how to develop visualization ?

[nine tailed fox]

guys tell me how can i develop my visualization ?

 

any course, book, personal technique, anything ?

 

i want to develop it to such an extent that it feels as real or more real than reality

[RiverSnake]

Initiation into Hermetics is a good book. His techniques heavily employ visualization. Aside from that just practice visualizing things.

 

My 2 cents, Peace

[Tibetan_Ice]

guys tell me how can i develop my visualization ?

 

any course, book, personal technique, anything ?

 

i want to develop it to such an extent that it feels as real or more real than reality

Hi NTF,

Do you want to develop crystal clear visions? Visions that are as clear or even clearer and brighter than normal reality?

Your mind does this naturally, it's just that you have many veils that are hiding the vividness, the clarity. By veils, I mean thoughts, emotions, sensations.. In Buddhism they refer to them as the five hinderances.

 

When you drop the veils, every thought, every imagination, every vision is crystal clear, bright and vivid.

 

So how do you drop the veils? You drop them through Shamatha, the practice of calming and stabilizing the mind while augmenting your awareness/interest/knowing.

 

A good book on Shamatha training/practice is "The Attention Revolution" by Alan Wallace.

 

TI

[Thunder_Gooch]

http://www.winwenger.com/ebooks/guaran.htm

 

imagestreaming imagestreaming imagestreaming.

[Maddie]

Speaking of visualization. In another thread I had mentioned how I've just sort of gotten back into qigong organ meditaion and that today I worked on my Liver. I noticed that it was harder and took longer to make the Liver glow brightly its color (green) as opposed to the other organs I'd done earlier this week. hmmm....

[Thunder_Gooch]

Visualization is great for knowledge, not so much for doing things with energy.

 

In my opinion energy should be felt, and not visualized, meaning you feel it's movements, even then only in a deep state of trance.

Edited May 10, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[Maddie]

Visualization is great for knowledge, not so much for doing things with energy.

 

In my opinion energy should be felt, and not visualized, meaning you feel it's movements, even then only in a deep state of trance.

 

I agree it should be felt too. What I've noticed is after I visualize it for a while, I then start to feel it. Every time I do these kinds of meditations eventually I start to feel all sorts of tingling and buzzing in that area.

[silent thunder]

I agree it should be felt too. What I've noticed is after I visualize it for a while, I then start to feel it. Every time I do these kinds of meditations eventually I start to feel all sorts of tingling and buzzing in that area.

 

 

Visualization is great for knowledge, not so much for doing things with energy.

 

In my opinion energy should be felt, and not visualized, meaning you feel it's movements, even then only in a deep state of trance.

 

I found a solid, basic book for working on tactile visualization. It might be useful.

 

Energy Work: Robert Bruce

http://www.amazon.com/Energy-Work-Secrets-Healing-Spiritual/dp/157174665X

 

It's focus is on using physical stimulation to engage attention with a physical sensation. No mental image projection.

Once the attention is on the sensation, the stimulation is removed and you use your attention to continue the sensation.

 

Simple exercise:

Lay your left hand on your lap, palm up.

Take a soft brush or the fingers of your opposite hand.

Close your eyes and gently brush your palm and fingers.

Focus attention fully on the sensations in your left hand.

Do this for one minute, or until you are fully focused.

Stop brushing the hand.

Now brush the hand with your attention and focus on sensations.

Once that is established you can begin to play.

Change the speed, direction, nature of the touch etc.

 

I find that using tactile visualization often brings about very clear mental imagery, but I don't seek it or feed it.

 

Eventually you will just put your attention on the palm, or joint, muscle group, organ etc, and the response will be clear.

Energy flows where attention goes.

 

It's a solid book of fun, simple exercises, explained by a great guy.

[yondaime109]

Try journey visualization

 

 

Simply close your eyes and go on an adventure for 10 minutes.

 

 

[nine tailed fox]

Hi NTF,

Do you want to develop crystal clear visions? Visions that are as clear or even clearer and brighter than normal reality?

