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How do I meditate?

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  • #415960
    Anil
    Participant

    Can someone please tell me how do I meditate? There are hundreds of tutorials on the web on how to meditate and none of them help. I have been practising meditation (relaxing my mind and body focusing only on my breath, even if my thoughts wander I try to gently bring it back and focus on my breath) for 10-15 minutes twice a day, it worked for the first few days but later I can feel my negative emotions coming back. It feels like meditation isn’t helping me. Do you have any suggestions/tips. Please let me know.

    #415970
    Roberta
    Participant

    Dear Anil

    I am glad that you are meditating. I tell my students this. That it takes almost same amount of time to alter the thought/feeling patterns as  we have been having them, so you meditate for say 30 mins you probably feel good for those minutes plus say another 30 after. So it is not a quick fix but more like food & nourishment. So each time you meditate basically you are hopefully undoing a bit of the past and preparing the ground for your future. There are many religions that divide up their day by taking time out for prayer or reflection. This gives one the chance to look back over say the last 4-6 hours in a calm way and see what has been wise & compassionate and what needs tweaking, Then you get the chance to restore things before they get out of hand. ie you skipped breakfast because you woke up late and then was a bit short with a co-worker. First eat something nutritious maybe even offer some to that co-worker with an apology for not being fully there for them. Then in the evening look to see how you can improve your evening/morning routine.

    All that we do & think are interconnected and these bounce & ripple out into the world and the world is also impacting on us all the time even if we don’t realise it. So having awareness & patience help us navigate thru this journey called our lives.

    #415972
    Peter
    Participant

    When I think about meditation Alan Watts words come to mind.  “If you want to outwit the devil, it is extremely important that you don’t give him advanced notice. Even if you only announce to yourself your intentions, the devil will know, because who do you think the devil is? You

    Just like when you try to be spontaneous you can’t be spontaneous, when you try to meditate you can’t. Here the words of Yoda ring out. “Their is no try on do“.  In Zen you have Wu wei  which means – non-doing or ‘doing nothing’.  Easier said then done, the ‘saying‘ being part of the problem as ones inner narrator loves to play the devil and fill ones thoughts with words of judgment and measure.

    That said the inner narrator is also a pretty good observer and when focused on the breath this observer might notice the breathing is both voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary as one can choose to take a deep breath, or hold ones breath….Involuntary in the sense that breathing is a happening – a kind Wu Wei. One does not have to understand breathing to breath one does not have to be continually, consciously manipulate the mussels and nervous system to breathe.  The observer might sit mesmerized as breathing as a happening while the narrator  might become anxious and start judging, measuring.

    In art and sport the artist and athlete take lessons, learn the rules, train, practice… but when they create and play the master artist and elite athlete does not think they do. If you have ever taken dance lessons over a period of time you will eventually hear the teacher say you need to learn the rules before you can break them. What they mean is that when you get to the point when you trust what you have learned is in your body. That your ears hear the rhythm without you having to listen, ears hear and the body responds… then your truly dancing.

    Wu Wei. – We work for that which no work is required. We train, we learn then we trust and trusting that we ‘know’ let go of what we learned and do. One sites in Meditation and notices the breath, practicing different kinds of breathing and eventually trust that we ‘know’ without needing to be the knower, breathing a happening, the inner narrator quiets and dances.

    #416001
    Peter
    Participant

    Just came across this from Ram Das

    The thing about a method is that, for a method to work, it has to trap you. If you try to dilettante your way through, it doesn’t work. You’ve got to become “a meditator.” But if you end up “a meditator,” you lost. You want to end up free, not a meditator.

    There are a lot of people who just end up meditators… until, finally, if it works, it self-destructs and you come through the other end, and you’re free of method.

    That sounds frustrating and it is, however if you can ‘let go’ or ‘let flow’ the frustration the method is more likely to de-construct itself…. and you which may be the point of it all.

    One does not try to meditate, the intention is not to become a meditator, one IS

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