Looking for some meditation advice

[Andromeda]

Hi Guys, I've been having a hard time doing my daily meditation practice. I've been doing this practice for about 6 years. Every morning I sit down in half lotus for about 30-45 minutes using techniques like focus on the breath, doing nothing, awareness of sensations and turning consciousness in on itself. At times, my practice goes quite well, resulting in me taking the peacefulness with me into the rest of the day. But most often, my sessions are just a whirlwind of a billion thoughts and I sit there in complete distraction, feeling like I do not benefit from the session in any way. I can manage to remain aware so that I do not get completely lost in the thoughts, but I just hardly ever find quite and peace. My goal with the practice is to find peace and quite, to relax, so that I can feel more free. 

Some context: I have a really hard time concentrating. I can only really focus on things that I enjoy very very much, all other things are hard for me to focus on. This causes troubles with reading for example. I probably have ADD, given all other symptoms I have. 

I am looking for some advice. What should I try? I was thinking about maybe trying a type of yoga that requires getting into positions (I tried Krya but run into the same issues as with meditation). Do you guys have any other recommendations? Much appreciated. 

[GreenWoods]

Try Transmissions. They can ramp things up.

Sat Shree has free group transmissions on zoom every morning. If you live in America then the time might fit your schedule.

With transmissions it is not very important to be focused and present, but to be sensitive and open. Once you made the connection with the transmission energy and it starts really working for you, then you could be in complete monkey mind and the transmission would still work, it would put you into deeper meditation and cause bliss, nondualness and peace and maybe also a peaceful mind.

 

If you want to bruteforce strengthen your focus abilities, you could try mentally chanting something like "aware" constantly during meditation. It still requires focus, but it becomes much easier to stay focused, because it kind of prevents other thoughts and constantly reminds you of the task.

The faster you repeat "aware" the easier it becomes to remain aware.

You could start the session with 30 times per 10 seconds to exhaust the mind. Then 20 times for a fast pace and then 10 times for a slow pace. 

Once your concentration becomes better, after weeks or months, you can then lower it to 5 times per 10 seconds. And then to normal breath focus. And then to observing your thoughts.

Edited March 19, 2022 by GreenWoods

[mojsterr]

I found out that I was constantly pushing away my distracting thoughts, even though everything I've ever read about meditation says to just let them be. I thought I understand this and this is what I was doing, but I was not.

One day I had enough of this constant struggle and tried a different approach - when a new thought came I said I'm gonna view it as a child. I started looking at it as each thought that comes and demands my attention is a different child inside me that came to tell me something that IT thought was very very important. But it was only important for it, I had other plans. So I always imagine me as being in the middle  of a room hundreds of children coming into my mental room (the empty space where I see myself in my mind) yelling "Heeey, look at me, I have something very important to tell you! You need to know this!". And to children, as we know, everything is important.

So in my mind I was like a father or a mother who smilefully listens to his child (because children need to be heard) and then I say "That's great, I like very much that you told me this." - and I'm just really appreciative, so the child sees he was heard. And once he is heard, I see him happily not having anything else, since his goal of telling me has been reached,  and goes aways or now just sits with me in that mental room and we sit in quiet together.

After that is done, another thought comes - this is now a different child/person (whatever you feel it to be) - also having something very important - for him! I as a mother/father have heard them all, but I need to give my child the feeling that he is appreciated and heard. So I listen to him tell me what he came to say, and shower him with compassion (again - "How wonderful that this has happened to you, wow.") - and now that child is satisfied.

Now I have two happy appreciated children in the same room besides me. They've exhausted what they had to say, now they just exist there with me, and we sit.

Until the third child comes and the whole story repeats...

 

The point is giving each and everyone your complete love and compassion. Every single one needs to be heard. That's why they come.

 

And this was the first time I realized what it means to acknowledge your thoughts and just let them be. And I've really read this so many different times but I never trully understood it. And it's tricky, because you think you understand because it's not rocket science, right? Funny.

 

So I needed to make this mental trick through this visualisation. Until then thoughts always came and my mind was like "Oh what now? Yeah ok that's nice, now please be quiet, I'm working on something imporatant here."

I wasn't really agitated, but you understand - it was something not wanted. This was not letting it be, but me trying to quiet it down. And when you want to push something away, we know the harder it keeps coming back. So my focus was really not meditating but waiting when the new thought would come so I can shoo it away. I just thought that was meditation.

 

In the end there were a lot of children in the room with me. Each one said it's thing and now satisfied and depleted of that energy, quietly sat down and was quietly enjoying it's space with me.

