I rarely meditate. I find it too difficult for my particular mind/personality type. The chronic pain doesn't help either. It becomes very difficult to ignore the pain once you stop doing anything. I'm constantly watching tv, visiting, cleaning, studying, etc. to help keep my mind occupied. I wear myself out, and go to bed once I'm tired enough to sleep despite the aches. If I can't fall asleep, that's the closest I get to meditative time... trying to seperate my mind from my body so i can find some peace.
What is meditation ?
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Aw, that's sweet Gilbert, thanks.
I feel bad, it's come up a lot this week. but, it was pertinent to the topic of this thread. *sigh* I just hate seeming like a whiner. I quit all of the forums I had belonged to for chronic pain, because I found it was people just constantly throwing themselves pity parties, never anything positive.... I try really hard not to do that. give me a gentle nudge if you notice me slipping into it. lol.
I feel bad, it's come up a lot this week. but, it was pertinent to the topic of this thread. *sigh* I just hate seeming like a whiner. I quit all of the forums I had belonged to for chronic pain, because I found it was people just constantly throwing themselves pity parties, never anything positive.... I try really hard not to do that. give me a gentle nudge if you notice me slipping into it. lol.
I think you're doing just fine for a youngun.
That's high compliments coming from you Gilbert, thanks.
I have never tried to meditate. I might try, don't know if I can, but maybe.
Somebody give me some "lessons" to get started.
I went to yoga with my daughter, (at her request) twice a week for about 4 weeks. Finally had
to quit. The instructor encouraged us to totally relax and think about our bodies from feet to head,
and relax everything as we thought about it. Well, at 9 oclock in the morning I am "full" of energy,
and the restlessness I felt, and the desire to get up and move was "just" too strong.
Maybe if Idid that at night, when I was winding down, it would work, but the boring voice of the
instructor, and her trying to "slow" me down, when I felt so much energy, seemed "dumb", as the
energy I have is my foundation and life, and makes me "hum', always has. But, I am not hyper at all.
I have lots of physical and mental energy, have to force myself to go to bed, then when I'm there,
have to watch TV to stop my brain from humming along, so maybe if I learned to meditate it would
be helpful. Sorry for rambling on.
Somebody give me some "lessons" to get started.
I went to yoga with my daughter, (at her request) twice a week for about 4 weeks. Finally had
to quit. The instructor encouraged us to totally relax and think about our bodies from feet to head,
and relax everything as we thought about it. Well, at 9 oclock in the morning I am "full" of energy,
and the restlessness I felt, and the desire to get up and move was "just" too strong.
Maybe if Idid that at night, when I was winding down, it would work, but the boring voice of the
instructor, and her trying to "slow" me down, when I felt so much energy, seemed "dumb", as the
energy I have is my foundation and life, and makes me "hum', always has. But, I am not hyper at all.
I have lots of physical and mental energy, have to force myself to go to bed, then when I'm there,
have to watch TV to stop my brain from humming along, so maybe if I learned to meditate it would
be helpful. Sorry for rambling on.
lol. That's me, gotta tease.
don't bother me, I'm medita----------zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz----------
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I give Gil compliments and all he says in return is that he sleeps with his eyes open. 'o'
="
What is meditation ?"
A: It's de stuff dat Doctors perscribe to j00 when j00 are sick.
(don't slap me please)ukeright:
What is meditation ?"A: It's de stuff dat Doctors perscribe to j00 when j00 are sick.
(don't slap me please)
ukeright:
The place and time before words before learning, before teaching, before the birth of the ego,that place lingers in all of us.Can you remember? Many of us have tiny islands of that time/place still in us but not so often conciously felt. For instance I remember with my wholeself the absolute comfort of timeless boundless belonging of contentment, a full belly, warmth of the embrace, the sound of the creators heart, the radiated perfume of love from the mother, that was heaven, no contemplation necessary, no want, no fear, no ego, just being fat and happy, pictures and feelings are all that remain, there never were words. For me the easiest way back to the garden is to think of when my connection with it was at it,s beginning when thier wern,t any words or ego or numbers to get in the way. I can still see my mothers face with my fat little foot in the middle of her mouth she was nibbling my toes and we were laughing. The changeing table of my old nurseary the glow above,the walls the smells, bits and pieces from the beginning when I knew I was in heaven and there were no doubts. :wave:
Karrie and Talloola
Karrie - glad you showed up here - missed you yesterday with your comfortable posts and then realized you might be busy on the weekend. I have never seen you throw "pity" out for us - merely describing
your situation just shares with us a part of you....part you are willing to share.
Talloola - you have a passionate mind and your reaction to little Jessica demonstrated how compassionate and caring you are for life - young life snuffed out - and the sickness we now read
about all over the place. Never lose it - some people never attain that height of feeling and admit it!
Karrie - glad you showed up here - missed you yesterday with your comfortable posts and then realized you might be busy on the weekend. I have never seen you throw "pity" out for us - merely describing
your situation just shares with us a part of you....part you are willing to share.
Talloola - you have a passionate mind and your reaction to little Jessica demonstrated how compassionate and caring you are for life - young life snuffed out - and the sickness we now read
about all over the place. Never lose it - some people never attain that height of feeling and admit it!
Hi El Barto ,
China . can you give us your method of meditation. We westerners are usually clueless.______________________
Dear El Barto , Can you give me a method on how to be hapy or perhaps a method on how to be humble or a method of how to love and be loved ?, is there a method ?
