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Benefits of meditation

Discussion in 'Religion, Beliefs and Spirituality' started by bluewoods, Dec 3, 2006.

  1. #1 bluewoods, Dec 3, 2006
    I decided to venture downtown today and check out "The Corner". It's right off the college campus here and I found out they had a head shop there. As I was driving that way I recalled one of my favorite poems

    "Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe"

    and kind of chuckled at how silly it was. I got down there and tried to figure out the parking and finally parked in a garage ($2.00 an hour!!) . I walked around for a bit, looking in shop windows and at restaurant menus. Walked all the way around the corner to the end and no head shop. So I started back and decided to walk down this little side street and see what was there. Two or three buildings down was a bookshop with a hand lettered sign out front called "brillig". I noted it, but kept walking. There was another sign on the building that said it was some kind of teacher's bookstore. I reached the end and turned around. "Oh, what the hell". I walked in on my way back.
    Scanning the shelves, one book caught my eye. 'A Gradual Awakening", by Stephen Levine. It's a book about vipassana meditation. I still had to pay full price for it, but I bought it and brought it home, where it lay on my desk for 3 days before I started reading a few pages at a time. I have always resisted meditation, although I have considered it in the past, and I am not sure why. Perhaps because I don't think I really need to sit crosslegged and take deep breaths to meditate? Or to chant a word or phrase over and over again?

    Anyway, Is it worth it to practice meditation? Tell me what you get out of it.
     
  2. #2 KingsBlend, Dec 4, 2006
    Meditation is a great way to relieve stress and help calm the mind in times of confusion or panic. I like to do it when I need to relax and clear my mind. It's really nice when you start doing it for 5mins or more. You become extremely relaxed and serene. Its nice if you just want to get your head in the right spot and think about important matters. Or even just to find out some answers about your life. A slow breathing technique works best for me. Its definetly worth it if you need to calm down and think.
     
  3. #3 Digit, Dec 6, 2006
    yep. theres a few threads about meditation here, i think you'll find much of the answers to your questions in them.

    meditation is such an ambigious term i'm finding. i used to think that it could just mean sitting quietly, which it can, in a sense, but there are so many modes to choose from.

    vedanta, which is basically thinking, is one such i'd reccomend allowing yourself to practice. though some might claim it's not a form of meditation at all.

    meditation, i'm sure, is first come to by most people as a form of calming the mind, getting some relaxation and clarity. and it is great at these things. after that... the benefits can take a leap beyond previous preconceptions of the possible.
     
  4. #4 bluewoods, Dec 7, 2006
    Digit, I read a little about vedanta and while I agree with a lot of it, I strongly disagree that there is no such thing as right or wrong. If you maliciously hurt another, you are wrong. There is no debate in my mind about that.

    What I would like is to combine physical yoga with meditation and benefit my body and my mind. (you get stiff when you get old). The one part I read in the book that caught my attention was about understanding "want" and distancing yourself from it. Not all the way, but enough to be content with less.

    I would like to get a marijuana high, but the only thing I have heard of that even comes close is running about 6 miles. That's not gonna happen. :D
     
  5. #5 bluewoods, Dec 7, 2006
    damn digit, how much rep do you have to spread around before you can rep the same person gain?? + rep in thought and I will get back to you. :)
     
  6. #6 Digit, Dec 7, 2006
    answering in haste....


    yeah, malicious acts intending to harm is not something ever to be striven for. but what if....

    ok, an example perhaps...
    have you seen ghandi? the movie?
    at the start, he is thrown of a train because he wouldnt travel third class, because he wasnt white. the people who did the throwing i'm sure were being intentionally malicious, but it caused some rather awakening realisations to occur in ghandi's thoughts about the world, that in no small way contributed to the great work he went on to do. ok, so more an example of "good from bad", but that kinda works too. as you step out into larger spheres of being, often you may find that what once was right is now wrong, and vice versa, then only to return to more similar apearances when you step out into a yet larger sphere of being. also, it changes with the eras.

    i wouldn't say that right and wrong do not exist. more so, i would advise strongly against clinging to them as absolutes. infact i absolutely advise this. :D:laughing::D


    i'd like to spend more time on this, and am sure i could come up with more examples and better ways of conveying perhaps even how malicious acts could even be deemed "right"... but i have paintbrushes to wash...




    and rather humerously, i add (now i realise there's not enough white spirit to clean those brushes until mother gets home with more) perhaps it's more a case of you get old when you get stiff. ;)

    infinite flexability, eternally young. :)

    either way, i think yoga is more likely than not, to be of great benefit. but if it's for stiffness n all that stuff, take a look into all of ayurveda, yoga of which is just a part (but also could be said to extend beyond).
     
  7. #7 bluewoods, Dec 8, 2006
    Your example of Ghandi benefiting from someone else's malice does not change that it was wrong of the people who threw him off the train. I don't dispute that good can come from evil, indeed I think we have to have the latter to even recognize the first, but would you want to be the one that had to introduce the evil? see http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/rolling+stones/sympathy+for+the+devil_20117881.html :D

    Where I still have questions is when maliciousness ends and indifference or self-interest begins. i.e. the manufacturing CEO that wants to make money and pollutes the environment causing 1000s to become ill or die. The employee who wants to get the promotion and undermines his co-worker to ensure that he does. While I think both of these examples would make the individual wrong, there have been others that were not so clear cut to me.
     

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