Meditation harm?

[ChiDragon]

Ah, this just made me remember, I need to watch that Wudang vid!

 

The way I see it, visualisation and mindfulness are incorporated within Taoist meditations...

 

Try the True Taoist Meditation with a vacuous mind. Your attempt was to clear/purify your mind without thoughts.

[Rara]

 

Try the True Taoist Meditation with a vacuous mind. Your attempt was to clear/purify your mind without thoughts.

I have to say, the previous one I learned has a lot to it...

 

Is there a place I can learn this one? Preferably guided/online...

[4bsolute]

Wow.

 

So I decided to stop "formally" meditating a couple of months ago and spend more time outside of work being out and about and generally doing things. This meant more time to practice my kung fu, see friends etc etc and generally, I've been feeling pretty good. I enjoy nothing more than occupying my time with useful things

 

But I started to feel a bit mindless, stubborn and angry in the past week. Only in small bursts, but I saw the signs early.

 

This morning, I sat down and decided to meditate for 30 minutes. Now I feel like absolute crap...the session just opened up a load of negative stuff in my mind and now I'm just totally overwhelmed by a mash of scatty thoughts. I feel exhausted and I've only been awake for 3 hours!

 

I feel demotivated, and upset as well. The thing is, I couldn't tell you what I feel upset about...I just fancy curling up in a ball, hugging a pillow and watching a film.

 

Anyway, gotta get to work, so no film, but I'm just wondering if anyone has any opinions on what is going on here.

 

Simply dont judge your experience. Goor or bad is equal. Negative is there to show you resistance, good is there to show you the way that goes a little smoother and faster (less misconceptions if it feels genuinely good and enriching).

 

Be humble, do not judge (or you alter your experience) and let go. Let go and let go again. Countless times. And through these actions you receive everything you will need. And this everything is so beautiful, your smaller egoic mind could not imagine.

 

Trust the process.

Edited August 6, 2014 by 4bsolute

[Rara]

 

Rule #1 you (as your limited Self, your ego mostly) do not judge your meditative experience or you will only seek pleasant experiences. And that means you are in opposition to your so called negative experienced and create more of those. Since this opposition has lots of energy in. God isnt interested in what you want or not want, he simply gives you (him) where your most attention, energy flows. Is that "No I dont want more negative" - God hears: "I want more negative" - *zing*

 

And those pleasant experiences are for the most individuals (me excluded) very rare in the beginning, since they have to go through lots of solving. Why do I exclude myself? Well it is how it is, I solved many issues in my life out of meditation and suffered there a lot and gained many insights. From the first moment meditating I sat and let everything happened and I get advanced and advanced, in a very pleasant way.

 

Keep in mind that I do not compare myself to you or to anyone, since that would only slow down my practice again. Key is to let go. And to let go and remember yourself to let go. And to let go again. And let go again. And so forth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh did I say, to let go? Yes, let go of everything.

Sure. Just a shame that it puts me in a rotten mood when I need to get through the day.

 

Well, I guess that will pass.

[C T]

that is why the most basic spiritual aspects are always needed as the default in state of being, because when the basics are solidly hard wired in one can't hardly slip any lower... without first destroying such wiring (so to speak) for themselves whereas if such basics were never really hard wired in in the first place then it's far easier to slide to a lesser state.

 

Btw CT my take is that the point of no return is the point of never sliding back, but most of us turn back from the point of no return being that such a payment is final and without refund.

I get your point about the hard-wiring, but one also has to consider that there are forces at work which will inevitably throw a spanner in the works now and again. This is what makes the spiritual path so interesting, in some ways. Sure, there's talk about irreversible enlightenment and what not, but for all intents and purposes, such wonderments seldom yield much in the way of practical progress.

 

Speaking of hard-wiring, lets reflect on sports for a sec. You can put the world's top two tennis players in a competition, and no matter what, the game will always yield a winner. There is no possibility of a draw. But that does not mean one is more or less hard-wired than the other. In personal cultivation its quite the same. Perhaps the only significant difference is that likely the 'opponent' in this regard are one's own mental workings which come in the form of habits, attitudes and general emotional placements.

 

A good way to regard our spiritual life would be to think how a master craftsperson regard an uncut diamond. Even if a wrong cut was made and the whole diamond has to be reshaped as a result, he is not worried for two reasons: firstly, he is confident in his skill, and secondly, he knows the diamond's essential worth can never diminish or harmed in any way.

[ChiDragon]

I have to say, the previous one I learned has a lot to it...

 

Is there a place I can learn this one? Preferably guided/online...

 

This is only method that I know is effective for me as a Chinese(please don't object to this). I don't think you will find anything guided online. As far as I know, if one concentrate fully on the deep, slow and long breathing, then, all the attention will be directed to the breathing automatically. Hence, there is no time for the mind to think of something else.