Investigating into this whole question is meditation. That word had been used both in the East and the West in a most unfortunate way. There are different schools of meditation, different methods and systems. There are systems which say “Watch the movement of your big toe, watch it, watch it, watch it”; there are other systems which advocate sitting in a certain posture, breathing regularly or practising awareness. All this is utterly mechanical. Another method gives you a certain word and tells you that if you go on repeating it you will have some extraordinary transcendental experience. This is sheer nonsense. It is a form of self-hypnosis. By repeating Amen or Om or Coca-Cola indefinitely you will obviously have a certain experience because by repetition the mind becomes quiet. It is a well known phenomenon which has been practised for thousands of years in India —Mantra Yoga it is called. By repetition you can induce the mind to be gentle and soft but it is still a petty, shoddy, little mind. You might as well put a piece of stick you have picked up in the garden on the mantelpiece and give it a flower every day. In a month you will be worshipping it and not to put a flower in front of it will become a sin. Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration. It is one of the favourite gambits of some teachers of meditation to insist on their pupils learning concentration —that is, fixing the mind on one thought and driving out all other thoughts. This is a most stupid, ugly thing, which any schoolboy can do because he is forced to. It means that all the time you are having a battle between the insistence that you must concentrate on the one hand and your mind on the other which wanders away to all sorts of other things, whereas you should be attentive to every movement of the mind wherever it wanders. When your mind wanders off it means you are interested in something else. Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind; meditation is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation has ceased. Meditation is not control of thought, for when thought is controlled it breeds conflict in the mind, but when you understand the structure and origin of thought, then thought will not interfere. That very understanding of the structure of thinking is its own discipline which is meditation. Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence. Silence put together by thought is stagnation, is dead, but the silence that comes when thought has understood its own beginning, the nature of itself, understood how all thought is never free but always old —this silence is meditation in which the meditator is entirely absent, for the mind has emptied itself of the past. Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system and that is not attention. Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life —perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy —if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation. So meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing of birds or looking at the face of your wife or child.
In the understanding of meditation there is love, and love is not the product of systems, of habits, of following a method. Love cannot be cultivated by thought. Love can perhaps come into being when there is complete silence, a silence in which the meditator is entirely absent; and the mind can be silent only when it understands its own movement as thought and feeling. To understand this movement of thought and feeling there can be no condemnation in observing it. To observe in such a way is the discipline, and that kind of discipline is fluid, free, not the discipline of conformity.
China . can you give us your method of meditation. We westerners are usually clueless.______________________
Dear El Barto , Can you give me a method on how to be hapy or perhaps a method on how to be humble or a method of how to love and be loved ?, is there a method ?
Investigating into this whole question is meditation. That word had been used both in the East and the West in a most unfortunate way. There are different schools of meditation, different methods and systems. There are systems which say “Watch the movement of your big toe, watch it, watch it, watch it”; there are other systems which advocate sitting in a certain posture, breathing regularly or practising awareness. All this is utterly mechanical. Another method gives you a certain word and tells you that if you go on repeating it you will have some extraordinary transcendental experience. This is sheer nonsense. It is a form of self-hypnosis. By repeating Amen or Om or Coca-Cola indefinitely you will obviously have a certain experience because by repetition the mind becomes quiet. It is a well known phenomenon which has been practised for thousands of years in India —Mantra Yoga it is called. By repetition you can induce the mind to be gentle and soft but it is still a petty, shoddy, little mind. You might as well put a piece of stick you have picked up in the garden on the mantelpiece and give it a flower every day. In a month you will be worshipping it and not to put a flower in front of it will become a sin. Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration. It is one of the favourite gambits of some teachers of meditation to insist on their pupils learning concentration —that is, fixing the mind on one thought and driving out all other thoughts. This is a most stupid, ugly thing, which any schoolboy can do because he is forced to. It means that all the time you are having a battle between the insistence that you must concentrate on the one hand and your mind on the other which wanders away to all sorts of other things, whereas you should be attentive to every movement of the mind wherever it wanders. When your mind wanders off it means you are interested in something else. Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind; meditation is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation has ceased. Meditation is not control of thought, for when thought is controlled it breeds conflict in the mind, but when you understand the structure and origin of thought, then thought will not interfere. That very understanding of the structure of thinking is its own discipline which is meditation. Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence. Silence put together by thought is stagnation, is dead, but the silence that comes when thought has understood its own beginning, the nature of itself, understood how all thought is never free but always old —this silence is meditation in which the meditator is entirely absent, for the mind has emptied itself of the past. Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system and that is not attention. Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life —perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy —if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation. So meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing of birds or looking at the face of your wife or child.
In the understanding of meditation there is love, and love is not the product of systems, of habits, of following a method. Love cannot be cultivated by thought. Love can perhaps come into being when there is complete silence, a silence in which the meditator is entirely absent; and the mind can be silent only when it understands its own movement as thought and feeling. To understand this movement of thought and feeling there can be no condemnation in observing it. To observe in such a way is the discipline, and that kind of discipline is fluid, free, not the discipline of conformity.
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China
Lovely words and thoughts and explanation....
Some of the most beautiful things in life are the most simple, and we humans seem to think making them more complex and "apart from our life" is the better way.
Being with oneself in quiet will create health and harmony within.
I always describe meditation as "closing the door on the tenents in my head clamouring for attention".... to be with myself.
Lovely words and thoughts and explanation....
Some of the most beautiful things in life are the most simple, and we humans seem to think making them more complex and "apart from our life" is the better way.
Being with oneself in quiet will create health and harmony within.
I always describe meditation as "closing the door on the tenents in my head clamouring for attention".... to be with myself.