How deep should sitting/emptiness meditation get?

[Neophyte]

If you lose awareness then you are no longer in the conscious state of wu wei and it is my opinion that this is what empty-minded meditation is all about.

 

Which, the former or the latter?

[Neophyte]

If a person can abandon all thoughts, but maintain awareness, can one still be in an alpha-wave brain state?

 

How does consciousness differ from awareness?

[h.uriahr]

Some of the most interesting experiences I've had were in the void. That moment when I lost track of my breathing and entered a state of awareness before sleeping. I wasn't asleep but I wasn't awake. I WAS. It was cool. My meditation alarm was a real bummer.

[de_paradise]

3 hours is a good time to aim for, I think it means that less than 30 is not going to bring much big league cultivation results. I'm about the laziest (lay on bed don't sit) and bliss loving meditator out there, so take my input with a grain of salt. Grasping or focus on the object (breath etc) is always present until you have attained some initial very deep levels of samadhi (check Nan Huai Chin for details on this). You can notice this grasping or clenching when you stop doing it and just drift without an object of focus, and the mind will feel free and good. Therefore you should not just let go of the object and just drift (except that thats what I always do because I'm lazy) because the object of focus is NEEDED to still the lower levels of mind. I am not talking about stilling the ordinary conscious chatter, but the stuff below that in the levels of unconcious mind. That is to say, there is much chatter going on in your mind that you are not aware of, but it can be stilled by one pointed conscious. That is why one pointed focus is called "wisdom" practice, because it allows you to step down the levels of subtle mind, where attaining conscious subtle mind IS wisdom. I read through Adya's book, and its a bit over-simplified for pros like us. He says that everything must be let go of. One must remember that the object should be maintained with great courage and intent, even as one feels one is going to fall asleep. Generally I stay at that level of just about falling asleep and drift, and its a kind of dangerous area of neverending unconscious bubbling of every experience or recorded event in the mind, but the reason I do so is because my qi or kundalini is extremely active at that point, so its like an energetic jacuzzi. Otherwise its stupidly parked there because there is no wisdom gained because the unconscious bubbling is a barrier to subtler states of mind.

 

One can also point one's intention to go deeper in meditation. It sounds so simple and easy, but that's the easy way down.

 

Finally I'd like to address the word "trance" In fact any five sense data, or mind object is already "trance" We are always in trance, we are perceiving the world in a trance. Just by slowing our brain waves is perhaps increasing the selectivity of the experience is still trance. Its trance trance trance, all the way to awakening of the pure state, which is reality.

[de_paradise]

Sorry, I need to define some terms so to make sense of where Adya's and most meditation teacher's "just let go of everything" is insufficient and confusing, and to address the OP.

"Drifting" is letting go of the meditation and the object and just spacing out. Drifting sometimes leads you to deeper levels of consciousness but usually it does not. You may think that sometimes your mind is empty of chatter but the problem is that that chatter exists on subtler levels of mind and will eventually kick in stronger and stronger--even though you do not perceive it. Therefore, if you have no object of focus you may be deluding yourself about the effectiveness of the meditation. You may think you have some empty mind type of meditation going, but there's perhaps lots chattering away under your awareness. You can only bottle that chatter with one pointed focus.

"Focusing the mind on the object" Clenching often thought of as bad, but it is a necessary evil until you have surpassed some samadhi states. When I say clenching, I just mean pay attention to the object in the lightest way, but there is still a mental activity needed so I call it clenching, because it somehow feels painful to even pay attention. If you don't pay attention to the object, you are just drifting. Often you can do a one-two punch, of a period of focus and a period of drifting. If you focus well you can drift longer and the chatter will stay subdued longer.

 

"Going deeper into subtle mind" This is the reason of the practice because consciously attaining subtle mind states is the very definition of wisdom. It should be happening naturally if you are not clenching too much or drifting too much. Because meditation is defined as deep relaxation and you need that mental relaxation to go deeper into the subtle mind. So at the very least you need to relax your mind, and I just find it easier to relax the mind if the body is relaxed. This is because the subtle energies speed up and guide the mind deeper instead of the mind guiding the subtle energies deeper. So in the physical practice we do, we do it so the body can relax and the subtle energies can flow faster and better, therefore, can guide the mind to subtler states when we do one pointed focus practice.

 

Ok, I dont like posting long posts because I still consider myself a debutante.

[joeblast]

Still a very firm believer in rote attention to fundamentals of breath and awareness ad infinitum - once sufficient habit energy and amplitude potential exists, the ground is fertile for more subtle things. If you're going after more subtle things without first calming the surface of the water and not leaving it like the wave pool at wet n wild, you're just playing with your time. I agree with TM's sentiment on 30 min. If you're too bored to keep going after 30 min, you're not focusing enough on fundamentals, simple as that. Mind gongfu is built by application of body gongfu. Ongoing sessions of 30 min vs ongoing sessions of 2 hr, incomparable difference.

[h.uriahr]

Still a very firm believer in rote attention to fundamentals of breath and awareness ad infinitum - once sufficient habit energy and amplitude potential exists, the ground is fertile for more subtle things. If you're going after more subtle things without first calming the surface of the water and not leaving it like the wave pool at wet n wild, you're just playing with your time. I agree with TM's sentiment on 30 min. If you're too bored to keep going after 30 min, you're not focusing enough on fundamentals, simple as that. Mind gongfu is built by application of body gongfu. Ongoing sessions of 30 min vs ongoing sessions of 2 hr, incomparable difference.

 

Breath mechanics using reverse or normal belly breathing?

[joeblast]

Breath mechanics using reverse or normal belly breathing?

either produces the desired result