Then perhaps some child that is already sitting there would have another just WONDERFUL idea he just had to tell me. And I would again smile and say "Oh really? Wow." And it was happy again and I was happy again.

Since this is my view of a perfect parent, I wanted to be a perfect "parent" to my thoughts aswell.

 

And the thing is, each time you give that thought your love and compassion - "For telling me such a wonderful story!" - you yourself become more and more joyuous. Each time I gave my love to it I got that same love back and it kept adding up. Until at one moment I came into a very relexed state and very loving state. You let the thought do its thing and then you return to what you were doing, this time a tiny bit happier.

I've had some succes before with meditation and forcing it "till you make it", but this was the first time it felt different than all other practices.

And that love stuck with me after the meditation for some time, which it never lasted before.

 

This was my trick, perhaps you can try with something different, something more personal to you.

To me it's just a cacophony of voices - or children - running around in my head and I just let them run themselves out of energy.

It's counter intuitive, because you desperatly want to quiet them down, but you should be doing the opposite. And the peace comes by itself. You don't search for it, it just dawns on you slightly each time more and more.

 

Hope you find your way.

 

Edit: Oh yeah, and it does take its time. And once in the future everything will be immediate, you'll be better and better at it. The children will have told you all they had to say and it will be much more quieter. They grow up so fast.

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by mojsterr

[mojsterr]

As someone here wrote a few days ago:

"The Buddha didn't medidate, he just sat down with his thoughts." - something like that.

So he just sat there , observing and not judging, and meditation came by itself.

 

 

But we hear the word meditation and think this is something that we have now to do, but I would say meditation is the result, not the doing.

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by mojsterr

[Andromeda]

@mojsterr That's great advice, thank you for sharing this. Funny, I was just taking a walk and got the insight that from the perspective of consciousness, I (the ego/identity) is like my own child. So I am my own child in a sense. This insight left my with a sense of self-love. I think this will apply greatly to thoughts as well. It is indeed not necessary, even counterproductive, to resist the incontrollable, just like with thoughts. 

[gettoefl]

what happens in meditation is none of your business

[A Fellow Lighter]

Personally, I don't do anything fancy. I just sit in a manner that I know it won't be easy to fall asleep from. Then I just be with myself. I get tempted to daydream or lie down or maybe get up entirely. The work here is just to redirect your focus whenever you sense it shifting. And I enjoy it (meditation) if I may add.

[JonasVE12]

 

10 hours ago, Andromeda said:

Hi Guys, I've been having a hard time doing my daily meditation practice. I've been doing this practice for about 6 years. Every morning I sit down in half lotus for about 30-45 minutes using techniques like focus on the breath, doing nothing, awareness of sensations and turning consciousness in on itself. At times, my practice goes quite well, resulting in me taking the peacefulness with me into the rest of the day. But most often, my sessions are just a whirlwind of a billion thoughts and I sit there in complete distraction, feeling like I do not benefit from the session in any way. I can manage to remain aware so that I do not get completely lost in the thoughts, but I just hardly ever find quite and peace.

My goal with the practice is to find peace and quite, to relax, so that I can feel more free. 

Why do you not feel free and relaxed in your daily life? What are your struggles? You obviously have some aversions in your life, and depending on these aversions, the way you are using meditation might not be right for releasing those aversions. Meditation is always good and in my opinion, essential, but there are so many ways to use meditation. Most people are meditating out of their body and polarizing themself more from their internal world, which builds resentment. 

Meditation works mostly when done with consistent awareness, concentration and a strong long term intention / commitment. If your intention is not strong enough, your mind will wander easily. If I say to myself, I am going to meditate consistently with full focus and intention, I am going to subconsciously build a pattern of becoming aware more frequently. Meaning I will check in more frequently If I am still meditating correctly or if I got lost in thought stories. You have to make a strong decision to not half-ass meditation. It is not just enough to sit down for 30 minutes and then let yourself go. You need steady control.

Second it is important to meditate with your consciousness in the body, instead of above the body or in front of the body. You want meditation to be a body centered experience. Aversions always exist as energetic and somatic patterns that are found it the body. And if you meditate with awareness outside the body, you will never come in contact with them. Thoughts are always the result of these contractions in energy systems in ur body. Working on the level of thoughts is insignificant. Focus on the body and thoughts will align eventually. 

Quote

Some context: I have a really hard time concentrating. I can only really focus on things that I enjoy very very much, all other things are hard for me to focus on. This causes troubles with reading for example. I probably have ADD, given all other symptoms I have. 

