Meditation

[a_lover_not_a_grower]

meditation i want to start but dont know where, can anyone point me in the right direction>

[Father McPot]

Get yourself a book to start off.

This site may help, someone from UK420 reccomended it to me.

[EnigmaticOne]

A brief google threw up lots of pages where you can get free cd's etc. There was also great info on wikipedia about it.

[Cooper]

Try and be conscious of your breathing as much as you can, no funny sitting positions needed thats a good start.

[Boojum]

There's a lot of different types of meditation, from transcendental meditation to creative visualisation & all points between, I'd read up on the various types (and aint the interweb great for stuff like this ) to find out which one suits you best, depending on what you wish to get out of it. At the most basic level simply clearing your head of all thoughts (far more difficult than it sounds, cos when you try not to think you end up thinking about not thinking, you just have to stop thinking - without falling asleep, which has always been my main stumbling block with meditation) is a form of meditation.

[ninorc]

Try and be conscious of your breathing as much as you can, no funny sitting positions needed thats a good start.

That's the one. I would advise you to aspire to assuming the lotus position, rather than start out kneeling as they teach @ the London Buddhist Centre. Realise that you are going to be sitting in this position for long periods and that cultivating good posture at an early stage will pay dividends in the future. If you can't find a 'meditation for beginners' class, ask a yoga teacher to show you how to sit properly: get your arse up as high as you like to being with, but try and get your knees on the floor, back straight, chin parallel with floor.

Then, do nothing. Don't try to think about nothing, but concentrate all you attention on the air moving on front of your nostrils. Do not chant any mantra or seek to evoke a visual image, just watch your breath. This technique is called Anapana. It is the first stage of Vipassana meditation, as taught by the Buddha, Gotama, 25,000 years ago and, these days by Mr S.N.Goenka. If you can't detect your breath in your nose, breathe a bit harder for a few breaths and watch the breath as it comes in and goes out of your nostrils. Don't try to affect the breath, but but focus all your attention upon it.

When you find your mind wandering, check your body and see how you feel before resuming your anapana meditation. Sit twice a day and try to extend the period for which you can sit without moving, watching your breath, from ten minutes to half and hour over a week or ten days. Meanwhile, peruse the vipassana web site. If and when you think you're ready to get stuck into some serious heads-down-no-nonsense-mindless-meditation and can spare ten days to learn properly, apply to sit a vipassana course. They also run in the Brighton area and East Anglia somewhere, as well as Dhamma Dipa on the Welsh borders and they don't charge.

Edited September 9, 2007 by ninorc

[Felix Dzerzhinsky]

I'd go with ninorc's style, it simple and probably the easiest way to start. It's the way I first learned and you can reach an incredible state of peacefulness really quite quickly, time just seems to slip by.

Good luck with whatever you settle on.

Felix.

[Culchi]

Meditation is not something to rush into - I suggest you sit down and think about it first.

e2a: sorry, but someone was bound to say it Check out your local tech and uni for yoga classes - most places have somewhere doing them - leisure centres there for the people - 10p to get in.

Edited September 10, 2007 by Nettle-Grower

[Guest Peppi]

heres the only meditation link you,ll ever need !!!!!

http://www.dhamma.org/

peppi

[Cooper]

Ninorc you agreed with me partially, i also said no funny sitting positions needed

cross legged on a bed after a spliff and falling asleep is ok too

[Sin Humo]

Try this book - http://www.headstuffbooks.com/

[AstroGreen]

ive been at it for years man, i think lotus position etc is very distracting for a beginner. its essential to be comfortable, you want as little physical stimulation to your body as possible. sitting or kneeling or whatever will stress your joints and cause pain if you arent made of rubber. solution: lie down. a carpeted room on the floor would be ideal- have a nice room temperature that is comfortable.

now the issue of clearing your mind- crack this and itll lead to all sorts of pleasant states. feel it for yourslef then read the books (if you want) and youll know what theyre talking about.

for some it helps to visualise a symbol; a marble, a bowling pin, -how about a cannabis seed? focus only on this- see it in your mind- as you relax with even breathing. you should be calmly breathing and taking longer exhaling than inhaling. dont think about it- let it come naturally. absorb the sounds around you but dont focus on them- birds chirping, pipes creaking, water drops falling somewhere- hear them but dont focus on any one of them. eliminate thoughts from your mind but dont worry if its tough- they will disappear more easily if you just relax and you can still reach a peaceful meditative state with a few odd thoughts rattling about in there.

