A Guide to Meditation

[bkadoctaj]

Truth.

The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.

In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.

[alicedee07]

Originally Posted by Androgenicx

As long as feels possible feels right feels necessary. Some days might go without any meditation, some with a single 20 minute session, average days these days with 2-3 30-40 minute sessions, some days a total of 4-5 hours, longest session so far being about 2 hours unbroken. Its not about the length, some may find what they need from the meditation fast, some longer. Some take longer to get into a meditative state, some shorter.

For me, these days within 30 seconds of being in meditation the "click" of the meditative state occurs. Energies start floating and pulsing around my body, white lights start flashing around in front of my closed eyes, my crown starts tightening and vibrating like a drill with energy, it pours in and around my third and fourth eyes, and there is an upward pulsing of energy from my root. My neck literally "clicks" into a neutral position and doesn't move. If at any point in the meditation I move my head or as i come out of the meditation, i can feel every muscle fiber in my neck "unclick". Often when i move my head it falls and "clicks" into another position, like the head on a plastic doll. Soon bodily extremes start closing in and alot of my body stops being experienced, my hands in a connected mudra either buddha mudra or dhyana only feel like light energy and "fuse" together, stop existing like seperate entities. At some point legs dont feel like legs but like some light field of energy, at some point the hands resting on the legs stop being seperate. One interesting experience was when both my palms vanished into energy and it felt like the left palm which was underneath the other palm was upside down and my forearm was twisted..i checked, amused, to see that it was sitting perfectly normal the way I left it.

From here on its not difficult to sit in meditation anymore, the energy just carries me deeper and deeper. I don't do anything - just sit, and try not to interfere with anything, not the energies, not my thoughts, nothing. Why do I have to do anything? Why the obsession with feeling obligated to doing something? When I first tried to "just sit", the question kept arising, how do you "do nothing" without doing something? The experience is not to do something, to feel like there is somewhere to go, something to be attained, some meditative state to be reached - it is the realization that there is nothing to achieve nothing to attain nothing to fear nothing to bother about at all, not even spirituality, enlightenment, or god realization. Then the mind drops, for it has nothing to hold onto any longer.

The click came after awhile, and now it happens much more easily. I just sit - meditation happens.

"Bliss is like a breeze. As long as you have your hands open, you can feel it flow. Once you try to possess it, it moves away from you"

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step - when I first started I couldn't do more than 15 minutes, perhaps an hour when i was high because it was so interesting and the energies felt so much more intense high. Now i feel more intense energies sober.

Start, and do what you can

Androgenicx, you seem very knowledgeable in this field. So I have two questions to ask. I've been practicing meditation lately, and there is a couple of things that bother me. One, my saliva. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if I swallow, it ruins my meditation process and I have to start again from square one. But if I don't, I'll drool all over the place. What do I do about this? Also, sometimes I have a hard time keeping my eyes closed. Would a blind fold be okay to use for meditation.

[Androgenicx]

Originally Posted by alicedee07

Androgenicx, you seem very knowledgeable in this field. So I have two questions to ask. I've been practicing meditation lately, and there is a couple of things that bother me. One, my saliva. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if I swallow, it ruins my meditation process and I have to start again from square one. But if I don't, I'll drool all over the place. What do I do about this? Also, sometimes I have a hard time keeping my eyes closed. Would a blind fold be okay to use for meditation.

What meditation are you doing here? One pointedness or general objectless observing?

Either way, it is only as much of a distraction as you allow your mind to make it be. It only distracts and disturbs you because of a little setup in your mind that has been created that makes you feel very aware and very distracted when their is saliva collecting in your mouth.

Think of it this way, if you wernt even aware of it and if your body was automatically swallowing without caring/noticing, you wouldnt be getting distracted would you?

Kind of like farting. In public, there is alot of attention that goes to the fart because you have programmed yourself to believe that the fart is a big no-no for personal image in public, and so when its time to fart you get very distracted by it. At home though, when noone is around, do you even pay attention or fart casually whenever you want to, not paying much if any attention to it, just because it is a natural biological movement?

The same is true with the saliva. Next time, don't get upset that it is upsetting your meditation, don't get troubled by it - simply swallow - watch yourself witness yourself as you swallow, pay no more attention have no regrets running in your mind about the break in meditation (if it is one-pointedness - if it is general observance you probably won't be having this problem), and get back to the meditation immediately. Take the saliva as it comes as an inevitability and watch it.

You will find it distracting you far less over time, and eventually you will stop even noticing and it will become something that your body takes care of without diverting your attention.

