Meditation: "Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go.Just don’t serve them tea." - Shunryu Suzuki. |
- "Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go.Just don’t serve them tea." - Shunryu Suzuki.
- “Be a witness, not a judge.”~Rumi
- Meditation may have shaved 8 years of aging off Buddhist monk's brain.A 41-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk has a brain that looks like he's just 33.
- I wrote a short write-up on my thoughts after reading 'The Power of Now'. I thought I'd share and welcome any feedback.
- Meditation & COVID-19
- Soma Breath Meditation
- A mind trying to make sense of its own existence is like a mirror attempting to reflect its own image
- I used to meditate years ago.. I have a question..
- Seeking encouragement: Please post your experience if it took you over a year to "get it".
- Does anyone know of any good guided meditations for staying calm in stressful situations?
- If you question, object to, investigate suffering, negativity, aging, illness, death-you will find the answer-the Truth. Can you see that all answers give relief to the mind from the uneasiness, it is experiencing now?
- Transforming
- I don't get it. Is there something I'm supposed to understand?
- This is just a bumper sticker I saw once.
- To put people in a category
- When I do meditations and try to control my breathing, I always find myself yawning uncontrollably.
- Sleeping more
- How to stop judging yourself and let go of your mistakes?
- Spread Light In The World: A Healing Meditation Exercise
- Really strange, borderline uncomfortable, feeling when meditating... thoughts?
- I need some advice from the community.
- How do we learn to visualise?
- Is pain inherently negative?
- Why does distancing ourselves from our thoughts make them less meaningful to us?
| Posted: 17 Mar 2020 11:00 AM PDT |
| “Be a witness, not a judge.”~Rumi Posted: 17 Mar 2020 05:42 AM PDT |
| Posted: 17 Mar 2020 10:42 PM PDT |
| Posted: 17 Mar 2020 07:11 AM PDT SynopsisAccording to Eckhart Tolle, the ability to disidentify with the mind is the single most vital step in the journey towards enlightenment. Though this may sound rather vague and grandiose, it's actually a simple (albeit profound) idea. What's more, it bears the ability to radically transform our day-to-day lives. It comes as a central message in The Power of Now, a book which has, to date, sold upwards of three million copies and has been translated into over fifty languages. The book follows a question and answer style of format in which Tolle explains how to live a more grounded and peaceful life by harnessing the present moment. Overall, it's a powerful, thought-provoking read - undoubtedly, one of the most influential spiritual books of our time. You don't need a rock garden to get something out of it, but it does call for an open mind; a openness to new ideas and a willingness to learn from one of the world's most highly sought, spiritual teachers. Key LessonsYou Are Not Your Mind
Is the voice in your head really you? Tolle argues that it's not. Instead, he labels it 'the thinker' - the voice belonging to your conditioned mind which, itself, is simply an accumulation of your past history and inheritance. The mistake, he writes, is choosing to identify with the thinker as, in doing so, we derive a false sense of self. Unfortunately, this is a deeply rooted human issue. For some, the thinker is a critical, often tormenting voice in their head; for others, it may be less so. In any case, Tolle describes compulsive thinking as a dreadful affliction which the majority of us suffer from. Rather than getting entangled in the incessant mental noise, he proposes a simple, though challenging, solution: be present as the watcher. This, in essence, is the basis of meditation. By watching our thoughts we create space between ourselves and the mental chatter; we're able to observe the inner workings of our mind without being enslaved to it. The Delusion of Time
In our egoic mind, or the false self, Tolle says we are trapped in 'psychological time'. This, he writes, is a "compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation." Rather than honor and acknowledge the present moment, we fluctuate between thoughts from our past or projections for our future. We mistakenly assume that if external circumstances were different, we'd find the piece (or peace) currently missing from our lives. Thoughts of a better future may offer us this comforting image, though as Tolle points out, they are an illusion. He explains, "the only place where true change can occur and where the past can be dissolved is the Now." In a similar vein, these mental projections are described as the origin of our fears. "You are here in the now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap," Tolle writes. Ultimately, The Power of Now isn't a refusal to use time in the practical aspects of our life, nor is it a means to reluctantly accept that which we have the power to change. However, it is the awareness that, alongside every external pursuit, there is a parallel, inner journey which lies in the present moment. "It has nothing to do with the future but everything to do with the quality of your consciousness at this moment." Acceptance of the Now