Your mind does this naturally, it's just that you have many veils that are hiding the vividness, the clarity. By veils, I mean thoughts, emotions, sensations.. In Buddhism they refer to them as the five hinderances.

 

When you drop the veils, every thought, every imagination, every vision is crystal clear, bright and vivid.

 

So how do you drop the veils? You drop them through Shamatha, the practice of calming and stabilizing the mind while augmenting your awareness/interest/knowing.

 

A good book on Shamatha training/practice is "The Attention Revolution" by Alan Wallace.

 

TI

 

and it takes years to achieve shamtha, what about that ?

[nine tailed fox]

I found a solid, basic book for working on tactile visualization. It might be useful.

 

Energy Work: Robert Bruce

http://www.amazon.com/Energy-Work-Secrets-Healing-Spiritual/dp/157174665X

 

It's focus is on using physical stimulation to engage attention with a physical sensation. No mental image projection.

Once the attention is on the sensation, the stimulation is removed and you use your attention to continue the sensation.

 

Simple exercise:

Lay your left hand on your lap, palm up.

Take a soft brush or the fingers of your opposite hand.

Close your eyes and gently brush your palm and fingers.

Focus attention fully on the sensations in your left hand.

Do this for one minute, or until you are fully focused.

Stop brushing the hand.

Now brush the hand with your attention and focus on sensations.

Once that is established you can begin to play.

Change the speed, direction, nature of the touch etc.

 

I find that using tactile visualization often brings about very clear mental imagery, but I don't seek it or feed it.

 

Eventually you will just put your attention on the palm, or joint, muscle group, organ etc, and the response will be clear.

Energy flows where attention goes.

 

It's a solid book of fun, simple exercises, explained by a great guy.

 

actually i have tried his course

 

not my cup of tea

[h.uriahr]

Damo's Cave is a good one.

[yondaime109]

Journey Visualization is actually pretty intense. You travel anywhere you want and go on adventures inside your own head.

[DragonsNectar69k]

Hahhaha. The thing about opening the third eye is well, you will see things differently for one and you may not like what you see at all.

 

It usually happens if you keep cultivating, I was told one needs to raise their energy level to open it properly. Doing it through magick or ritual and cause bumps on the path as well as entity issues that can leave your sight third eye sight blind and bias apparently.

 

I am sure there is a Buddhist meditation for this, but seek to cultivate awareness basically. Open your eyes, take a snap shot of your surroundings, close your eyes and imagine where you are physically. This can help.

 

Also, are you familiar with kitsunes? Nine tailed fox?

[Seeker of Wisdom]

 

and it takes years to achieve shamtha, what about that ?

And do you want to achieve anything actually meaningful in your cultivation? You won't become an Immortal/Buddha/Jivanmukta/etc. solely by being great at visualising stuff after a few weeks or months practice.

 

It's cool to have smaller goals along the way, but ultimately why not aim for the pinnacle: to become a being with full realisation of the nature of existence; unshakable virtue; with the mental luminosity of 1000 suns; mental clarity and vastness of the space pervading the universe; on a level beyond levels, beyond comprehension, that makes Tesla, Chuck Norris and Ghandi combined look like an ant?

 

It takes years to achieve shamatha. People can dedicate years to learning the guitar, which is far less worthwhile. Why not dedicate years to a profound mental training that will bring you far closer to liberation from craving, delusion, and ill-will, i.e. nirvana!

[RiverSnake]

Damo's Cave is a good one.

[Protector]

Read books

[ChiForce]

Hi NTF,

Do you want to develop crystal clear visions? Visions that are as clear or even clearer and brighter than normal reality?

Your mind does this naturally, it's just that you have many veils that are hiding the vividness, the clarity. By veils, I mean thoughts, emotions, sensations.. In Buddhism they refer to them as the five hinderances.

 

When you drop the veils, every thought, every imagination, every vision is crystal clear, bright and vivid.

 

So how do you drop the veils? You drop them through Shamatha, the practice of calming and stabilizing the mind while augmenting your awareness/interest/knowing.

 

A good book on Shamatha training/practice is "The Attention Revolution" by Alan Wallace.

