The what, why and how of meditation

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I’ve heard meditation being recommended a few times and I decided to research it. Unfortunately, most of what I’ve found tends to be on the woo side. I do not doubt that some benefit can be gained from it, but I do wish I had explanations concerning what meditation is and does, why it does it and how it does it that didn’t involve “merging your spirit with the great Ju-Ju”.

So, what does meditation achieve if done correctly?
What does one do when one meditates?
How does it accomplish its effects?
Why (what principles, dynamics, basic phenomena are at play) does it work?
What do you do when you meditate?
What steps do you go through?
What have you learned that helped you meditate better?

2

Yeah, this thread is going to go well. (And I don’t mean that sarcastically!)

The meditation that I’ve been doing lately is, in the strictest terms, not meditation, but quite the opposite.

It brings about stillness, and opens the way to wisdom.

See below.

That’s something that you have to discover for yourself.

My personal belief is that all life naturally lives this way. We humans have higher thought functions, which are great, but sometimes we get so wrapped up in them that we forget to just be. And happiness is in just being.

Think of violent waves on the ocean. We’re constantly breaking and crashing and causing turmoil. But just beneath the surface is stillness. And all waves must return to it.

Here is my practice:

Sit in a comfortable place. Feet on the floor, spine erect, arms relaxed and uncrossed. Take a few deep breaths.

Become aware of the present moment. Empty out all thoughts of the past and future. Be aware that inner chatter will come up. That’s normal. Let those thoughts pass like leaves on the wind. Come back to the present.

Become aware of where your feet are touching the floor. Become aware of your weight in the chair. Feel the touch of your clothes on your body. Feel the touch of the air on your bare skin.

Become aware of the taste or moisture in your mouth. Notice whether you smell anything.

Become aware of your breathing, without changing it. Become aware of the feel of air moving in and out of your lungs.

If your eyes are open, let them receive color and form without comment or judgement.

Become aware of sounds. They rise, and then fall back into silence. Become aware of the great space that sounds arise from. Extend your listening to the farthest reaches.

Be still.

Expand your awareness outward and smile.

Do this twice a day, for at least two minutes at a time.

A Brahman saw the Buddha resting under a tree in meditation. The Brahman was impressed with the Buddha’s way.

He asked, “Are you a god?”

“No, Brahman, I’m not a god.”

“Are you an angel?”

“No”, replied the Buddha.

“You must be a spirit then?”

“No, I’m not a spirit,” said the Buddha.

“Then what are you?”

“I’m awake.”

3

Being able to acheive a calm mental state and have control over unwanted thoughts, negative thoughts, racing thoughts. Stopping an overbusy brain and being “present” experiencing things in the “right now” not constantly thinking of the future or past. (This doesn’t mean you never think of the future or the past, it means you do so when you want to)

There are various approaches - including sitting quietly, walking, music, gongs or other associative stimulus, engaging in art or sports, pretty much anything CAN be a form of meditation. It depends how you do it.

Practice and repitition, just like you learn to do anything

Because the brain is a trainable thinking device that responds to positive and negative stimuli.

I go to a meditation class at my karate school, which consists of 10 minutes stretching/physically limbering, 15 minutes seated meditation (traditional benches are used), followed by a short lecture.

Sit and focus on the feeling of breathing. If thoughts intrude, acknowledge them and refocus on breathing. Repeat for a lifetime. :slight_smile:

There no prize for meditating better than everyone else. Things come along at their own pace.

4

That made me smile. Thanks for that.

5

I’ll be interested in following this thread as I’ve been largely unsuccessful in past attempts at meditation. My brain just goes into a hyperactive frenzy and I get extremely fidgety and feel a strong compulsion to get up and do something. Far from being relaxing, meditation attempts thus far have caused me anxiety because inevitably I just start thinking of all the things I should be doing instead/things that need to be done and feeling like I am being irresponsible by just sitting there.

6

I don’t know much about meditating for the purpose of relaxation. Meditation as I understand it isn’t about relaxing, it’s about mindfulness. That means sitting there and feeling fidgety and feeling the impulse to go do something else and feeling irresponsible and sitting there and being aware of all of it, watching the feelings, thoughts and sensations come and go. In my experience, the longer you watch, the less power those impulses and thoughts and feelings have over you.

To answer the OP, one thing meditation does is raise one’s baseline mood and protect the brain from stress. Another thing it likely does is cause the growth of new brain cells. There’s even evidence that it improves the immune system.

Meditation and mindfulness training also have practical applications for the treatment of depression and anxiety. There are a number of therapies that incorporate mindfulness principles and have been proven to help alleviate the symptoms of mental illness.