Its amazing how counter-traditional psychology and usual logic would have one think about behavior and how to influence it. If you want to quit cigarettes, they will tell you to think happy thoughts, to think about other things, to eat a candy bar when you feel like smoking - to remind yourself how bad it is for you. The issue with this approach as with all approaches to everything done by humans is that they seem to not be aware or care about the fact that normal people cannot 'control' their thoughts - thoughts come and go as they please. Trying to distract yourself only makes your subconscious stay with it even more. Its like kids and wanting to do forbidden things. Instead, you will find, if you want to quit smoking, simply start really being with your smoking. Don't make it an unconscious habit - next time you want to smoke, make yourself present fully and take your time. Don't think about anything else, just be with the cigarette. Take it out slowly, roll it between your fingers - look at it, be with it, then light it carefully - intentionally, smoke it - each time you smoke it be with it, just be with the puffing, meditate on it. You will find that directing the awareness at this "problem" will reveal the truth beneath all of it and either alleviate it - if it really was a problem, or show you that there was never a problem in the first place. In the case of smoking, most who do this will realize sponaneously what a waste of time and how bad the smoke tastes and start subconsciouslly quitting - not just consciously.

[LifeRollsOn]

im not sure if this was already asked but, what impact does MJ have on meditation?
i think icould get into the moment more after a bong rip

[Androgenicx]

Originally Posted by LifeRollsOn

im not sure if this was already asked but, what impact does MJ have on meditation?
i think icould get into the moment more after a bong rip

Varied effects for me, I don't know about other people, but its not an uncommon practice so it is safe to assume that it works well for the general public.

I use drugs to meditate with as often as I can. Been meditating with alot of DMT lately, and I do it with cannabis. If your core is grounded enough and you are initiated enough into meditation especially, they are tenfold more useful, as in the "lesser" stages of being a meditative person the cannabis usually overpowers the core awareness that is attempting to meditate.

If you are grounded, altered states of consciousness are siginifantly amplified as they are experienced during the meditation. The more awareness and liberation you have, the bigger changes or distortions in your perceived reality you can accept without even thinking twice and just letting it present itself as reality while you just watch without fear, judgement, or any kind of significant attention whatsoever. The more you are capable of letting go and the more awarness you have, the stronger (and more real and "closer"..more whole) the distortions in the perceived reality (which are really nothing but CORRECTIONS and showing the real truth behind that which one always believed to be true but was a story), and the stronger the "climb" up the meditative state.

[wackdeafboy]

did my first deep meditation couple days ago. it lasted about 45 mins.

first 10 mins, my thoughts was came and gone. 15 mins past, I was in some state of meditation, had no thoughts. Around that time, my thought just pop up, it was about breathing. Somehow, I forgot to breath or never thought about it. It was freaky and cool at the same time. still in meditation. 30 mins past, my visual was getting stronger, felt like my body was lifted, and felt alot of heat around me. I didn't think about it, just keep going in meditation. 45 mins, I was coming back to my body, then my legs are starting to tingling, so i moved my legs. I relized that my legs are asleep, can't even move them. I just sat there for 5 mins waiting for my legs to get back to normal. The time just flew by. I thought i'll take 15 mins meditation but it ended up way longer.


all I got to say, that was intense experince. I was under influence of marijuana.

[Androgenicx]

Originally Posted by wackdeafboy

did my first deep meditation couple days ago. it lasted about 45 mins.

first 10 mins, my thoughts was came and gone. 15 mins past, I was in some state of meditation, had no thoughts. Around that time, my thought just pop up, it was about breathing. Somehow, I forgot to breath or never thought about it. It was freaky and cool at the same time. still in meditation. 30 mins past, my visual was getting stronger, felt like my body was lifted, and felt alot of heat around me. I didn't think about it, just keep going in meditation. 45 mins, I was coming back to my body, then my legs are starting to tingling, so i moved my legs. I relized that my legs are asleep, can't even move them. I just sat there for 5 mins waiting for my legs to get back to normal. The time just flew by. I thought i'll take 15 mins meditation but it ended up way longer.


all I got to say, that was intense experince. I was under influence of marijuana.

Sounds like you had a good and deep experience. MJ can really potentiate that. I highly recommend MJ for chakra meditations, it intensifies that chakra sensations quite significantly.