 

TI

Don't forget the 5 skandhas. They are sticky and clinging. To uncling them. To let the 5 hinderance subsided. Samadha would come. Clear thoughts and clear visions appear. Vision becomes reality with an objective truth.

Edited May 12, 2013 by ChiForce

[ChiForce]

and it takes years to achieve shamtha, what about that ?

Yeah and so...no one said cultivation is easy. Don't even use the word visualization. That's a clumsy way to explain visual thoughts arising from some objective truth because your mind can see and connect to the origin of human consciousness..... the One Mind. Knowledge comes to you because your mind can see the path of causality or dependent originations.

[Tibetan_Ice]

and it takes years to achieve shamtha, what about that ?

 

According to Alan Wallace, the average person, with a toned down environment (no TV or activities which are too simulating), with diligent practice (3 to 4 hours a day) and by maintaining mindfulness between sessions, can achieve samatha in about 6 months. He also mentions the 'degree of ripeness' concept, where some people will achieve it sooner with not much effort, and others may take years to achieve, if ever..

 

Shamatha is a great help for visualization.

 

The other thing that you can do is practice visualizations. Practice every chance you get. Imagine a tic-tac-toe board in your head. Play the game. Keep the visualization going. It is easier to visualize things in motion than static visualizations, because unbridled awareness jumps to moving objects first; imagine a colored disk moving up with the in-breath and moving down with the out-breath. It is much easier to maintain that than to imagine/visualize a colored disk that is not moving.

 

Buddhism has many visualization meditation practices, as like meditation/visualization with the kasinas (colored circles), or guru yoga (visualizing a guru in front of you). Even tonglen, in which you visualize breathing in all the dark and suffering from humanity into your heart and then transmute it into love and sending it back out from your heart to all sentient beings is a form of visualization.

 

Practice. Imagine, visualize, practice. Hone your concentration. Learn to relax the mind and focus on the task at hand. The more relaxed you are, the easier the visualizing becomes. But when the mind is producing many distracting thoughts which whisk away your attention, you will come to realize that taming the mind is a noble and rewarding endeavor.

 

I've also read about taking a picture of a guru, gazing at it and 'memorizing' every detail and then closing the eyes and recalling the image as a bonified practice. You do that regularily for weeks until you can clearly see the whole picture in your mind's eye.

 

Learn about the different components of attention, and the fact that you can control them, make them more intense or diminish them. For example, "interest" is something that you can control yourself. Most people let it move without volitional control; it flits about based on desires and motivations. You can learn how to increase your interest; it is something you can control. There is nothing more boring than watching the breath. The mind hates it. But if you augment your interest in it, by watching it intently, watching how long one in-breath is compared to the out-breath, watching the point where the in-breath switches to the out-breath, watching to see if you can see any light in the breath, etc etc.. you can trick your mind into becoming more interested. Gradually, you come to realize that "interest" is controllable and trainable. So is attention, will and vividness.

 

The three components of shamatha that you work on are relaxation, stability and vividness. When the vividness comes, it is very neat. You need the relaxation part because the tension that is created during heavy concentration is detrimental. Relaxed and effortless is the goal. The stability part means that you can maintain relaxed focus on the object continually, without distraction, as a constant flow.

 

Another method of developing visualization is through dream yoga, or becoming conscious in your dreams. That is another subject..

 

And, if you'd like, try this. Imagine an orange. Notice where it appears in the space of the mind. Keep the attention on the orange until it dissolves and then maintain your focus on the place where the orange was. Now, visualize an apple. Notice the location. Once you see where exactly the camera exists in the space in your mind, go up higher from that location. Move your attention higher up, above where the orange or apple appeared. Now imagine an orange again. If you do this right, you will see that the region above where the dull, lackluster orange appears, is much brighter, clearer and crisper. It is like there is a high definition TV which is sitting 'above' the low resolution tv that you normally use. It is in the space of the mind which is above or higher.. In other words, there is another cave in the space of the mind, which you will eventually find when you practice resting the mind, shamatha. In it, the visualizations are stupendous.

