How often do you engage in stillness meditation?

[Eric23]

As an aside... I've had the opportunity to try darkness meditation. Sitting in a totally dark room with the eyes open. Very interesting. It's comforting to know that I'm not alone in the "trying not to try" department.

[Wayfarer64]

The trying not to try thing is just like giving up, saying uncle- humiliating yourself to the idea that your "self" ain't getting it done and abandoning that egoistic inclination to do what you want to do, what you intend to do. Admit that you can not do the letting go as you are, that in fact "you" can not be present when the emptiness accepts your consciousness.

 

Giving yourself away and claiming NOTHING as your own -except that you have a life to share with the wider world and allow yourself to be that wider world in your very being... Selflessness...

 

Our egos kick and scream to distract us from such renounciation. And demand a return to acknowledgement of self even if/when we have let go. There is a part of our consciousness that really likes the self to distract us into lower realms of being.

 

I don't know why we keep trying not to try!? Our precious moments of oneness without ego are joyous inklings of a wonderous way to be...So we keep trying not to try once again....For some the cycles tighten and the moments linger and consciousness expands...It may be that one day I will let go of that rubbery bond of consciousness that draws me back to myself...I will remain that child under a tree with only the natural world to be concerned with...

[Ian]

As an aside... I've had the opportunity to try darkness meditation. Sitting in a totally dark room with the eyes open. Very interesting. It's comforting to know that I'm not alone in the "trying not to try" department.

 

I spent last Sunday in London with Dirk Oellibrandt, and he was talking about using darkness in his teaching. First the eyes play, then when that runs out you start hearing things, then gradually it cuts back to earth and metal, just breathing and sensing.

 

All sounds so much more profound when he says it.

 

He was talking about babies in the womb, just sensing the body, having no idea that they are doing so, because all of them is just sensing. "There is only one earth."

 

One hint I'm finding useful towards "unplugging the monitor" is to realise that whatever it comes up with, any estimate of how you're doing, is completely and utterly valueless.

[thelerner]

Dirk is amazing. What other goodies did he present?

 

Michael

[Eric23]

I never realized how many strange noises reside in our building! It was very profound. I think eliminating one sensory system from the overall equation is the key. I've only done it sitting. One of these days soon I want to see how it goes standing.

[Japhy Ryder]

 

Then of course there is the issues that Japhy Ryder, you articulated so well. "movement always implies stillness, and that stillness always implies movement." In an "absolute" sense, Stillness isn't a posture we can assume. It just is (-- or maybe more accurately, it is not -- since it is no-thing, but anyway) ... A big part of the struggle of our practice is trying to align ourselves with this ineffable Stillness. The paradox being the fact that trying is also a form of movement. In this way it seems naively literal to assume that trying force the body to be still will somehow align us with this profound mystery of capital S - Stillness. But then I must admit -- as naive as this does seem, there does appear to be a relationship between engaging in regular stillness meditation and the arising of a deepening resonance with Stillness. Wether this apparent arising of "more stillness" is itself another illusion and/or whether this relationship of stillness meditation to Stillness is causal ... well these are koans. It's too much to grasp. Which is good. My mind is stopped in it's tracks. Humbled. Ultimately this is where I agree with the Christians when they say it is through an utterly mysterious grace that God descends. Slashing through the ego's plots to storm the Tao through this or that method -- generating a kind of dumbfounded humility in her wake. Enlightenment is a giant failure.

 

Sean

 

Thanks, Sean. I've always intuited that movement and stillness imply one another, but I only began to experience it recently, through practicing Cohen-style spontaneous qigong (pardon the oxymoron).

Reading the link (from your original post) concerning formless standing meditation (http://www.yiquan.org.uk/art-zz.html) helped me see that stillness has more to do with absence of intention than with whether my body's moving or not. It's wonderful to just turn off my mind, relax, and float downstream with the qi.

 

Hmm. First the Stones, now the Beatles. Guess I'm dating myself.

[mYTHmAKER]

Then of course there is the issues that Japhy Ryder, you articulated so well. "movement always implies stillness, and that stillness always implies movement."

Do you think there is a balance point where both cancel each other out.

If so what is left.

[xenolith]

If so what is left.

The Tao.

 

That which we know. Yet still search for.

 

Love.

 

xeno

[Wayfarer64]

Hmm. First the Stones, now the Beatles. Guess I'm dating myself.

 

Rock Rocks! and yes-

Trees Rock and to grok the wind also rocks...

