What makes for a good meditation?

[thelerner]

When I simply meditate. I'll sit on a zafu, count my breaths over and over 1-10. After a while I'll let it go and just sit. When its great I'm aware of the spaciousness and quietness in my mind. There is sometimes a nice time dilation effect. I'm not longer feeling my body. Thoughts like 'I can think' hit me with strange fascination.

 

Other times I sit and its du du du dududu, itch scratch, darn kids, dollar trade imbalance etc.

 

Physical exertion can help. Strong emotional moods (even anger) good or bad can sometimes propel me very deep.

 

Michael

[Spectrum]

Emptiness of mind seems to be a basic pre-req for Taoist meditation techniques.

 

After a while of reflecting on the WHYs of this, I think simply that there is a variety of information flowing around and through us at all times, and once the "internal dialog" is quiet, there is a type of bodily intelligence that is juxaposed w/ "knowing" oif the conscious mind.

[Treena]

My best meditation came from doing a crummy job for five years. I went to work every day, 9 to 5, five days a week, minimum wage. During that time I worked through all kinds of emotional crap as I did repetitive work: rage, sadness, envy, jealousy, anger, resentment, happiness, love, joy, hate. Eventually I worked through a whole pile of stuff and just got into the groove and went blissful mind and that crummy work was like the best thing ever.

[Leidee]

Sanding wood!

 

Seriously, I was sanding back the wood on my bed today to remove the stain to the pine (so I can put a darker stain over it...eventually) and 2 - 3 hours...in the zone...totally focused on one simple task...sand the wood

 

Altho - I will have sore arms tomorrow...

[Yoda]

"The Varieties of Meditative Experience" is a good read. Basically classifies many of the different systems of meditation and the distinctive goals of each system.

 

I'm doing iam mantra, so that's an Indian absorption type angle. When I come out of meditation I try to notice how far back my eyeballs have rolled and I like to think that corresponds to how deep the session went.

[thelerner]

Many years ago in the dog days of summer I went to teach a kids aikido class. It was at a somewhat run down community center, that gave us special rates. I set up the mat but no kids showed up. From the washroom there was a nasty stench. The bathroom hadn't been cleaned in weeks. One stall had been loosely taped shut. The smell was coming from it.

 

The toilet was clogged, several people(kids?) had tried to use it any way. There had been creative use of rags for toilet paper. There was no airconditioning and it must have been in the 90's in there. For some reason I took it upon myself to rub and scrub and clean.

 

It was such a horrible place and such an unlikely act for me. that it forced an enlightening experience. Squatting down in the heat amongst other people crap you either accepted or stayed in hell.

 

Michael

[mat black]

My best meditation came from doing a crummy job for five years. I went to work every day, 9 to 5, five days a week, minimum wage. During that time I worked through all kinds of emotional crap as I did repetitive work: rage, sadness, envy, jealousy, anger, resentment, happiness, love, joy, hate. Eventually I worked through a whole pile of stuff and just got into the groove and went blissful mind and that crummy work was like the best thing ever.

 

 

 

PERFECT

[Spectrum]

Has anyone experimented much with the Feng Shui of meditation space both indoors and out?

[forestofsouls]

Has anyone experimented much with the Feng Shui of meditation space both indoors and out?

 

I usually meditate indoors, but when its warm, I'll often Tai Chi outdoors in the spring/summer. The difference is significant--- I find it is generally easier to concentrate (barring distractions) and the sensations are more intense. There are a lot more distractions outside (shifting temperature, bugs, people, even dogs) which can take away from concentration on the one hand, but helps one to learn to overcome distractions on the other.

 

My wife and I went to several state parks this summer. I found that the heaviest, fullest sensations were places set in and surrounded by the earth.

[thelerner]

I like to meditate inside. Though if you consider long unfocused walks meditative they're a neccessity to me. I prefer to do Chi Gung routines outside. There's a nice little preserve close to me. You can find shade and places off the beaten track. (I just do some of Winns simpler movements and his Pan Gu meditation)

 

At Lincoln Park zoo there is wild life area that has a large round rock pedestal. Its cool to practice on a big defined natural space. Animals are welcome to watch and I find birds return quickly and fearlessly when you're doing routines. I don't like it when people watch, they distract me.

 

Michael

[Wayfarer64]

This is great!! How many ways we can indeed, be at peace with ourselves!!!

 

Sitting, standing,walking, sanding wood, workin' the j-o-b, scrubbing crap; these all work for us to get our minds "off of our selves"...It seems to matter little, if at all, if we are in a cave or standing in a crowded sub-way car. With some practice - we can maintain our quietude.

 

Again, it seems to me that it comes out to be the middle way. As the legend of one of the Buddha's satories goes -he heard a teacher speak of tuning a sitar's strings... Not too tight for it may snap, not too loose or it will not hum... And so he ended his extreme estheticism to find a more "user-friendly" path towards awakening...

