Birdoftruth

IMO the measuring meditation book is too much because it has 800+ pages and would deter someone trying to get into this stuff. There's just a lot of unnecessary verbiage in a book of so much volume. Simple is the Tao.

you have these people here who tell you that you shouldn't measure it because of ego blah blah. I have been reading and performing the exercises in Concentration: the path to mental mastery by mouni sadou. It has a progressive system set up so that you can quantitatively measure your progress and know when you are ready to move on to the next exercise. When you finish Exercise 9 you have completed them all and should have a lot of meditation, self inquiry, and concentration under your belt to where you will be further along then most people. If I did not have this progressive system I would have dropped out in the first week. I just finished my first month and still on the first exercise. When I first started I couldn't hold the exercise for 10 seconds. Now I can for 2 minutes. There's the progress. Once I reach 5 minutes then I move on to exercise 2. The fact is you can't just tell someone to just sit down and have no expectations because Western Society is result oriented and needs to have something to measure up against. This is not to say that a few are the exception but this approach is more Western friendly IMO. I don't know how you would measure Vipassana progress. I know when I did it I found my concentration in the day to increase more and more and found myself becoming indifferent but nothing quantitatively with the exception of increased meditation times.

For the soul mate thing and spiritual attraction. I suggest you look into the 4 archetypes we have in our collective unconscious the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. Apparently we are attracted most to our opposite archetype. But these archetypes reside on a 4 quadrant grid and the more balanced you are, the more centered you are, and the more you are in touch with the 4 archetypes and a able to connect closest to those also centered spiritually. also when you talked to her, were those thoughts of yours just token resistance society has given us, or a sharp intuition for why not to go forth with this one? we could always be wrong.

Hi guys, I recently bought the book Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light. Great book by the way. Well I have a question about something that happened to me. Last night I was lying on my back visualizing a letter "A" on my heart chakra that was glowing white light. I felt my self going through depths of consciousness and I got to this one point to where my back arched and my chest puffed out. The more intense I visualized the white light glowing from my heart the more my chest would bring me upward and forward. I got to where the point to where my torso was arched and forward as much as it could go and then my body was shaking intensely. I am 100% sure this was physical and not like some astral body event as I could still feel my bed against my body. Can someone explain what was happening here?

Dmatt check out this thread Is started awhile back called Meditation is turning me into a nice guy wuss http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/15470-meditation-turning-me-into-a-nice-guy-wuss/ I just never took any action outside of my comfort zone because why do anything you don't have to when you can just be happy with what you have. There is a better form of meditation for us westerners. Vipassana is not it. It is designed for the East. I also believe mindful Katas are better then this stuff.

Principles are overrated. The game of life has rules and they are constantly changing and there's always and exception to the rule. So having principles will leave one in the dust as society around him changes. Don't have principles but have boundaries.

Awesome post. Thanks. I think my problem is definitely that my mind is too tense I will try to just let my mind ease and just watch the thoughts but bring it back to easiness "Where do you want to go? Getting your thoughts to disappear is step one, and "watching" them serves only this purpose and no other. What's the next step? To notice what, or who, emerges when your thoughts disappear. Have you noticed?" I want the thoughts to go away but I also want them to appear so I can figure out my method for thinking, my hidden thoughts, and why I think the way I do in accordance to external stimuli.

Hey guys I've been doing thought observation as my meditation and have a question. There are moments when I am sitting and in my meditation I literally have no thoughts and I would like to know what I am suppose to observe if I have no thoughts at that moment. And I have been wondering if I have no thoughts because I am focussing to hard on nothing when I have no thoughts. Thanks By the way Thought observation has proven to be the best meditation for me and has yielded me far better results then my stint with Vipassana

Guys so I have been meditating (Vipassana) for a couple months and I just feel that it's turning me into a wuss. Before I meditated I felt I over did the douchness and called people out on what I didn't tolerate/like and now since I don't care I have stopped doing that and have turned into a push-over. Essentially losing masculinity. Something is wrong with this picture and I don't want to keep meditating like this if it turns you into a wuss. Anyone with a better path please let me know. I like many men here have been subject to the modern life of having a father who always worked yet a stay-at-home mom. So I lacked the masculine energy that is needed for a boy as he grows up. P.S. My goals when beginning meditation was to be spiritually endowed, in touch with masculinity, and increased psychological benefits such as concentration and decreased sub-vocalization.