 

So, does dating yourself cut down on yr spending or are you high maintenance?

 

My stillness is always being nudged by my sense of the rediculous finding its way into everything- but I warned you early on I need to find humor in everything-its a New York (Jewish) thing...

[林愛偉]

Guan Yin Bodhisattva using forms as a means to teach living beings Buddhist Teachings. Wether in male or female body, plant, tree, animal, fish, etc, they are all expedient means to teach beings how to end the cycle of birth and death. People think its easy but its not.. hahaha

 

Awakening isn't Complete pure enlightenment. It is only a stepping stone. One must still cultivate. Gaining wisdom does not come from understanding that which is male and female. Male and female are ideas, expedients to cultivate through to understand one's karma. Having a body is due to cause and effect.. haha

 

Peace and Happiness,

 

Aiwei

[seadog]

Once you go Willow or Birch, you'll never come back.

 

Alas fate should have it there be neither birch nor willow at my dwelling place but i have a fine peach that I'am fond of sitting beneath.

[Ian]

A Year of Standing.

 

(At least I'm pretty sure it is. I don't remember when I started, but it was early Feb.)

 

A year is starting to seem like a very short time, both compared to some of the reports of what others on this site have done, and compared to how long might be required before I start to practice usefully.

 

But anyway, the facts, such as they are. I'm up to forty-five minutes. Ought to be an hour by now, but three-quarters seems like a long time at the moment.

 

Two things changed when I was in Penang recently. One is the range of movements which occur: much more bending at the knee, crouching down and forwards, and more neck movements, like slow whiplash. I need to make sure there is a yard and a half clear space in front of me.

 

The other is that I'd been getting involved with a lumpy area around my eyes, allowing it to lure me into all kinds of doing, trying to produce stuff which should just happen.

 

And I've given that up now, as much as I can, and am now limiting my karma-creation to maintaining as continuous as possible an awareness of the pressure of my feet on the floor. Nothing else.

 

So the chief challenge is to give as little power as possible to the part of me which wants to know how well I'm doing. (Goddam the school system!) Not to make that part important, no matter how much it confounds me. Not to value its conclusions, nor ideally even allow them to be made. Back to the feet.

 

This means, effectively, being something other than I've always been. Denying fuel to the ongoing, habitual process of me. Like a sticker trying to peel itself off itself with gluey fingers it's not allowed to use.

 

About the only positive summary I can make is that I haven't stopped.

Edited February 20, 2007 by Ian

[soaring crane]

too many great replies for me to reply to here so I want to just give my own unfettered impression.

 

"Still" to me means, as implied in other posts, the stilling of the mind or perhaps of teh will. The body can, and will, and probably should move. The Qi will move and burst though blockages and and the body will respond acordingly. Anything can happen. I've been with someone who seems to turn into a werewolf and I've turned into a snake, my spine being elongated and pushed backward to some insane position that I could never get into without really hurting myself. I've had my breathing go beserk and my arms extend above my head for thirty minutes. All kinds of sensations... they come and go... can't, and shouldn't analyze them.

 

I used to do this a LOT when I was learning Soaring Crane Qigong. It's the sixth "forbidden" movement of the form. At that time, my hair lost most of it's grey and I felt very good with very little sleep (which is more amazing than the grey hair trick in my case). But I couldn't maintain that level of mediation for so long. Somehow, I just kind of got out of it.

 

But Sean wrote in his original post, "By "stillness meditation" I mean a meditation in which one consciously chooses to remain relatively still..." and this I interpret as "static" meditation. This is what I do at the end of all my Qigong sessions. I do repetitions of our "shogun" movement, scooping Qi into my Tianmu third eye and guiding it downward, through breast and stomach, pelvis, legs, feet and deeper through Yongquan into the ground.

 

With every repetition, every exhale, I sink deeper, legs gowing heavier, but head getting lighter (on the inhale). Heavy on bottom, light on top. Roots and earth below, leaves and air above. And then I gather Qi in one wide circle at about head height, "hug the big tree" we say in German, and guide my hands down the tree trunk to the center of the action, lower Dantian.

 

And then I concentrate a few more times on "heavy under, light above". And then I stand still, intentfully. Like a tree, no judgement, but no movement. Anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes.