There are a lot of different ways to meditate. The style I most practice is ‘‘just sitting’’ which basically means I sit down on a meditation cushion and don’t get up for a specified period of time… say ten or fifteen minutes. While I’m sitting, I pay attention to whatever’s going on. Sometimes it’s upsetting, sometimes it’s boring, sometimes it’s a completely blissful experience, but that’s basically how to do it. The point is to become more aware of the way things rise and fall away and ebb and flow and not to become so attached to any given thought, feeling or mental state.

7

Opal, for the longest time I worried about the same thing. And to be truthful, that still happens to me from time to time. But after a while you learn to treat those thoughts as what they are – fleeting.

8

It’s been recommended to me as a way to deal with stress (which I do badly) but maybe “relaxing” isn’t the exact right word.

9

This book might help you a lot.

10

Yes, it’s great for coping with stress. I mean, sometimes it’s relaxing. I guess I was just trying to say that if you’re feeling anxiety or discomfort or whatever, you’re not failing. Some people get so focused on this idea that they should feel relaxed or calm in order for it to be ‘‘working,’’ and when they don’t feel utter bliss they conclude they aren’t doing it right. Meditation is more about learning to be accepting of those uncomfortable experiences than it is about making them go away.

11

Thanks, I ordered it for my Kindle and I will check it out.

12

Absolutely, there’s nothing that you’re supposed to feel.

I did a presence meditation a few years ago, and it was absolutely mind-blowing. I’d describe it, but I know I’d come off sounded like a bit of a nut. Since then I was a little afraid to try it again because what if I couldn’t get to that place again?

But that’s the point of presence meditation – it’s going to be different every time, and you don’t try to grab for a feeling, you let a feeling grab you.

13

This is why it is helpful to use a meditational focus. This could be a lot of different things. It could be something that you look at, like a candle flame or a mandala. It could be a sound or music. It could be a chant. It could be a word that you hear in your mind’s ear. By concentrating on that, you can clear away other thoughts.

14

Something visual never occurred to me. Thinking about a sound I’m not hearing wouldn’t work, because my mind would wander away from it. Music is a possibility, I guess, though I’m not sure that what I’d get would be any different from just “sitting around listening to music.” Having something visual to look at might occupy my mind enough to let me meditate without distracting me too much, but keeping me from getting distracted by other things.

I’ll have to try it. Aside from that flower you posted do you have any other candidates for meditation images?

15

I’ve never tried “proper” meditation, but I’ve recently taken up running, and I’ve had some experiences while doing that that have felt like how people sometimes describe meditating. It doesn’t happen every time, but on some runs, the thoughts just drain completely from my head, and I can run, sometimes for miles, with my head just… blank. That inner voice that seems to always be there in daily life just shuts up. Sometimes thoughts will come along, but in a hazy way, wash over me, and then just fade away. Sometimes it’s just the air, my footsteps, my breathing, maybe music if I’m wearing my ipod, and those things are just there, I don’t have to think about them or contemplate them at all. It’s a kind of inner peace that I’ve never experienced in any other context.

It sounds weird, but it’s wonderful - I would like to call it spiritual. Is this anything like meditating, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

(Disclaimer: This doesn’t stop running being a bitchy, sweaty, pain in the ass that ruins my knees and busts my hips.)

16

Do a GIS for mandala.

17

For free, here’s an excellent guide to a non-spiritual meditation from the Guardian: How To Meditate.

18

I found this site very helpful, both their guided meditation and their explanations about the why and how. As they are UK based I hope this one will work from the USA.

My personal explanation/analogy to think of it as escaping from a Chinese finger trap. If you force yourself away from negative emotions, the trap only closes. Instead you go something like “hey yeah, I feel shit about this. Hello shitty feeling. This sucks. Oh well.” But you don’t let those negative emotions be drama queens and run your life - by accepting them calmly, you can take back the control (sometimes).

Hmm, tdn’s right, I do sound like a nut, now.

Ah, here’s a quote I like:

“Mindfulness is like navigating between two cliffs. On the one side is avoiding your emotions, on the other side is drowning in them. Being mindful is admitting the emotions without drowning in them.”

Hmmm, still a bit nutty. I suppose you just have to give it a go and see what happens. Just because we struggle to completely put it into words doesn’t make it woo. It’s like describing how to walk to an alien without legs. Hard to describe, but this doesn’t mean something very strange and mysterious is happening when we do it.

19

There is a shitload of woo surrounding meditation. Most of it stems from the religious aspects people try to invoke (Buddhism, chakras, blah fucking blah). But I don’t meditate for religious reasons; in fact, I actively avoid meditation that involves religious overtones. I listen to guided meditation files and find them to be very helpful in reducing stress levels, relaxing, and lowering heart rate/blood pressure.

You may have to go through a new audio file and vet it to make sure there’re no religious references–I know those will always take me right out of the moment–but the payoff is worth it.

A good place to start is with Andrew Johnson. Two of his recordings are free.

20

It sounds like you’re swinging from exactly the right tree. Stay with it!