 

In your OP, it seems to me that you have not done enough concentration to direct your mind into the breathing. That is why you are having problem with you meditation. Never mind about the "Filling the heart and dan tien with qi". You just do the deep breathing method; and your body will take care the rest.

Edited August 6, 2014 by ChiDragon

[ChiDragon]

"Filling the heart and dan tien with qi"

Here is the immediate means to me with a scientific explanation:
"Filling the heart with qi" is not very clear what it is really saying.

Let me try to break it down with all my accumulated knowledge from the past. First of all, assuming that "qi" is energy, the question is does the heart fill with energy....??? In modern science, it is undeniable that the heart needs energy to pump blood. However, I don't know where people get the idea that the heart stores energy.

Now, where does the heart gets it's energy for contraction to pump the blood out....??? We know all muscle contractions get the energy from glucose and oxygen. This energy is known as ATP. For that said, "Filling the heart with qi(氣)" becomes "filling the heart with oxygen(氧氣)". Hence, the oxygen decomposes the glucose to produce the energy(ATP) for the cardiac muscle to contract.

In the case, "Filling the dan tien with qi"
It is simply a description for the feeling when the abdomen was fully expanded. At that instance, only the lungs are filled with air. Thus the imaginary phrase "Filling the dan tien with qi" becomes "Filling the dan tien with air". You see how the ideas can be changed by taken all things into consideration. Otherwise, we are always living in the dark and accepting all the fallacies as facts blindly.

[joeblast]

Why is it that one ' slides back' ?

it is because of the single true constant of the universe

 

CHANGE

 

 

Never are you in one spot. You're here now, there a second ago.

 

This is like saying why doesnt a singing bowl ring out forever when struck? Ringing is not its default state, even though that is exactly what it is designed to do. Reduce enough and it is simply friction that attenuates the ringing.

 

You can also liken cultivation to ringing the bowl, the pestle making circles around the bowl. The forces will either amplify or attenuate - and it is a game building a steady resonance and keeping it going.

 

Slip bang, pestle jumps from the side of the bowl! What did that just do to the resonance?

 

Or worse, someone winds up from across the room and throws a quarter at your bowl - how's that one going to sound, what's it going to do to the resonance you are cultivating in the bowl's sounding?

 

Disruptions in practice are just like this, they can serve to disrupt or hamper the resonances cultivated in meditation practices.

 

The deeper your practice goes, the more integrated into your life it becomes...foods that once tasted good are seen for the slop they are and your guts no longer like them, etc, etc, etc...

 

And how do you bring that resonance back to the bowl? Sing it!!! Sing it, let it rest and reverberate, sing it again, establish the habits. Your body is not all that different from a singing bowl in this regard.

[C T]

The deeper your practice goes, the more integrated into your life it becomes...foods that once tasted good are seen for the slop they are and your guts no longer like them, etc, etc, etc...

Now, that i know for sure!!!

 

Thumbs up to the rest of the post too!

[3bob]

Nice post...could you please elaborate on you last paragraph? I didn't quite grasp...

 

actually my earlier post was off since the hard wiring previously implied was only at the mind level, and the mind level can fail unless hard wired to the unfailing Spirit level... which may not be elaborating much which is fine since I'm not qualified to do so.

[Rara]

 

This is only method that I know is effective for me as a Chinese(please don't object to this). I don't think you will find anything guided online. As far as I know, if one concentrate fully on the deep, slow and long breathing, then, all the attention will be directed to the breathing automatically. Hence, there is no time for the mind to think of something else.

 

In your OP, it seems to me that you have not done enough concentration to direct your mind into the breathing. That is why you are having problem with you meditation. Never mind about the "Filling the heart and dan tien with qi". You just do the deep breathing method; and your body will take care the rest.

That's ok, this is another meditation I do as well The one I desceibed is just one I've been trying out and just so happened to do yesterday. Thanks for the advice.

[Rara]

 

 

Here is the immediate means to me with a scientific explanation:

"Filling the heart with qi" is not very clear what it is really saying.

 

Let me try to break it down with all my accumulated knowledge from the past. First of all, assuming that "qi" is energy, the question is does the heart fill with energy....??? In modern science, it is undeniable that the heart needs energy to pump blood. However, I don't know where people get the idea that the heart stores energy.

 

Now, where does the heart gets it's energy for contraction to pump the blood out....??? We know all muscle contractions get the energy from glucose and oxygen. This energy is known as ATP. For that said, "Filling the heart with qi(氣)" becomes "filling the heart with oxygen(氧氣)". Hence, the oxygen decomposes the glucose to produce the energy(ATP) for the cardiac muscle to contract.

 

In the case, "Filling the dan tien with qi"

It is simply a description for the feeling when the abdomen was fully expanded. At that instance, only the lungs are filled with air. Thus the imaginary phrase "Filling the dan tien with qi" becomes "Filling the dan tien with air". You see how the ideas can be changed by taken all things into consideration. Otherwise, we are always living in the dark and accepting all the fallacies as facts blindly.

 

 

Certainly makes more sense