 

I find that, with increased practice, I can gather the same level of Qi in a shorter time. Which is kind of cool

 

Happy Valentine's Day all

Edited February 14, 2007 by soaring crane

[Ian]

 

"Still" to me means, as implied in other posts, the stilling of the mind or perhaps of teh will. The body can, and will, and probably should move. The Qi will move and burst though blockages and and the body will respond acordingly. Anything can happen. I've been with someone who seems to turn into a werewolf and I've turned into a snake, my spine being elongated and pushed backward to some insane position that I could never get into without really hurting myself. I've had my breathing go beserk and my arms extend above my head for thirty minutes. All kinds of sensations... they come and go... can't, and shouldn't analyze them.

 

Yes, lots of animal stuff happens. Not to me yet. Am told this avoids future animal incarnations. Never sure if he's joking....

[Spectrum]

"I think eliminating one sensory system from the overall equation is the key."

 

Blending of senses into one phenomenological set of events. Taste what you see, smell what you feel, feel what you hear, see what you hear... this isn't disassociative "trance"; navigation means you get to where you're going regardless of the obsticles, including the senses.

 

It's all in Wu Ji & Sung (Song). In todays busy world it takes some a long time to find their wu ji, but that's the start of Taoist meditation study in my opinion; start practice from there everytime and do it everyday.

 

"Great movements are not as efficient as small movements. Small movements are not as efficient as stillness.Stillness is the mother of eternal movement" - Wang Xian Zhai

Edited February 16, 2007 by Spectrum

[Eric23]

Blending of senses into one phenomenological set of events. Taste what you see, smell what you feel, feel what you hear, see what you hear... this isn't disassociative "trance"; navigation means you get to where you're going regardless of the obsticles, including the senses.

 

It's all in Wu Ji & Sung (Song). In todays busy world it takes some a long time to find their wu ji, but that's the start of Taoist meditation study in my opinion; start practice from there everytime and do it everyday.

 

"Great movements are not as efficient as small movements. Small movements are not as efficient as stillness.Stillness is the mother of eternal movement" - Wang Xian Zhai

 

Thank you for the admonition. I haven't ignored your post. It's taken several re-readings and meditative thought to sink in. Thanks again

[rex]

[Spectrum]

Thank you for the admonition. I haven't ignored your post. It's taken several re-readings and meditative thought to sink in. Thanks again

 

Rereading my post i realize it was inspired by what I quoted about eliminating one sense as the key. Pondering the idea some more brings up some things I feel I should share. If anything the idea that anything that could potentially be a key, starting the internal inquiry process, barring monkey minds endless dialog, could potentially result in realization.

 

Egg "We're going down there!"

Jack Burton "Down where Egg!?"

Egg "Where is the Univese?"

 

My very First lessons involving senses that I can remember included a darkend room.

 

0. Sit quietly in a dark room, any room, and observe every sound you can here from inside to outside. Verbalize to your partner.

1. Locate partner by sound while he walks around and pauses briefly in different positions.

2. Locate stationay partner by sound after you have spun around a few times and have lost orientation.

3. Physically locate partner after each relocation.

4. After light returns, discern any change in the room, purposeful or not.

5. Porposefully make one change in the room while lights out. Partner identifies.

6. Porposefully make a variety of sounds in which partner identifies. I.E. teakettle lid opening, doorknob twist, dust whisp across a mantle.

 

These exercises seemed to exercise a variety of senses usually subjegated by vision and on the peripheral of awareness in general. This is just one group of exercises. There are endless themes which good methodology builds upon once a foundation is established.

 

Spectrum

[lino]

I'm starting to reconsider my answer because I sit down on the zafu and zabuton...

 

BUT I conduct it as more of a radical (buddhist) breathing exercise that is meant to obliterate blockages.

[sean]

*bump*

 

It seems like no matter what I cannot get myself to meditate every single day. I realized today that at least a few times a month I find some excuse not to meditate, even when I am totally in love with meditation and meditating 4-5 hours a day.

 

I think I read somewhere, maybe Steve Pavlina's article 30 Days to Success, that 30 days of daily practice is a decent block of time to test out and begin installing a habit. Then Lezlie tells me (via unknown sources) that if you can get yourself to do something, ie: exercise, every single day for 6 months, you pretty much alter your brain to almost effortlessly want to repeat that habit every day for the rest of your life.

 

So I am drawn to challenge myself to meditate every single day 30 for days -no more excuses- and see what comes up. What little demon lies in those days I take off?

 

I was using Joe's Goals to track some of my daily goals, but via Jerry Seinfeld's Productivity Secret I found this cool tool new tool, Don't Break the Chain.