Yes! This is a clear answer to my suspicions. Now my question is, when a person visualizes...Whether a white skeleton or a rose for their form of meditation...are they not just neglecting the mindfulness aspect of meditation possibly leading to this "bliss" state as they used some abstract image in their mind to get their as opposed to naturally being led their through their awareness. If so It is thus I think one will never experience the purification process if they go about this way of inducing a blissful trance and/or not being mindful. My train of thought is visualizing = attached to a form = bad. Also with regards to one's awareness becoming more pervasive over practice time I still feel like If I am not being attentive while outside of meditation then meditation is just escapism because if you are not practicing mindfulness in the 'real world' then your enhanced awareness is anchored to your meditative state as opposed to every waking moment of life. "Sometimes, however, it doesn't quite work out that way (or I am not calm enough and know it) - so I will use self-hypnonsis based on visualization as a short-cut to help get me to a meditative state. Based on a bit of training this usually works for me within a few minutes rather than spending half an hour or more trying to appease the monkey mind." I guess my question is to you is if you find yourself just in a state of calm bliss or do you find yourself paying attention to both your feeling body and thinking mind in a state of nothingness?

Ok I have a question for you guys. I think it is important to distinguish between meditation practices here. Here we have the practice of narrowing one's focus onto something remaining mindful until that person reaches samadhi and then it turns into insight meditation where there is emptiness (vipassana). Ok then I see stuff like Visualization based meditation where in one visualizes until they reach samadhi. Well I guess my question is how on earth does visualization 'meditation' even remotely compare to mindfulness based meditation. All I see the latter doing is just dunking someone into trance asap, and thus being a psychological tool to help calm ourselves. I can't see how this helps us on the spiritual path. How does it cultivate mindfulness and allows one to endure the purification process when essentially we ignore the top layer of our waking consciousness. On top of this is the concept of spiritual materialism (i.e. certain meditations promising psychic powers) sucking us away from digging into the core of ourselves to experience the tao. Another problem I see with this is how does visualization help listen to ourself when we are just picturing something instead of actually feeling it? Thanks in advance.

Guys pulling back onto the book. How much can one really learn from 700+ pages of material. I am always quick to right off anything over 200 pages as it most likely is fluff and long drawn out points that neglect brevity. When it comes to digesting all of this material what do you have left? A shit ton of knowledge that as we know does not help you. Like I want to know the benefits of plowing through 700+ pages of meditation information as opposed to just telling someone to sit down, close your eyes, focus on your in breath and out breath.

Hi guys, I am also in the interest stage of deciding what to do with Tai chi. When it comes to practicing on your own I have a few questions. First, The DVD that was recommended "Tai chi connections." It was said that there were only 17 forms is this a bad thing? Is more better is is less more? Second, When you learn these forms, as the DVD is over 2 hours long. Do you just run through them...or as a previous Taobum said "go through the motions" or is there like a specific order that you go through each one with? Third, How do you know when you are ready to learn new forms? Also since this is specifically taught by John Loupos. When you learn new forms that aren't available to be taught from him do you have to learn like a new style just to get in more forms? Fourth, How well does Tai chi practice mix with sitting formal meditation...Will it accelerate us on a spiritual practice...Will it be a catalyst in mindfulness and purification? Also a note...Shinzen Young (Science of Enlightenment author) Said that the moving meditations are great but the true barometer of Happiness indpendent of conditions is sitting meditation because if someone who was doing these movement based mediations were to do that and they get bored then they still are not happy independent of conditions. Do you guys agree? thanks in advance...This thread seems very helpful