I am looking for some advice. What should I try? I was thinking about maybe trying a type of yoga that requires getting into positions (I tried Krya but run into the same issues as with meditation). Do you guys have any other recommendations? Much appreciated. 

Ability to focus is like building muscles. Get away from the belief that you have ADD. Fix your diet, spend less time with electronics and get more in touch with your body. Ground yourself more into nature etc. Get your priorities and overal long term focus in order and focus will become more accessible. Do not consume theory and information compulsively. That tends to make your mind ADD like. The more you get in touch with emotions, nature, the body, and introduce grounding and relaxation in the body, the more focused you will become. Try a daily focus practice and limit compulsive need for dopamine.

Also most importantly is to realize that meditation only is only a partial practice. Healing requires a very integrated approach with lots of different tools and modalities that harmonize. 

The do-nothing meditation is very powerful, but you have to do it beginning with focussing on the breath to center your awareness, relax all muscles in your body, and center your consciousness in your body and then let all tension go from the body. Do not put your consciousness in the head, go deep into the body. Feel the universe through your heart, pelvis, neck, legs, hands and feet. There you can work directly with your aversions. You want to create your own feelings true conscious will. It is called energetic modeling. You can first create your reality in your mind, outside your body. But then you want to bring it into the body. You want to feel your reality that you want to create through the body as if it is real. First in the mind, yes. Then in the body. Most people only create in the mind, which is fantasy. Change happens when the body is on board. The empire state building first was an idea in the mind, outside the body. Then people brought their heart and turn on on board and manifested it in physical reality. You can manifest anything in physical reality, if you first energetically model it in your fantasy world, then the body. Practice feeling a ball or some other physical object in your hand is if it was real. Then you can use that ability to energetically model your world where you experience these aversions, and then release them there, and then manifest the reality you wish in physicality. 

Edited March 19, 2022 by JonasVE12

[Carl-Richard]

Try upping it to 1 hour. For me, most of the magic happens past the 45 minute mark.

[Surfingthewave]

@Andromeda The fact that you have been meditating consistently for six years daily is a great achievement. 

I agree with @Carl-Richard - try intensifying your practice. How about a retreat? 3-7 days of meditation is a good way of doing this. Vipassana is the ultimate intensive or Shinzen Young has some good home treatment programmes if you want to stay at home. His advice is to retreat 1-3 times a year to intensify your practice and get professional guidance. 

Also look at getting specialist advice from a yogi/meditation instructor. If you have ADD there may be better techniques for you such as Strong Determination Sits or chanting. 

Other advice is bringing your meditation practice off the cushion and into your real life like micro "hits" throughout the day e. g. walking, washing up, working etc. 

Good luck. 

Edited March 19, 2022 by Surfingthewave

[Consilience]

How many meditation retreats have you gone on? 

[peanutspathtotruth]

On 19.3.2022 at 3:11 PM, mojsterr said:

As someone here wrote a few days ago:

"The Buddha didn't medidate, he just sat down with his thoughts." - something like that.

So he just sat there , observing and not judging, and meditation came by itself.

 

 

But we hear the word meditation and think this is something that we have now to do, but I would say meditation is the result, not the doing.

 

This and your other answer are profound, love it!

That's why I fell in love with simple being, just sitting. Funnily enough, now, after years, I'm reintroducing mindfulness/concentration practice from Culadasa because I feel my focus and clarity are not as developed. It feels much more strained than simple do nothing or inquiry, but: for me, this is not proper meditation. It's simply something else, it's mind training.

What you describe, and what I view as the essence of prayer and meditation and surrender and shadow work, is simply being, with love in your heart and no separation between anything - all is welcome because all is you. I feel like this and mindfulness, not having the same quality, ultimately both help to deepen insight, healing, harmonizing life.

[Andromeda]

Thank you all very much. I'll provide more in depth responses later.

I have never gone on a retreat, but am thinking about doing one in the future. 

Last two weeks I've been meditating to the transmissions. They work very well, even through a video. Also, I gave every thought some attention and noticed it's importance, which took away a lot of my frustration. I also sit for one hour now. It makes a difference for the rest of the day, I feel more at ease. Limiting the amount of moments I switch tasks also made me more calm and focused. 

 

 

[KingCrimson]

@Andromeda Dr. K of HealthyGamer has a lot of useful advice on these issues. You can find other videos, but perhaps this one would be a good start. I'm almost certain you would find this very insightful.

 

[Inliytened1]

@KingCrimson this is gonna be really helpful for my teen son...thanks ?