 

I added custom bbcode if anyone wants to embed theirs into a post, ie: in their practice journal. Basically register at the site and when you got it all setup, click the "Add To Your Blog" link at the very bottom. Copy the script into notepad. Look at the link after src=" and copy and paste everything after the share_js/ and before the next quote. Here is an example:

 

[dontbreakthechain]somlor/last-four/5411[/dontbreakthechain]

 

And here is what that code produces when put into a post.

 

[dontbreakthechain]somlor/last-four/5411[/dontbreakthechain]

 

That is dynamically updated and shows the last four weeks of my 60 minute meditation chain. If you are catching this as I post it, at the end of October 2007, you'll notice a conspicuous lack of Sunday meditation. Oh yeah and just ignore that whole first week of October too. I was at a business conference out of town and, uhhh, hate meditating in hotels. Dammit you caught me in a bad month!

 

 

Sean

[Ian]

I've missed one day in the last twenty months. It's mainly unspoken emotional blackmail of me by me that keeps it going: it's just not negotiable because if I don't do it I'll hate myself so much that all kinds of ancient negativity will rush my fences.

 

Some days it's easy, most days it just is, a few days I really don't want to. But it's like training a child: I know it's got to be done, so I don't bother to argue.

 

The one day was at Glastonbury Festival: it had been raining for three days and there was nowhere sheltered to stand that wasn't packed full of dank, grimy, wretched humanity.

[SFJane]

let's see

 

When I started really trying to sit in stillness instead of doing some kind of internal chi gung like heavenly orbit I was 21 or 22. I could not sit for ten minutes. Somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes in my insides would go off like a bomb. I had such noise that my first attempt to really make everything in my being quiet scared the crap out of me almost to the point of giving up. It was like flying into a Cat 5 hurricane on the night side of the planet.

Such noise and sound, lights going off in my head. A sense of the wind everywhere in me. It was very intimidating.

 

Since I could not meditate at first I stuck with chi gung and tai chi. I would do a routine or a form. Then try to sit again. Bit by bit, day by day I kept at it. I found myself accidentally meditating during the moving tai chi form. I would end the form, stand, then sit. One of those attempts found me sitting for 20- 30 minutes. I was like AHA!

 

So..using tai chi and chi gung I meditated through the back door so to speak. Tai chi enabled me to take up sitting. Once I could sit for 30 minutes things really started proceeding apace.

 

That 30 minutes became an hour. A year later that hour became four. A year later that 4 hours could be extended as far as I wanted. I would do tai chi for an hour, and then sit for 8 hours, easily. By following the Water method of not striving while remaining persistent and being gentle and forgiving to myself, by following the 70% rule and erring on the side of caution, I avoided the burnouts I experienced in my teens.

 

By the age of 25 I could easily and effortlessly sit for 12-14 hours, which I did every day for weeks at a time, before taking time to do more moving practices to balance myself out.

 

These days I do not need to meditate every day to keep the lens clean. I do, I sit nearly every day because I can not not do it. I love it too much. It is so good and so fulfilling to have gained inner stillness after 25 years of noise in my head that I indulge in quietude all the time.

 

Now in my 30s on an average day I sit for 1-2 hours or so. Always start at 4 am. At least once a week, I sit for the entire day. 4 hours, break for 30, 4 hours, break for 30 and 4 more hours. There is not a particular schedule for the long sit day, it just happens when I get completely comfortable inside.

[Smile]

Now in my 30s on an average day I sit for 1-2 hours or so. Always start at 4 am. At least once a week, I sit for the entire day. 4 hours, break for 30, 4 hours, break for 30 and 4 more hours. There is not a particular schedule for the long sit day, it just happens when I get completely comfortable inside.

Nice... I need to do more of the "whole day" thing. Only for me, 1 hour brakes in between are far more practical.

Normally, it's 1 hour on, 1 hour off, from 7 am to 12 midnight.

 

Also the chain method using a calendar looks interesting. How about using this instead of a calendar?

Edited November 1, 2007 by Smile

[Bum Grasshopper]

*bump*

 

It seems like no matter what I cannot get myself to meditate every single day. I realized today that at least a few times a month I find some excuse not to meditate, even when I am totally in love with meditation and meditating 4-5 hours a day.

 

 

Perhaps you are meditating too long. I had the same problem with Chi Kung practice until I read that 5 minutes a day is better than 5 hours once a week.

 

In this hectic world it is tough to fit 4-5 hours of practice in every day. Try to do at least a little every day.

[Stigweard]

Bump