How to progress in my practice??

[woogyboogy]

Hello dear Bums…

I dont really post here, but Ive been a frequent reader for quite a while…

 

I come with a question concerning my meditation practice, as I feel at the moment I am kind of meditating into the unknown, and I could use some clues….

 

This post is a a bit lenghty, but I consider it as a necessity, as meditation is by its nature a topic of easy misunderstanding, and I want to avoid wrong judgements of my persona and practice.

 

Ill start with a short history of my meditation practice, so people know where I am coming from.

 

Ive started the journey 8 years ago, when I was 17 with reading books of the enlightenment crowd like Eckhart Tolle and Adyashanti. With these authors over the next years I had my first moments of stillness and deep felt tranquility, as well as glimpses about the nature of the mind. My meditation consisted mostly of sitting comfortably in a chair and just letting go or inquiring about mind. Some beautiful experiences where made at that time. Later on I started to study with a psychotherapist from the enlightenment crowd, where I did a lot of releasing stuck energy and mental blocks through embodiment practices. I also learned a style of Zhi Fa Gong, which resulted in Kunlun like movements. I consider these years of practice to be the most healing so far, and came out of it with a relaxed body, and a relatively still mind.  I then went through a period of experimenting with different methods, not a lot of formal practice, and also experimenting with being grounded in the body during everyday life and observing my internal movement in social situations. I am now 25 and since about two years am researching and experimenting with Qi Gong, Nei Gong and Daoism, and try to establish a disciplined way to get deeper into my meditation.

While the former years were a beautiful opening, and brought me tremendous healing, they didnt bring me a structured practice and straightforward path that I can continue day by day. Im not sure if that exists, but I am at least looking for some clues as to the next steps.

 

I am currently doing 10 minutes of Standing Posture every morning, followed by 30 minutes of seated meditation. I started to adhere to the principles of proper posture while meditating, and am happily surprised, that all the years of relaxation have allowed my neck and back to be properly relaxed while aligned properly, and holding the posture for a prolonged amount of time. Only my knees are a bit of a weak spot.

 

While sitting, I am switching between focus on the breath at the nostrils, to focus on the belly/where I believe my dantien to be, sometimes breathing into different parts of body and relaxing deeper, and sometimes just being still, letting go and observing the whole felt experience.

 

Two things I am unsure about…

First as you can see the whole thing is a bit messy, I follow flow during the practice, but am not sure if I should just stick to one or two things during a session. If so I dont know for sure which is most asked for, for progress?

 

Second, I kind of consider the letting go part and just being with the whole felt experience the measurement of attainment. Back when I was doing a lot of Zhi Fa gong, when I sat still there would be waves of movement inside my body, that wanted to produce external body movements as well. The mind was pretty much still, as it was coupled to the movement. These days, since Ive started to commit to sitting still, and doing standing posture, my energy is more centered. When I sit and let go my mind is still and dwells in the experience of a pretty stable energy body naturally mostly inside the whole torso. The thing is the energy feels very dense, without any specific points. I am more used to movement, and parts of lightness and parts of heaviness. Now it just feels like one big field, but its hard for me to feel out the specific quality (like vibrant or not). Also the mind is pretty much absorbed in this sensation as default. There are doubts coming up, if I should switch my intent from time to time to the part of mind in the head region that produces thought, because when I experiment for short time, I notice there are residual thoughts in the background, mostly doubts. I am not sure if I should/have to deal with them to progress further, or if it is okey to just stay with the energetic body sensation. When I give that residual thoughts some attention, I notice it produces ungroundedness.

 

So in general I am not really sure where I am at in this whole process, how to proceed correctly, potential blindspots and pitfalls.

 

My goals for practice are deepening of spiritual insight, opening and refining of the energy body, and ultimately full relisation/enlightenment, although I am in no rush to get there.

 

Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any insights, preferably from experienced meditators/cultivators.

 

Edited April 22, 2019 by woogyboogy

[Aetherous]

It sounds like you want some structure and guidance. For those things, it helps to find a tradition/teacher to practice from, where their end goals are aligned with yours.

 

How can we attain enlightenment by practicing random things that don't necessarily lead to that goal? Being unenlightened, we don't know how the goal is attained, or the way toward that goal...so we need a reliable guide's help if we truly want to be doing anything other than wasting our time.

 

This forum is a good jumping-off point. It helps (as I'm sure you're already aware) to do forum searches and see everything people have discussed about various path, to do Google searches, read books, attend local events, ask people you know who are part of different groups...basically be a seeker, leaving no stone unturned, and try to find the true path to enlightenment.

Then once you've found the way, do what it takes.

Even once you've found a tradition to be part of, you can still do whatever techniques help you on the side. But I would discourage the attitude of thinking we can achieve anything worthwhile without learning from others.

If you don't find a tradition or teacher...if you're genuinely seeking the truth, I think you will learn it in various mysterious ways.

[freeform]

Yup - basically what Aetherous says is spot on. 

 

But usually people are not happy to hear this advice. (I wasn’t!)

 

It’s often expensive and difficult to find a good teacher and it can take years of trial and error. But the reality is that if your aim really is enlightenment - there are far, far more difficult obstacles along the way - finding a genuine teacher (as hard as it is) is actually the easiest step

 

Otherwise it sounds like you’re at a good stage of practice for a teacher to enter your life... so just focus on that for a while and I’m sure you’ll do great.

 

 

Edited April 23, 2019 by freeform

[silent thunder]

such a simple joy.

teachers arise everywhere...

literally all about us...