 

Sometimes the severity of our striving keeps us from the peace within...Sometimes it is needed.

 

The furthest I ever got was when I was under extreme duress. I just went deeper and deeper. In a sense I was waiting to be rescued, I never gave up the hope of survival... Still, I "knew" I was about to die soon, and accepted it. I became one with the pain, the loss, the end of "me" and sought to be at peace and not to hold onto anything at all, as I had read - that is what makes the seperation from life difficult. This lasted for a very long time. I was obviously rescued, but the transcendent experience has remained a part of my memory.

 

Everyday is now a gift. I will always ( I hope)- keep a sense of deepest gratitude for being here at all- and I try to be the best person I can be, making myself useful to others before concerning myself with my striving for spiritual attainments...

 

Humility and peace of mind during our struggles is the same as meditation-for me. It is just easier to concentrate on the process when we are quiet and trying to be at peace!

 

This is why I always recomend manual labor to seekers who get too full of themselves. If you can still your mind in the hardest of day to day BS-- (as Treena describes so well) - it will stay with you throughout your life. Staying in one's best state of mind no matter what the hell is going on around you, is a basic step towards being in the moment all the time...The Razor's Edge is a wonderful story about this sort of path...

 

For me at this time, Life is the most precious gift. By enjoying it and sharing it with good humor and joy, no matter what our cercumstances are; we do more for ourselves than years of meditation.

[QiDr]

When I was a kid my father told me to "sit down and shut up". Turned out to be some ot the best advice he ever gave me.

For several years I used running as a form of meditation, I could run for miles and not even be aware of where I was, just the breath and the beat and the ache. That was all there was.

Now, I prefer gentle, moving meditation over seated. I have been doing a lineage meditation called the Spiral Dragon for the last several years and it is very helpful.

In the morning I sweep the sidewalk in front of the clinic and that really sets the tone for the day.

[Mnemosyne]

My cat daily demonstrates quite a fine example of the gentle art of meditation. Find the nearest sun beam, settle down and just be in it. She really does know what to do without trying.

 

Actually, for me the best meditations have come during woodland walks. Give me a trail through the forest on a mild day, my companions are the wind, trees, leaves and everything unseen. A chance to work out the kinks of day to day busy life and settle into what is.

 

[Treena]

I love this thread. It so appreciate hearing what you all do for a good meditation.

[Eric23]

I'm new to meditation so trying to pass on advise would be foolhardy. At this stage, what makes a good meditation is when I discover a new place within myself.

[hagar]

Good meditation; Hmm...usually when I recognize that I have a "good" meditation I am stuck in mental labelling. There is often alot of judgement contained in "good" meditation experiences, and it has caused alot of problems for me; pride, ambition, intellectualism, sloth etc.

 

I try to recongnize the times when I am not having a good meditation; in quarrels with my girlfriend, when my baby can't stop crying, when I procastinate sitting, when I catch myself in a lie or selfish behaviour. Those are truly gems that needs to be cherished. Because these things pop up all the time, and wake you up.

 

But maybe the best meditations (meditative states) I have had are bound up with loss; when I wipe out on skis, lose my temper, embarass myself in some way, make a huge blunder at work, even seeing my gray hairs coming on my chin. These tend to propel me into presence, either for a short time, or after considerable work.

 

I remeber once, I had a crush on a girl at the University. We were kind of flirting, and I hoped to ask her out. It was summer break, and I had been doing alot of diving and swimming. As a result I clogged up my ears with wax, and had to go to the doctor to clear it out. I couldn't hear a thing. Since it was summer, the doctor was on holiday, and the med students were running the office. I remeber sitting waiting for some med. intern to come a do the ear wash job, and suddely the girl I was flirting with appeared. She blushed, grabbed a big metallic pump and started to blow out my ear wax. I can still remeber the intense embarassement, and corresponding experience of pure presence I had when I felt my ears fill with warm water, my cheeks blushing, and the smell of her perfume. A surreal combination of bliss and total anguish at the same time. We never dated.

 

h

[Taomeow]

The best meditations for me are the difficult kind. For starters, I sit in the full lotus pose for "the real thing." I avoid meditations that ignore the body. I seek to feel transformed by meditation, not "relaxed." I have discovered experientially that transformation in meditation is contingent on breaking through a difficult obstacle, just like transformation through birth, a shamanic "quest," or (probably) death. I've meditated "the relaxed way" this way and that way for many years, only to discover in a bad crunch that none of these techniques could make a dent in my predicament. So I proceeded to seek out and practice the difficult kinds, the tempering, transforming kinds. These I found to have life-saving power in a real-life crisis. I'm a pragmatist and meditation for the hell of it doesn't interest me; I'm after meditation the tool, the usable tool of shaping myself the way I want to shape myself... a tool that can work exactly as planned... and then...

...and then blast through all my pre-transformation self's plans and surprise and shock it by morphing me into something entirely else.