Meditation - How Do You Do It And What Are The Benefits To You?

[FindingPeace]

This is my first post on this forum. This forum is a fantastic idea and long awaited! I’m in the UK and I’ve been following Actualized.org for over a year now. It has given me the clarity and insight I have been looking for over the last 30 odd years. I always knew there was more to life than met the eye but I didn’t have the ‘keys’ to the doors that would let me out of the illusions we grow up in. This content was exactly what I was waiting for and aligns so well with my own critical thinking.

 

I’ve been meditating for just under a year now and consistently for the last 6 months. I commit to 20 minutes every day, sometimes longer. I also have extra ‘mini’ meditations during my day if I need to.

I am interested in hearing about the techniques that others use when meditating and the benefits they are experiencing as a result.

I use a technique whereby I combine thought ‘rejection’ and mindfulness. Either with my eyes closed or open I try to maintain my concentration and focus on the present moment, on the senses, but without ‘engaging’ in the sensory input. Just being aware of it. Whilst doing this my ‘thought-stories’ tends to stop and just brief, random, generic thoughts flash by – narratives or commentaries, which I also don’t engage with. Anytime I catch myself wondering off into thought-stories I refocus on the present moment and the senses. Focussing on breathing can be helpful too, although I try to half-focus on breathing and the other senses, particularly hearing and, if eyes open, sight.

As Leo says, you can’t stop thoughts from arising. But I have defined at least 3 kinds of thoughts. There are the thought-stories where you drift off in to an audio-visual world that plays out things that are on your mind, problems, past events, future events or fantasies. These I call the monkey-mind, the thoughts I want to quieten the most. Then there is the ‘voice’, the narrative or commentary that comes out of nowhere and passes some comment on the present situation. This I have learned to ‘cut off’ as soon as it starts. In fact, the ‘thought’ arises before the ‘voice’ describes it so there is no need for the voice to say anything. The last kind of thought is the completely random one. Disjointed and irrelevant to the moment. Apart from these the only other thing I have observed is a kind of background ‘noise’ that varies from day to day or throughout the day. Fundamentally I can't stop the more 'basic' thought but I can almost stop the thought-stories. Which is my greatest aim.

One of the weirdest things I have observed is that my thoughts are not 'me'. They don't come from 'me' and I cannot control what they are or when they will occur. In fact they sneakily creep up on me and hijack my conscious mind. It's odd, because they don't have any personality or identity. They are not 'me'. I guess this is an important realisation but as yet I'm not sure what it means. The other thing I have observed is that the thoughts serve no real purpose. Even if you think you are having a 'constructive' thought-story about some pressing issue, I find that, inevitably, the thoughts will be forgotten by the time the 'pressing issue' is addressed anyway. So in fact they are a waste of time and mental resource, not to mention a distraction from the present moment.

I find I can meditate in almost any environment. In fact if there is an ‘ambience’ it is better. I have actually found that by doing this in more busy or noisy environments has reduced my ‘trigger-ability’ to ambient events like sudden noises and disturbances (reminds me of Leo’s story about the wasps when he was  meditating and the ‘emotions lighting up like a Christmas tree. I’ve noticed this myself). It’s kind of like the ‘do nothing’ technique where you can observe a situation without engaging in it, without criticising, judging or expecting anything from it. I actually find it easier to meditate when there is some ambience to ‘observe’.

Most of the time I meditate in a quiet room at a specific time. But I also find it helpful when I am feeling anxious, stressed or emotional in some way – maybe I have been triggered by something. Just taking time out for a mini-meditation of 5 or 10 minutes just quietens the mind and the emotional body. It’s particularly helpful when I find I can’t sleep too. Getting up, arousing myself and taking 10 minutes to mediate and then going back to bed will almost always work.

The benefits I have noticed from my meditation is a reduction in stress and anxiety. Being far more comfortable and at ease in busy, loud or bustling environments. Far less reactive to things going on around me or even specifically to me. Less emotional reactivity and the ability to calm my emotional body. Feeling far more calm and relaxed and at peace in any situation particularly when doing nothing – like queueing or waiting, or sitting on a plane or train for hours, or in any environment that I’m not engaged with. In fact I can use these situation to do a mindfulness-meditation. I actually look forward to these situations and see them as opportunities to quieten the mind and be at peace in the moment.

So what do you guys do? What are the benefits you are finding? What really works and what doesn’t so well? And what have you learned about you own thought processes?

 

[Ramu]

My meditation is usually a breathing meditation of 10 deep breaths with a focus on being aware of where inhale ends and exhale begins and vice versa.  I've been doing this for awhile twice a day.  It quiets my popcorn maker mind and I feel my True Self or "presence".  I feel electric shivers down and up my spine.  Silence feels spectacular and the meditation has a residual effect.  As a result I use my mind when NEEDED and its not off thinking about irrelevant bullshit when I'm not engaged or just idle.  As a result in much more relaxed.

[FindingPeace]

Thank you for replying. As I have read around this forum it is interesting to see how different people's meditation experiences are.