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Meditation
#934986 07/30/17 09:49 PM
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I'm wondering if there are any other meditators here. I used to meditate fairly regularly. I sat with a sangha and even taught meditation in prisons. That's not to say I was a great meditator; in fact, my "students" often teased me for being the worst in the class wrt rocking instead of sitting still. I just knew enough of the basics to get them started, and had access to people and resources who could answer bigger questions and provide new things.

I'm now trying to get back into meditating after a solid decade of not meditating regularly. It's not my first attempt to get back into the practice, but at least so far it's going better than past attempts.

I use two main techniques: Vipassana and Tonglen.

Vipassana is the most basic and fundamental kind of meditation. Pretty much all meditation traditions have some variation on it. It's the idea that most people have about "clearing your mind and focusing on your breathing." But that's not really accurate, and makes it seem harder than it is. You can't stop your thoughts, and you aren't even supposed to. Your thoughts are a key aspect of the meditation. Instead of stopping them, you just try to be aware of them without getting lost in them. Normally, you might get distracted thinking about things you need to buy at the grocery store, then leapfrog from one thought to another until you wind up reliving an argument you had with your mother when you were 12 and getting yourself worked up and agitated. In Vipassana, you try to be aware of the first thought, step back and be aware of the thought without getting caught up in the chain. When you inevitably realize you got lost in your thoughts and have been daydreaming for the last three minutes, instead of beating yourself up for it, you just say to yourself "thinking," and return your attention to your breath to remind you of where you are in the present moment. If you do that every 30 seconds for the entire session, then that's fine. It's where you are in your practice, and that's okay.

One of my favorite topics when I was teaching meditation was itches. When you get an itch during meditation, the point is not to avoid scratching and live with the itch. It's to recognize the itch, metaphorically step back, and if you do scratch it, make it a conscious choice to do so, not an instinctive reaction you have no conscious control over. If you can break that automatic urge to scratch, you can eventually break the automatic urge to lash out verbally when someone says something you don't like, or whatever behaviour trait in yourself you're trying to change.

The other technique I really like is Tonglen. It's a more complex practice that involves working more directly with your negative emotions. It has several stages, but at its core its about breathing in negativity and breathing out positivity. If, for example, you have a difficult relationship with a spouse or family member, you might breathe in whatever pain and suffering they take out on you, and breathe out relief and peace. If after several tries you think, "this is BS. I'm just going through the motions, and I'm as pissed off as ever," you might take a step back, and try breathing in the sense of betrayal and frustration of other people in your situation, and breathe out acceptance and the love that keeps you working on the relationship. Essentially, instead of trying to escape your negative emotions, you embrace them. You think, "as long as I'm feeling like this anyway, let me take in the suffering of other people feeling the same thing, and give them relief."

When all else fails, I breathe in the embarrassment and frustration of people who try to meditate and keep screwing it up, and breathe out one good, mindful breath. Not gonna lie: I spend a fair amount of time meditating on my inability to be a better meditator.

Those are my main two techniques. I use whichever seems more right for the moment, often switching back and forth within a single session. As I ease back into it, I'm only sitting for 5 minute sessions, using an app that gives me nice "meditation bell sounds" at the beginning and end, as well as occasional chimes throughout to remind me if my mind is wandering. At some point I will want to sit longer, but for now I'm focusing on sitting more often throughout the day rather than longer. My current thinking is that if I can do several 5 minute sessions throughout the day rather than 15 minutes at the beginning or end, it will help me stay in a more meditative mindset throughout the day.

I'd be interesting in hearing about the experiences and techniques used by any other members of the fora.

Re: Meditation
Brain-Fall-Out Boy #934988 07/30/17 10:19 PM
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I've meditated off and on for several years. I also do yoga almost every morning.

The most recent meditation technique I've used is what you describe as Vipassana, though I hadn't heard that term before. It consists of breathing exercises and being mindful of my thoughts without judging them; it was part of my yoga training.

I had never heard of Tonglen, but I like the idea of breathing in negativity and breathing out positivity.


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Re: Meditation
Brain-Fall-Out Boy #934989 07/30/17 11:23 PM
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Vipassana has a lot of names. It harkens back to the oldest Theravadan Buddhist traditions, and lives on in some form in almost every tradition. Sometimes under another name, sometimes simply incorporated into another type of meditation without a specific name. The same basic exercises are a big part of zen, for example, but zen also includes other types of meditation exercises as well.

I've become a very big fan of tonglen. I have never sat with a group that practices it, but I've read/listened to many things about it. The most prominent American proponent is a woman named Pema Chodron, a disciple of the controversial Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She has a wonderfully down-to-earth and practical style. She has a book/audio of a talk she gave specifically on Tonglen called Good Medicine. Among her many wonderful books, The Places that Scare You and When Things Fall Apart are both excellent books on how to embrace rather than try to escape... well, the titles say it all.

The group I sat with was connected to the Order of Interbeing, the organization founded by Thich Nhat Hahn, a Vietnamese monk who has lived in the west since he came here to speak during the Vietnam War and wasn't allowed to go home. He was part of the same interfaith circle as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

I like both of these teachers because they focus on very practical, down-to-earth explorations of their teachings and practices. There is very little of the esoteric or mystical in their work. That can be good or bad depending on what you're looking for. Personally, I tend to get sidetracked into the mystical and philosophical, so it's good for me to have instruction, even indirectly, from people who encourage me to focus on looking inward.

Re: Meditation
Brain-Fall-Out Boy #934994 07/31/17 02:08 AM
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Pema Chodron is a wonderful teacher. She is so practical and honest about being imperfect. I don't practice Tonglen per se, but some of my meditations follow its method.

Although I did TM years ago, I let it lapse. About three years ago, I started meditating daily in response to a horrible life situation, using the very directed method of Dr. Joe Dispenza (more visualization than mindfulness). Now I use the Headspace meditations (more Vipassana-oriented) and a few others from Sacred Acoustics (inspired by Eben Alexander) and yoga nidra. It's all had a significant positive impact on my life.


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