[wackdeafboy]

Originally Posted by Androgenicx

Sounds like you had a good and deep experience. MJ can really potentiate that. I highly recommend MJ for chakra meditations, it intensifies that chakra sensations quite significantly.

yeah, I have a couple questions about that. I just started meditate 2 weeks ago. Do I focus or create a illusion what charka looks like. When I do that, I can just put more energy in but not too much cause of the "over-active.?" I read that somewhere and I was skepical about it. If's that true then how do I know if its over-active and/or low active.
Do specific hands gesture really help on specific charka? I tried couple different hand gestures and Hakini Mudra is my favorite by far. When I meditate, it feels like my heart is beating fast but its not. My whole body feels the beat from the heart, is that normal? (that sounded a stupid question but I just needed to know)


Oh that reminds me.
When I went back to my body from meditation. I look at my hands, I try pull apart but it was stuck somehow. LOL coulple second later, got it apart and I look at my fingers. It somewhat color purple/blue. Bizarre, not sure if that was illusion or not.

[Androgenicx]

Originally Posted by wackdeafboy

yeah, I have a couple questions about that. I just started meditate 2 weeks ago. Do I focus or create a illusion what charka looks like. When I do that, I can just put more energy in but not too much cause of the "over-active.?" I read that somewhere and I was skepical about it. If's that true then how do I know if its over-active and/or low active.
Do specific hands gesture really help on specific charka? I tried couple different hand gestures and Hakini Mudra is my favorite by far. When I meditate, it feels like my heart is beating fast but its not. My whole body feels the beat from the heart, is that normal? (that sounded a stupid question but I just needed to know)

You can visualize if you want to. Simply putting your awareness to where on the body the chakra is supposed to be is better - visualization uses imagination and the mind, while meditating the goal is to drop imagination and the mind. Youll know if something is overactive by the symptoms, check online for various lists. Overactive chakras have more to do with habits - if your materialistic and sex oriented (addicted) your root chakra is likely to be overactive. If your ego is really big and your a domineering person, your navel chakra will likely be overactive.

When it comes to meditation, contrary to "popular" stuff on the internet, which has its own nu-age stuff thrown in, you don't need to try to balance the chakras yourself. Simply meditate on them, and if they have a lack of energy they will become energized, if they have an excess they will normalize. Mudras can make a difference, experiment with them all and find what works for you. Yes the heartbeat thing is normal - still mind = heightened awareness = heightened sensory perception, especially closer home (breath, heartbeat)

Oh that reminds me.
When I went back to my body from meditation. I look at my hands, I try pull apart but it was stuck somehow. LOL coulple second later, got it apart and I look at my fingers. It somewhat color purple/blue. Bizarre, not sure if that was illusion or not. [/quote]

Never heard of this happen, thats odd. I can't say anything about that because ive never heard of it before.

[Arconin]

I wat to personally thank you. I have been interested in meditation for many years now, and have tried it a few ties without much success, but within 1 session useing your guide, I was able to achieve a meditative state. I thank you so much, and I am definately passing this on to my friends.

[Jaggs]

Just wanna say thankyou for all the time and devotion you put into helping others with threads like these and your youtube videos (tried to comment but don't have an account).

Can I just ask (I haven't read everything you have written so far, I am planning to read more but this question is just bugging me). Did you have a mentor? Someone far ahead of you in terms of their own spirituality success and enlightenment? Someone to help guide you along in learning?

I ask because I myself would love to know someone like that, who would be willing to help. Perhaps there is a Buddhist place around that would help ?

To be able to actually interact and converse with people like this would help immensely. We all know the people around us have a tremendous effect on our own psyche and consciousness (especially if you let it happen), and it can be hard to kick start a career in spirituality when you are surrounded by negativity and things that are just going to oppose your goals.

Also, did you ever abuse Marijuana? I feel like right now in my life I am abusing the substance as a means to just escape. It has had all the fun and spirituality torn out of it this way, but I find it hard to stop. I don't want to completley stop and it is encouriging th at you still use at this time in your life. (I mean this is a marijuana forum right! haha)

Hope you have the time to reply.

Peace

[LifeRollsOn]

i cant do it.....
ive tried a good few times and still nothing.
i think its because i cant get my mind to settle down.
im always thinking about something then i remind myself to stop
so i stop
but then i start thinking about not thinking
then my mind just goes off from there..
and i give up after like 10-15 min of that

[Ikifar]

Brilliant, what wonders await with the influence of music.

[ResinMasta]

Wow, Thank you for all this it has really helped me to become closer to what is me and within me. Before my sessions were strained and not very helpful until I found this post. Amazing

[Jaggs]

This book was a great help and I advise everyone getting started with meditation to give it a read.

Minfulness in Plain English.

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html