blocking thoughts meditation

[Birch]

I've been trying the start-stop approach. Observe a thought/feeling (or circuit of such), catch it, stop it, then start it again on purpose. Then do it again. I think for this one it helps to have grounding and sinking/refining chi techniques at hand.

 

In fact I'd say that having those on hand is a good thing in general. It means you can give yourself a "safety" if things get to be too much. Which in my limited experience they can!

 

I read that post about Vipassana being very tough on even advanced meditators and I'd have to say I'd probably be one of the first to leave such a place Any ideas why "hardcore" might be better for some people and not others?

[hagar]

no..

brain dead. is a brain dead.

mind still. is just empty. :-)

your mind is not your brain.

 

you just said it yourself.

in the retention thread.

 

I never saw myself getting into a discussion about stopping the mind

 

Anyway, to clarify again, recent neuroscience suggests that the actual firing of neurons are connected to spesific thought patterns, indicating that thought may pretty well be correlated, yet not identical ( I'm not a reductionist) with brain "activity".

 

If you do a scan of an advanced meditators brain, you will see activity, nomatter what state of meditation he is in. People (like Ken Wilber) may even willfully stop or change their brain state, to such a degree that no alpha, delta, theta or beta wavew are showing up for a period of time, yet there is still activity in the cortex and ambygdala. Basically indicates that if you are blissfully embraced in the state of nonduality, Dhyana, Samadhi, whatever, you still have "thoughts", if we define them loosely. Yet these may not be causal reasoning about X,Y,Z.

 

What did I say in the other thread?

 

Point is, we may induce all kinds of states of consciousness yet this is not the same as recognizing the very nature of conscousness in its natural state. We may create all kinds of "unnatural" states, meaning everything from highly still, restful or blissfull states, yet this is not the same as realizing your true Nature.

 

What is it that we really, really are? And does stopping the mind have anything to do with that? I may cultivate a degree of integration, yet not be "home".

 

Many benefits may be derived by experiencing certain states, like emptiness, bliss, etc, yet this very moment we are allready there, allready realized, fully comlete and perfect, and it has nothing to do with your ability to induce the state of "no thought".

 

Stopping the mind with intention usually invites the mind in for coffee, just out of courtecy.

 

h

[lifeforce]

A good trick I've used is to silently say "What is my next thought going to be?'. Try it. It creates a gap in thought and can be used again when the next thought eventually pops up.

[Sloppy Zhang]

A. If you are after power, power you will get.

 

B. If you are after enlightenment, enlightenment you will get.

 

 

A requires samatha meditation.

 

B requires vipassana meditation.

 

 

It is not a black and white thing, but to give you an idea it is more or less how it works.

 

I have experience with both and got siddhis from A but got bored with jedi tricks, lol; they lead to nowhere.

 

Hm, that's interesting you bring that up. I have tried various different methods, and have found that even though they talk about similar things, they have different feels to them. Maybe this is one of the reasons why.

 

I looked up samatha on wikipedia, and found a lot of interesting stuff on it, namely this bit:

 

In the "Four Ways to Arahantship Sutta" (AN 4.170), Ven. Ananda reports that people attain arahantship using calm abiding and insight in one of three ways:

 

1. they develop calm abiding and then insight (Pali: samatha-pubbangamam vipassanam)

2. they develop insight and then calm abiding (Pali: vipassana-pubbangamam samatham)[10]

3. they develop calm abiding and insight in tandem (Pali: samatha-vipassanam yuganaddham), for instance, obtaining the first jhana and then seeing in the associated aggregates the three marks of existence, before proceeding to the second jhana.[11]

 

On the subject of "Jedi tricks", I have seen it written by a number of people that concentration is the way to get stuff like that, however as it says above, you can reach a highly concentrated state by several ways... anyway, I too would like to hear of your Jedi experiences, if you are willing to share, and if not, that's okay too

[joeblast]

Stopping the mind with intention usually invites the mind in for coffee, just out of courtecy.

 

h

hahahaha nice

 

excerpt from ymaa small circuation, questions from a buddhist guest about listening to the heart,

Xin and Breath mutually support each other. Use the gongfu of regulating the breath to restrain the Xin. Xin and breath can then mutually rely on each other.

 

I've found that the gongfu of regulating the breath is very efficient at restraining the Xin

[rain]

Greetings..

 

The 'mind' is not 'empty'.. in 'stillness' there is no 'motion' to perceive.. you can't 'empty the mind'.. only 'still' it so there are no 'mental perceptions', just Clarity..

 

Be well..

 

stillness. empty of concepts. no thing. the mind is still. no movement. if you do not understand that we are not in disagreement you have never experienced it just heard about it and have a mental idea of it still stuck in the concept.