To accept the now is, in Tolle's language, to harness the power of presence; to bring full attention to each passing moment, without judgement. In this state no suffering or negativity survive as one yields to, rather than opposes, the flow of life. "There is no longer any clash between the demands and expectations of your mind and what is," he writes. Many people are drawn to adrenaline-fueled experiences for this very reason. In these moments, the mind's internal dialogue is automatically silenced and they become fully present. The purpose of The Power of Now is to note that this same presence is available to us all, throughout the day and in anything we do. Meditation can be a great way to slowly reintroduce it in our lives, but as Tolle suggests, it can be practiced by simply giving any routine activity our full attention. In this way, it becomes an end in itself, rather than a means to one. In day-to-day life, acceptance of the now translates to greater peace and less reactivity. It doesn't mean that we suppress our emotions when something goes wrong - conversely, it means to fully observe the feelings that arise in any moment, to act as the witness. With time, this becomes more natural and Tolle explains that 'the watcher' gradually becomes stronger and the mental formations become weaker. Personal ThoughtsThe Power of Now is an important and worthwhile read. The lessons, I'd argue, are particularly relevant in today's world, where, not only is it easy to identify with the mind, it's now possible to curate it's very own online profile. I say this not to bash social media, but to highlight how distracting it can be. The Power of Now serves as an important reminder to return to the present moment and to drop self-inflicted suffering in the form of anxieties, worries, guilt and so on. By putting Tolle's advice into practice, I believe we can live more joyful lives which will seep into and transform just about everything we do. I've made it a point to come back to this book whenever I feel distracted and caught up in my head. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 17 Mar 2020 11:06 AM PDT Wishing you all well during this trying time. Here are a few thoughts on how meditation can help us. Although biology and epidemiology are fields of the physical sciences, our minds remain important in relation to all things, and especially during global emergencies. The best practices to curb the spread of COVID-19 at this time are social distancing and sanitary precautions. But as we remain in our homes (or battle on the frontlines, if you're a medical professional or have been infected), meditation can also have a positive impact. Here are three ways it can help:
It may seem selfish and pointless to sit in silence while the world is in turmoil, but two quotations come to mind that suggest otherwise:
You can help combat COVID-19 by acting from a place of reason and compassion. I believe nondual awareness practices are especially helpful in this regard. We're being tested as a species by a nearly invisible alien invader. Let's rally together and prove how resilient we are in body, mind, and spirit. Kind Regards, [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 18 Mar 2020 12:29 AM PDT Breath your way to health and healing. Check out my YouTube guided meditation: https://youtu.be/gSinxCgdbfs Blessings, Thomas [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 17 Mar 2020 03:46 PM PDT |
| I used to meditate years ago.. I have a question.. Posted: 17 Mar 2020 10:57 PM PDT Once when I was around 15 I decided to meditate after watching some videos on how to achieve a meditative state and well.. this one video turned out to work! it involved taking deep breathes then breathing twice on the third breathe or something along those lines. I was doing this on my couch in the living room around 2-3am with the tv on and at one point i seemed to completely disconnect with my hearing, I remember getting to a point where progress was clearly being made and it progressively got more visual. I ended up seeing a violet/purple spiral that was basically at the center of my vision and flowing to the outside of my field of view this basically took over my vision and scared the living hell out of me. I never got any decent answers about what exactly happened and wanted to see if anyone here knows. Haven't been able to achieve this since. [link] [comments] |
