How easily can you silence the left brain chatter? (titled edited)

Disregard what ive written below this line, it has created too many misunderstanding
One last ditch at clarification.
The question should have been
How easily can you silence the left brain chatter? The internal narration, the reminders to check on the stove, the inner dialogs, the images of the attractive women/men you saw today? That kind of chatter, how easily can you let go of it and simply be? It is foolish of me to imply this constitute "nothingness" or nirvana but I made the association that you need to silence said chatter to recollect the "nirvana"

I was trying to relate my experiences with silencing this chatter, I tried to say that when I was younger I had an incredibly difficult time letting go of it. It was tormenting, the obsessive thoughts I had made it unbearable, I was unable to go to sleep and it eventually led to a depression stage in my life

Recently however I've been much more able at silencing these distractions, and since distractions are a large obstacle for me in successful meditation ( I assume everyone) I was really wondering how easily you can do what I describe, that is let go of the "internal chatter"
Man, If i just said this in the first place this thread may have actually been productive, I apologize to those who voted on this poll, these results are skewed and this is my fault, I should have been much clearer
alas the damage is done, and lessons were learned
peace
and many thanks to the posters in this thread, for without them I may have been unable to make this clarification
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When I meditate it seems like it can be very easy to abolish all thought. I wasn't always like this, but when I started taking meditation seriously and meditating every other day, it seems like i developed an aptitude for it

The writer of this post, the guy writing these words, he is not enlightened, this dude cares about things that are nonessential to nirvana

However the writer of this post is capable of reaching states of mind almost completely devoid of any thought in a matter of seconds, without having to meditate, chant or get stoned. I just simply let go, and the thoughts are gone, the peace returns

and to me, it is very easy. But this was not always so.
I've been diagnosed with a cornucopia of maladies, in chronological order:
ADHD, PTSD, Major Depression, Hypomanic Bipolar, Psychosis (dissasociation, derealization) and schizoaffective disorder

however perhaps because of these maladies (irrespective to the precision of the diagnosis) I think i've developed some pretty impressive coping mechanisms

I can type this message and suddenly let go of all the associated thought, return, blankly stare at this screen, remember what I was going on about and continue. When I meditate I am able to maintain this "nothingness" for longer periods of time which is a very refreshing experience

honestly, If I weren't able to reach this nothingness so easily I probably would be either be insane or dead

But I'm interested, how is it for you guys to find the nothingness? I remember when I first achieved it, it was only after a lot of meditation and it was accompanied by an out of body experience, this is something i've yet to experience again (without drugs) but finding the peace to me is just being
willing to look inside

 

Yeah, I'm sure everyone can do it. I just don't know how easily it comes, or how easily, as you said, they could sustain it.

I know there are a lot of factors, like how relaxed your are, setting and what not, but you know, overall, how easily is it done?

 

Its not that i'm able to maintain thoughtlessness for very long periods, in fact i'm really not that good at it,
I am good at voluntarily banishing my thoughts for a good ten seconds even when i'm really involved with the thinking,
after the ten seconds its more like 5 seconds of thoughtlessness in between forming and vanishing thoughts,

it is only deep into meditation that I can maintain this consciousness for meaningful periods

and as you said most of the times its rather like detached thinking or minimal thinking, especially during the beginning of the meditation, its hard to maintain "nothingness" because my body just tends to collapse on its self and i'm not fit enough to remain in a meditative pose for very long

I have considered laying down instead of sitting for meditation but that generally just results in dreaming/sleeping

 

Its kind of frustrating, but posting this. Being aware of others being aware of how I meditate, it was extremely distracting when I tried meditating yesterday

It seems like i'm trying to talk about something we don't have a shared word for, but the "momentary banishment of thought, followed by detachment of arising thought" became a lot harder after posting this

it seems like I inadvertently created a self that was attached to this forum and made it harder for me to let go

its funny how these things work out

 

Yes, but my fingers are always in front of me.

 

You're absolutely right. I'm definitely not enlightened
I want to make some clarifications though, the out of body experience was before I had taken any drugs, maybe I'd gotten drunk once before but thats irrelevant I suppose.

This is a big misunderstanding, this whole thread. I did not mean to state that I was able to reach enlightenment on a whim. Rather that I had a certain "skill" in seperating myself from the conscious chatter of the left brain, something entirely different though necessary (in my opinion) to exist in the consciousness of the right brain (again my opinion) where I believe enlightenment could be experience.

Honestly, I apologize for any arrogance I may have shown, it was not my intention, but I can be very impulsive and write posts without the necessary thought.

 

Thank you for the reminder, I did not mean to be so reckless with the words, as you probably realize, language can be a very big barrier in communicating these kinds of ideas

I also agree, that an LSD trip will not necessarily yield any experiences that may be regarded as enlightenment and perhaps experiences altogether different. I would not venture to say that I have become enlightened, but I have had many illuminating experiences (sorry about the pun) (It truly was unintentional) both meditating and through hallucinogens

What I mean is consciousness shifts, being aware of experiences very much different from my quotidian life. I should say, that as a teenager (younger one) I was very opposed to the use of any kind of drugs, be it aspirin, cannabis, lsd, or heroin. I meditated however and found myself experiencing states of minds that at the time were quite fascinating. The loss of feeling of space and time for example and the feeling of "existing above my body" to me were completely new and opened my mind to the possibilities of the consciousness (truly an incredible leap when all you got to reference is your daily life) Meditating I've also experienced "seeing" my body through my tactile sensations (in absolute darkness) and other wonderful phenomenon that really have made existing a lot more interesting. hehe
I suppose none of the above would constitute "nothingness" but as I learned about eastern philosophy, it seemed like buddhism and taoism were pointing in the right directions in...let us say..."expanding the mind"

I did not stop, as you seem to have, to consider that enlightenment could not be achieved with the use of drugs.

To me these states of consciousness (at least to some degree [not the subjective experience]) can be explained by electrical/chemical changes in the brain, drugs would only serve to recreate similar experiences. However, I do believe that even if these experiences are recreated, the drugs themselves do not enable one to learn from their experiences, to take any value from the possible lessons, this I think is rather a choice, that requires an open mind in the first place





From what I've read a lot of buddhists are opposed to using psychadelics as means towards reaching enlightenment. If you are able, could you answer specifically why?
Does it have to do with the indications in the eightfold path of not harming the body?

 

I agree, i've been experimenting with meditating with my eyes open with a candle in front of me, in some ways, I find this a lot less distracting then closing my eyes.

as far as the music, that seems to make sense, doesn't it? After all music is usually processed in the right hemisphere. Most humans process language in their left hemisphere and music in their right, also the processes of one hemisphere tend to have a balancing effect on the opposite.
That is to say they supress each other, this is one reason why autistic savants can be prodigious in certain areas. Because parts of their brain aren't as "functioning" they are also unable to inhibit the process of other area's as well

Result: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8YXZTlwTAU]YouTube - Stephen Wiltshire: The Human Camera[/ame]

 

This was indeed my original approach. To be honest, I can find merit in both approaches, I mean It helps finds clarity.

Could you tell me why your method might be more valuable?