 

nature always communicating.

 

are we listening?

and if we hear, can we comprehend?

[woogyboogy]

Yeah thanks to all you responding  

 

I can relate to what you guys are saying. I am looking for a teacher, have been looking the web, including this site up and down. And yeah its a search in the jungle. I have a couple people on my list though, that I want to check out in the next year or two.

Ive also been lucky to already have had a couple of valuable teachers in my life, they just dont suite exactly to what I am trying to accomplish at the moment, for my current steps in this process ( which is basically like Aeatherous said structure and guidance along the current steps). 

 

I am happy with my practice, but I am also utterly lost some days, as I keep switching between different modes and focus of and in meditation, and also doubts about proper practice coming up, which feels can be dispersing to progress and also stutter motivation...

[Taoist Texts]

On 4/22/2019 at 2:04 PM, woogyboogy said:

full relisation/enlightenment, although I am in no rush to get there.

why not?

[woogyboogy]

11 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

why not?

aii your spot on taoist texts. I felt a slight incongruence while writing that passage. It is a believe that I picked up early on, that striving towards enlightenment in itself can be a hindrance on the path. This believe found its way in here, without too much reflection if it is entirely correct. 

 

At the moment I focus more on daily progress in stillness and energy cultivation, so I can enjoy that, until enlightenment might or might not unravel it self one day.

 

Nevertheless Iam not opposed to a thunderstruck type of awakening either, I just dont want to (only) sit on my ass waiting. 

Edited April 25, 2019 by woogyboogy

[Taoist Texts]

1 hour ago, woogyboogy said:

striving towards enlightenment in itself can be a hindrance on the path.

not striving towards the end of the path means getting stuck on the path

[Toni]

Good luck man! I can't help you in your path unfortunately, as I am myself looking for a teacher. However I would suggest you to practice zhan zhuang for a longer period of time. It will give you nice benefits, physically and mentally. Try 15 min, then 20, then 25, and so on.

[woogyboogy]

9 hours ago, Toni said:

Good luck man! I can't help you in your path unfortunately, as I am myself looking for a teacher. However I would suggest you to practice zhan zhuang for a longer period of time. It will give you nice benefits, physically and mentally. Try 15 min, then 20, then 25, and so on.

Thanks for the suggestion! I do want to go into deeper practice with zhan zhuang, how ever I am not sure if my posture is aligned properly, thats why Im kind of weary to increase the time. While I am aware of all the key points one needs to work on, Its been a while since I had my last in person posture correction with zhan zhuang.

Edited April 25, 2019 by woogyboogy

[thelerner]

3 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

not striving towards the end of the path means getting stuck on the path

or enjoying the journey

 

 

ahh enlightenment.. its like soap dropped in a dark shower. 

you can look for it but if you stay under the water long enough

you get clean.

course that was told to me in prison, so it could be metaphor for something else.  

 

[Toni]

23 minutes ago, thelerner said:

or enjoying the journey

 

 

ahh enlightenment.. its like soap dropped in a dark shower. 

you can look for it but if you stay under the water long enough

you get clean.

course that was told to me in prison, so it could be metaphor for something else.  

 

Hey, have been in prison pal?

[thelerner]

24 minutes ago, Toni said:

Hey, have been in prison pal?

actually,

they haven't caught me yet

[freeform]

3 hours ago, woogyboogy said:

how ever I am not sure if my posture is aligned properly, thats why Im kind of weary to increase the time. While I am aware of all the key points one needs to work on, Its been a while since I had my last in person posture correction

 

You've got a good approach.

 

Check out Damo Mitchell’s school. They’re very good.

[Toni]

Damo Mitchell static posture is quite good. It is explained in his latest book

[freeform]

41 minutes ago, Toni said:

Damo Mitchell static posture is quite good. It is explained in his latest book

 

He has videos too.

 

But to make good progress you need feedback from teachers.

[Toni]

22 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

He has videos too.

 

But to make good progress you need feedback from teachers.

Does he have a video of his static posture? Where?

[Taoist Texts]

6 hours ago, freeform said:

Check out Damo Mitchell’s school. They’re very good.

oh-oh...all you need to know...

[freeform]

11 hours ago, Toni said:

Does he have a video of his static posture? Where?

 

Yup a whole 5hrs of mechanics. Have a search on their site

[freeform]

6 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

oh-oh...all you need to know...

 

 

You're as cryptic as the Texts these days

 

If you mean to suggest that I’ve not revealed much information about Damo’s school, you’re right - it’s not really up to me.

 

But in terms of publicly accessible teachers - he’s by far the best I’ve met. People are very fortunate to be able to train with Damo in such an open accessible way.

[Taoist Texts]

44 minutes ago, freeform said:

But in terms of publicly accessible teachers - he’s by far the best I’ve met. People are very fortunate to be able to train with Damo in such an open accessible way.

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Taoist Texts

[Toni]

1 hour ago, freeform said:

 

Yup a whole 5hrs of mechanics. Have a search on their site

Can you give a link? 

[freeform]

19 minutes ago, Toni said:

Can you give a link? 

 

I probably could - it would involve me searching around on google to find it - which I’m sure you can do yourself

[Toni]

I haven t find it

[freeform]

55 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:

 

 

If only the classics could communicate in memes eh!

 

I guess you’re re-airing your general disregard for teachers. Or at least teachers that aren’t just your interpretation of classical texts - that’s also a teacher in a way.