| Seeking encouragement: Please post your experience if it took you over a year to "get it". Posted: 17 Mar 2020 02:19 PM PDT I've been at this since January 2019 and I've experienced none of the purported benefits. Started with Sam Harris's 50-day intro. Worked my way up to 20-minute sits 4 or 5x per week, where I am now. I tried many other things before January 2019: Headspace's 10x10, in-person meditation classes, binaural beats, read Tolle, Waking Up, 10% Happier. So I'm very eager and open to this stuff. At this point, meditation just causes me to feel frustrated and angry. I dread it and resent it and am this close to quitting. I know what the advice is -- don't quit! don't be so goal oriented! don't have expectations! -- so I'm not requesting advice. Instead, I am wondering if there is anyone for whom meditation clicked only after a full year, and if so, would you share your experience? I need to know if this is actually possible for me. I simply don't believe that it is possible for every single person, despite what the meditation-industrial complex says. Thank you. [link] [comments] |
| Does anyone know of any good guided meditations for staying calm in stressful situations? Posted: 17 Mar 2020 09:48 PM PDT I'm trying to set an example for the rest of the world with my words and actions during these difficult times. It's so easy to act out of fear towards others instead of love. I think I'm doing a pretty good job so far, but sometimes the weight of the world gets to me a bit. Just wondering if anyone had any go-to's for helpful meditations that promote love and calmness. It might serve all of us on this sub well. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 17 Mar 2020 09:29 PM PDT The Original is found by 'investigation' and not by any preconceived comforting idea. And investigation starts when you are not able to find a rational, logical, satisfactory answer to 'what is happening' or 'what is troubling you'. If you question, object to, investigate suffering, negativity, aging, illness, death-you will find the answer-the Truth. Investigation is not some calculation or ideation but the total intensity to get the answer. Mind wishfully settles by ideas, explanations, comfort of securities instead of raising objection and keeping the question 'alive'. Can you see that all answers give relief to the mind from the uneasiness, it is experiencing now? If you are not carried away by the relief, you begin to see that you can not run away from the (psychological) discomfort, you are experiencing now. You begin to see 'what is True'. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 17 Mar 2020 12:33 PM PDT For the past few years or so I've been transforming into a better version of myself. It's been a long journey because I've been going back and forth with using substances that I feel no longer serve me purpose. What I am currently struggling with is figuring out how to portray myself to the external world. The only way people will start to see you differently is if you show them by your actions and how you are. Well, my goofy and humorous traits were attached to the person I no longer want to be. So how can I still be this funny person and this person who is trying to transcend into higher states consciousness? The old you and the new you can't coexist. So whenever I feel silly and do something silly, I feel like people who see me are like "he hasn't changed one bit" when I'm reality I've changed a shit ton. Idk I guess it all comes down to not giving a fuck about other people's perception of you. Any advice would be dope! Thanks [link] [comments] |
| I don't get it. Is there something I'm supposed to understand? Posted: 17 Mar 2020 10:12 AM PDT Besides the fact that I'm the witness of my mind and everything is connected and whole. I've been meditating for a few years now, lately realizing it's importance for my peace and starting a routine of 20 mins a day every day. I still feel as though I'm on a path to something. Most teachers say that you're already enlightened you just don't realize it. I don't feel like this. What I feel is that I'm supposed to overcome some obstacles first before getting enlightenment. I don't even quite understand what I'm talking about anymore. Buddhism says the way to enlightenment is being free of desire. So that being said, I shouldn't desire enlightenment, I should meditate just for fun, to just be present. And still, how much time do I need to reach enlightenment? I'm not saying I need it FAST or that I'm in a hurry to be somewhere else. I'm just curious as to how you actually "get there" to that state if you already have it? sorry if the post is confusing this is one subject that for me is hard to explain with words [link] [comments] |
| This is just a bumper sticker I saw once. Posted: 17 Mar 2020 01:10 PM PDT |