 

the source that is able to form and to materialize everything

all you have to do is ask but then you start everything again and fill up

but this is just a beginner stage probably. ;-)

because then there must be a someone asking

right? an awareness that is forming a question?

 

stillness in mind is not brainactivity. it can be detected by, but IS not.

Mind can be stilled and the brain still active with different waves, of course.

Edited March 6, 2010 by rain

[markern]

Hm, that's interesting you bring that up. I have tried various different methods, and have found that even though they talk about similar things, they have different feels to them. Maybe this is one of the reasons why.

 

I looked up samatha on wikipedia, and found a lot of interesting stuff on it, namely this bit:

 

 

 

On the subject of "Jedi tricks", I have seen it written by a number of people that concentration is the way to get stuff like that, however as it says above, you can reach a highly concentrated state by several ways... anyway, I too would like to hear of your Jedi experiences, if you are willing to share, and if not, that's okay too

 

The fourth Jhana is suposedly the best. It is where the Buddha got most of his.

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

stillness. empty of concepts. no thing. the mind is still. no movement. if you do not understand that we are not in disagreement you have never experienced it just heard about it and have a mental idea of it still stuck in the concept.

Are you projecting meaning where there is none? Please do not misunderstand my attempt at clarification as disagreement, that is not the intention..

because then there must be a someone asking

right? an awareness that is forming a question?

Even more simple than that.. Awareness is only the messenger..

 

Be well..

[Gerard]

.

Edited March 7, 2010 by durkhrod chogori

[King Kabalabhati]

I've been practising self-hypnosis with Mark Cunningham's recordings and learned the "10 to 1 count" method of going into a trance state. Today when I was sitting in lotus I found my mind wandering in mundane things and yesterday's events as it often does. I decided to use the method of drawing a number on my imaginary chalkboard and then wiping it clean. This put me in state where, for a while, I had no thoughts at all. When a thought started to manifest I was able to make it vanish effortlessly. I was delighted by this, since it helped me focus better on breathing.

 

Another way of "blocking" thoughts I use is chanting "Om" without sound, in my mind.

[rain]

I sincerely disagree with those who say "watch".

 

I say "mentally ignore, -drop everything".

 

drop index fingering. roll over play dead.

Edited March 7, 2010 by rain

[Ya Mu]

Haven't read entire thread but here are my thoughts on this.

 

Attempting to block thoughts is as much doing as not attempting to block thoughts and creates as much mental activity. I think the key is to not indulge in the thoughts. An example of this is the thought "ice cream" Indulgence would be the internal chatter of "Oh, I like chocolate ice cream. Hmm, I think I will go by the grocery store tonight and pick up some." Non-indulgence would be to recognize this as a thought but allow it to pass on through. What I tell beginning students is to be a 3rd part observer, but this is not the final aspect.

 

What I have found is that there is a way of separating the first and second attention. It comes about through the practice of raising the energy body vibration frequency and the practice of Listening. When we recognize who we really are and practice Listening it can be developed to the point where we can do this with one attention (and we DO want this attention to be the dominant one) and allow (with control from dominant) the other attention fairly free reign but to be used as a tool instead of a random event generator. I have posted this before but here is an example. I went into a sleep lab and was wired from head to toe. We started with me doing qigong with no preparation, but just go now. I had 3 minutes. While doing qigong the brain levels were monitored. At the end of the 3 minutes the brain levels went through the first 3 levels of sleep and were headed down. And I could have carried on a conversation while doing so; this is what I mean as separation of the two attentions. Another example is this makes it very easy to do other tasks while doing qigong. Movie-watching qigong anyone? Another example is I can work on a client giving them my full attention and projecting energy, while doing qigong AND reading a book or carrying on a conversation with someone else.

[rain]

.

Edited March 7, 2010 by rain

[SingaporeGuyHere]

The trick is not to block them out but watch them. Try this instead and see how it goes.

 

im still trying hard to do this

 

usually i end up being 'washed away' with them, or some daydream would pop out and surprise me

[thelerner]

For years most of my meditation was going into a quiet trance state, sometimes through counting breaths or some other method. For the past year or two I've been 'fighting' the trace state, staying in normal consciousness with a quieted mind. Sitting w/ an everyday mind, which is often harder and much more boring.

 

I think it is worth while though. Honing my consciousness..because this is the state I use everyday, not the relaxed somnambulism of past meditations. In both cases my thoughts are lessened.

 

 

 

Michael

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

drop index fingering. roll over play dead

I would ask you to just 'drop' any preconceptions, and out of pure curiosity, try the pointing technique.. heck, for that matter, try anything.. sincere curiosity has revealed so much more, to me, than all of my preconceptions.. it seems that the more i 'think i know', the less i really discover.. The 'index fingering' won't hurt, i promise, and.. what if it 'helps'.. it's just a device, to be discarded when you 'understand' the process..

 

Be well..