:39 am

Thanks very much for the tips guys Smile

tantric · (This post was last modified: January 17, 2015 at 2:03 pm by tantric.)

(January 16, 2015 at 9:33 am)Rhythm Wrote: Ill try to work your bathwater into my routine next-time I get the bug...

You mean, :gasp: all the spiritual mumbo jumbo is charlatanry Tantric? Who has two thumbs and would've thunk it?

Meditation is a technique for developing mental discipline. Do you understand the distinction between the scientific method and the body of data so accumulated? Same concept - robvalue wants to learn the method. You can do all kinds of strangeness with meditation - you can have hallucinations and 'religious experiences', if that's your cup of tea, but if you're receiving good, qualified Buddhist meditation, it should focus on the method. You inspect and observe how your mind works, the process by which sensory information becomes your identity. Ultimately, it should led to an awareness of the nature of reality, which bears a striking resemblance to some parts of quantum physics and solves the dichotomy between objectivism and subjectivism, so that a quantum of reality is composed of a seed, coming from an object that exists outside your mind filtered through your perceptions and layered in meaning by your mind and memories. A object without observers is meaningless and unknowable, a mind without perceptions is empty, so both are required for a moment of 'reality'. This is 'nondualism' - the observer and the object are neither separate (objectivism) nor the same (subjectivism), but parts of a process that creates the experience of reality. Most Americans are looking for techniques to deal with stress and help relax, not this, and robvalue may very well be doing the same. If you want what I'm describing, I strongly recommend zazen style meditations (do the sitting stuff, not koans). I'm done now, Rhythm can scream 'woo' and feel powerful.

Login
Username:
Password:	Lost Password?
	Remember me