| Posted: 17 Mar 2020 07:13 AM PDT To categorize or label. Mother is a bitch! Father is a rat! That kind of thinking is limiting. It is very related to the scientific way of thinking, to categorize things so as to know what to think of them, how to see them. In the social world this works against us, it does make things easier, but we don't need things to be easy, we can handle much more complex (as it seems) ways to relate. People are not one thing or category; they are thousands at the same time. When they present to us their nasty behaviour, we tend to see them equal to a nasty category. Instead we could have a bird's eye view of the categories they express through time, like a hundred, or thousand boxes which shine with different lights and make up a unique and beautiful pattern, that's a more accurate way of seeing them then the particular behaviour they are expressing this particular moment. When we need to analyse and discuss a particular behaviour which the person expresses then we can zoom in. We should only zoom in when we need to; when there is opportunity to discuss said behaviour. [link] [comments] |
| When I do meditations and try to control my breathing, I always find myself yawning uncontrollably. Posted: 17 Mar 2020 11:17 AM PDT I'm not a seasoned mediator; I do it mostly when my anxiety starts to climb. I do guided mediations from YouTube and while I'm being told to breathe in and out I cannot stop yawning and I feel like it messes with having a controlled breathing rhythm. Any pointers? Thanks [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 17 Mar 2020 04:12 PM PDT I have started meditation since couple of months. From then I have seen drastic change in me like sleep more, calmness. I am learning a new technology which requires lot more attention and time which I used to give before meditation. But now, I hardly spend time in reading, sleeping more Does it happened to any one [link] [comments] |
| How to stop judging yourself and let go of your mistakes? Posted: 17 Mar 2020 08:01 AM PDT Like my role model Kobe, I want to learn to 'reflect forward' but I always feel stuck in the past, always telling myself I'm a bad person. How do I let go of this guilt/inner-tension? [link] [comments] |
| Spread Light In The World: A Healing Meditation Exercise Posted: 17 Mar 2020 11:29 AM PDT With all the turbulence in the outside world, it's almost like the cultivation of silence in our inner worlds is being tested. This moment, as any "chaotic situation", is the moment to anchor all the beautiful things we always talk about: peace, compassion, presence, love, balance, awareness. We are the transformation we want to see in the world, and we can overflow with healing to support our environment to heal. So let's do exactly that with meditation. Hands of light meditationA meditation to spread light, to support healing in the world. You will find the whole meditation here: https://medium.com/dharma-talk/spread-light-in-the-world-a-meditation-exercise-1f09636f7b77 [link] [comments] |
| Really strange, borderline uncomfortable, feeling when meditating... thoughts? Posted: 17 Mar 2020 03:07 PM PDT I have tried meditating many years ago when I wanted to try and increase the frequency of lucid dreams I was having. Now I have returned to meditation as a means for reducing my anxiety and just increasing my overall physical/mental health. Today was my first day in roughly 5-6 years of meditating, while in the past I never had any unusual experience with meditating. I was actually terrible at it and was not disciplined enough to continue meditating seriously. I simply wanted to get into meditating quickly, without obsessing over doing enough research or whether I was meditating the "right" way. I just basically decided to sit, close my eyes, breath in deeply while focusing on the number one, exhaling, took another deep breath while focusing on the number two, exhaled again -- and continued doing so until 10. Once I reached 10, I would start back from 1 and repeat this process over and over. Surprisingly my meditation sessions were extremely successful. This has never happened before. I feel like I was really in the zone, and don't really think my mind got distracted or deviated from the meditation much at all. If it did, I can't recall because I really didn't go with the thoughts -- truly feel as if I was able to just let them fly by and right out of my consciousness. Anyways, I set a timer for 11 minutes and actually made it through meditating the entire time. I sat cross-legged on my floor with my back straight up, but not propped up against a wall or anything. Towards the end of my meditating I started getting an insane feeling of vibrations going throughout my whole body, primarily in my arms and legs. It was kind of a pulsing and static electricity feeling, but mostly pulsing. It didn't both me at first, but by the end I think it made me want to wrap up the session faster quite honestly. Afterwards I felt extremely refreshed and the feeling subsided rather quickly. I decide 7 hours later to go for another quick meditation session after completing