 

TI

Edited May 11, 2013 by Tibetan_Ice

[Maan]

Hi Tibetan Ice,

 

Do you know by experience or by other's experiences that 4 hours of practice a day could be enough to achieve samatha? I recal reading in one of Alan Wallace's books that it required a full time commitment, probably like 8 or 10 hours a day, and that only very fee people achieved shamatha...

 

Thanks,

M

[JustBHappy]

Feeling.


Get the heart and emotional power involved. Developing the feeling of being, and experiencing is much much more powerful and important than focusing on the visual aspect.

[Tibetan_Ice]

Hi Tibetan Ice,

 

Do you know by experience or by other's experiences that 4 hours of practice a day could be enough to achieve samatha? I recal reading in one of Alan Wallace's books that it required a full time commitment, probably like 8 or 10 hours a day, and that only very fee people achieved shamatha...

 

Thanks,

M

Hi M,

I achieved shamatha several times, but not by meditating 4 hours a day. However, I have been meditating in one form or another for over 41 years, so that's not saying much.

 

I do not know of anyone else personally whom has achieved shamatha, but I'm sure there are many.

 

The concept that a beginner, someone who is just starting out will achieve shamatha in 6 months by spending 4 hours a day meditating is mentioned by Alan Wallace in one of his 30 Dzogchen podcasts. Offhand, I do not recall which one. However, he is tailoring his talks to his specific audience. In the book "Stilling the Mind", he says this:

 

As suggested above, it is possible, if you are a person with very sharp faculties, to achieve shamatha in the first seven days, or in the second seven, or in the third. If so, you can move right on to the next stage, vipashyana. The reason for doing preliminary practices is to be able to so prime the pump that you can move through shamatha with relatively few cuts and bruises. So you may achieve quiescence with signs with any one of those three techniques or with a combination of them. But if you do not achieve shamatha after those twenty-one days—how come?

 

PSYCHOPHYSICAL OBSTRUCTIONS

“Some cannot calm their thoughts because the mind is so agitated, and they experience uncomfortable pains and maladies in the heart, the life-force channel, and so on. Those with unstable minds, with a wind constitution, or with coarse minds may fall unconscious or slip into a trance. Such people should relax and let thoughts be as they are, continually observing them with unwavering mindfulness and careful introspection.

 

Wallace, B. Alan (2011-08-23). Stilling the Mind: Shamatha Teachings from Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence (pp. 112-113). Wisdom Publications. Kindle Edition.

 

And then again, in "The Attention Revolution" Alan Wallace says this:

REFLECTIONS ON THE PRACTICE

How Long Does It Take?

How long does it take to achieve shamatha if one is well prepared and practices diligently and continuously in a conducive environment, with good companions and under the skillful guidance of an experienced mentor? As mentioned in the introduction, the Tibetan oral tradition states that under such optimal conditions, a person of “sharp faculties” may achieve shamatha in three months, one of “medium faculties” in six months, and a person of “dull faculties” may achieve it in nine months. This may well be true for monks and nuns who begin their shamatha practice after years of study and training in ethics. But in the modern world, this appears to be an overly optimistic forecast. Consider that five thousand hours of training, at a rate of fifty hours each week for fifty weeks of the year, is the amount of time commonly required to achieve expertise in a high-level skill. To reach an exceptionally high level of mastery, ten thousand hours may be required. If we place shamatha training in this context, it may give us some idea about the degree of commitment needed to achieve such attentional skills.

Wallace Ph.D., B. Alan (2006-04-10). The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind: v.ution (p. 162). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

 

As you can see, the achievement of shamatha is more dependant on the practitioner's qualities, character and skill level than the other factors such as 'length of time practising'. There are no guarantees. You have to try it for yourself.

 

TI

[Maan]

Okay, thanks a lot T I. I'm also working with gazing now, this seems to work much better at stilling the mind than e.g. Breath meditation. IT is also what they seem to use in raja yoga and dzogchen ( Norbu N).

[nine tailed fox]

what are some good gazing technique to achieve shamtha ?