after some practice you will not need the symbol in your mind- you train yourself to reach the desired state without it. usually you will notice that you need focus on it for shorter and shorter time until you dont need it at all.

patience and practice is all you need dude. its the most natural thing there is, not something that needs to be studied and analysed- just enjoy it

[kilgore trout]

id agree with ninorc, watching the breath is a great way to start meditaion, it is easy, costs no cash and ya can do it for five mins anywhere ya can sit down in peace.

just sit confortably and pay attention to the sensation of breath passing through ya nose, ya can even count and try to get to ten breaths without being distracted by any thoughts.

ya will be destracted, so when ya notice that ya have been distracted, whch is quite a chalenge in itself, bring ya attention back to ya breath, do not fight the thoughts that distracted ya, just let them drop and go back to ya breath

i found that counting ya breaths was a way to do the concentration/awareness practice with a goal in mind, first reaching ten with out distraction (which took me ages and ive lost the skill to do so now), then raising the number.

ya dont want to practice to hard, maybe ten mins every other day, at first.

the perpose of all this is to excersise ya concentration and increase its strength and will ventually give you the ability to choose what ya pay attention to, a great skill, and one essential for deeper meditation.

its the start of meditation, maybe, but not its purpose, the purpose of meditation is to all beings from suffering.

a way i found to understand what a clear mind is is to concentrate on the space between thoughts and enlarge that.

meditation is a hugely powerful practice and with a well developed concentration focused on any negative thoughts you can greatly increase those thoughts within ya mind.

also, as you practice more you will be harrassd by bad thoughts etc, as ya brain rebels at the idea of you finally taking charge, it will try to get ya to focus attention on thoughts, which, if you do, may increase negative aspects of yaself,

meditation aint to improve ya life, its meant to only be taken up to free all beings from suffering. meditation, done for any ego centered reason, will just massively increasse that ego

i know im being a kill joy here, but meditation used to only be taught in monestaries, and a vow to work to alieviate the suffering of all beings was an essential first step that had to be taken before meditation practice could begin.

ive done meditation just to find the truth, a selfish reason, and proberbly have suffered for it, but i now see why that vow ws seen as essential

[cozmic_vibes]

sit comfy hands placed in lap legs uncrossed without moving your head from that comfy postion look up to an imaginary spot on the ceiling and focus on that spot dont take your eyes away dont blink, now take three deep breaths gently inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth, on your third breath as you gently exhale slowly close your eyes and relax feel your burning eyes relax ,feel the muscles around your eyelids relaax and as you gently breath out you feel that relaaxed feeling spread over your face as you relaaax even more its spreads to your neck and as you gently breath out you relax even more all those muscles feel sooo relaaaxed and loose like a hand full of elastic bands all looose and limp your shoulders and so on and so on all the way down to your toes,when you get there tell your self to sit there for 1 min (to start with and build it up). Quietly without thought enjoying total peace . then gently and slowly youll start to become aware ov all your sences and surroundings dont rush it just relaaaax

ive found with group class and self meditation this to be one of the easier branches from the tree of self meditation

[AstroGreen]

kilgore, its great that you practice and have considered your reasons for doing so. i would disagree though, with some of what you say.

the purpose of meditation as you state it: "to free all beings from suffering", sounds a little off to be honest, unless you are interpreting your own statement in a very enlightened sense- and im not convinced you are. please forgive me if im wrong- it can be difficult to communicate ones personal spiritual experiences in the likes of a forum.

certainly you are not going to be attacked by your own negativity and somehow become more negative as a result. that sounds more like a conscious mind having a hard time with society and struggling with its place within it.

i dont like the idea that meditation is some subject that must be learned, some vow sworn before its practice commenced. its very off putting for a beginner who wants to get their feet wet, which is how this thread started. rather, my interpretation of what meditation is (im not about to attribute it a purpose) is a return to a more natural state. i suppose one way of looking at it would be a mental state similar to that of a newly born infant, who has no learned thoughts (hence we tend not to remember infancy or even pre-infancy for that matter).

if one frees their mind of thoughts and reaches that natural state at any level then they are doing well, have self-improved and have no reason to feel ashamed of either their motive or result.

meditation is relaxing and enjoyable, if you achieve nothing more than chilling out a bit then great, its better than not. like everything, it improves with practice and after a while you arent going to be windering about the whys and hows so much- if im forced to attribute a purpose to meditation then i might say simplt to "let go". vague and cliched? perhaps; also concise and profound. it will make sense if you give meditation a try without preconceptions.