some work. I was feeling rather anxiety free all day until this point, and thought it could help. This time I brought a chair into my bedroom for me to sit up right on, with my legs planted on the ground and hands on my lap facing palms down. This time I had to break up the 11 minute session into 3 fragments. I went 5 minutes and stopped for 30-45 seconds ---> 4 minutes and stopped 30-45 seconds ---> 2 minutes and finished the session. I got that same sensation of pulsing and electricity in each of those micro-sessions, to the point where it really made me wanna get up and take a break for a sec because it was so intense. When I finished with the total 11 minutes of meditation, the sensation lasted roughly 5 minutes after. When I tried to drink my cup of water my hands/fingers felt stiff and were also tingling/shaking. However, once again I feel really focused and refreshed --- with little to no anxiety as well. I'm really not sure if this is normal, and I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions. Thanks! [link] [comments] |
| I need some advice from the community. Posted: 17 Mar 2020 02:19 PM PDT Meditation can provide valuable insight, so those who meditate are some of the wisest people I know, and I wanted to get your advice because I need to make some major decisions in my life. Maybe the collective consciousness can help me out :) I'm a junior in high school and am applying to college this summer. I come from a pretty wealthy family (first-generation immigrants from India - my father is a doctor, my mother is a lawyer), and therefore am used to a pretty privileged lifestyle. My parents want me to go into either medicine or engineering so that I can continue to maintain an affluent lifestyle, but I simply don't have passion in these fields. They want me to major in biomedical engineering to "keep my options open", but I feel that it would shut down more options for me. After a solid amount of research, I concluded that the majors that I am genuinely passionate for are: Religious Studies Philosophy Asian Studies Gnosticism, Esotericism, and Mysticism Astronomy Anthropology Asian Languages and Cultures and a few others. Unfortunately, I fail to see a profitable career path (or any career path resulting from these fields, and I worry that my college education will not be paid for by my parents, should I choose to pursue these fields in college. I'm a pretty good student overall and am gifted with intelligence, yet my biggest flaw is a lack of dedication in fields that I am not passionate about, and I cannot fathom entering into medicine or engineering, as they simply don't interest me. If I were to pursue these fields, I would wish to have a good balance of work and life, so that I can study these interests and pursue my spiritual advancement while living a comfortable lifestyle. My eventual goal in life is to become a monk, yet I obviously cannot do that at this stage. I would greatly appreciate any contribution to this discussion so that I am better informed in making my decision. Thank you! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 17 Mar 2020 06:43 AM PDT Hello, I am going trhough a tough time and have turned to meditation more than ever before, eventhough I have been doing it for years. I have always just focused on my breathing and noting. However, I have recently encountered quite a lot of meditations based on visualising things like a white light on my chest that moves up and down my body that then changes colours and the strength of the light increases etc... I see how that practice can be good for my brain, but I don't seem to be able to 'visualise'. I just don't see anything regardless of how much I focus. So, do you guys have any advice on this, please? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 17 Mar 2020 07:37 AM PDT I have recently been wondering about what it is that makes "good" feelings "good/pleasurable" (euphoria, sexual pleasure etc) and "bad" feelings "bad/unpleasant" (pain, sadness etc). I couldn't think of a concrete answer to this question, so I then asked myself if it is possible to dislike euphoria and enjoy pain (not in the way masochists find pleasure in pain, but in a more objective way) or atleast make each sensation neutral through a practice such as meditation as this could be very usefull in daily life, for things like controlling anger and avoiding addiction. I would love to hear your thoughts on this and ask if anyone has any experience exploring this concept and, if so, how it was done. [link] [comments] |
| Why does distancing ourselves from our thoughts make them less meaningful to us? Posted: 17 Mar 2020 01:01 PM PDT They are the same thoughts, sometimes accurately reflecting reality, but why does the distance give them less meaning? I'm just trying to understand the underlying mechanism. [link] [comments] |
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