Types of Meditation ?

[Snoopy]

Yes it does seem to digress. I guess what I was going for was a personal account rather than a doctrinal one for that would put it all right back into a contemplative inquiry.
Thanks for your indulgence Thomas

Perhaps I could put it back on topic and suggest that examination of one's idea of what constitutes self may be the object in vipassana (insight) meditation. Is the physical me, real, permanent, abiding? Is the psychological me, real, permanent, abiding? Do I own this body? Do I own these thoughts?

s.

 

[Paladin]

Yes, that would work. Still I am curious about peoples actual experience. Raw, unfiltered by language or method or doctrine. For example " During my daily practice there comes a feeling of lightness, almost as if I'm insubstantial and everything around me becomes salient somehow.
I want to hear people stumble over their words in order to express the inexpressible. The genuine unpoetic actuality of aliveness, because when it is all said and done and the arguments over this method and that are over there is still 'this'

We could compare the difference in competence and intent of each individual cartographer and ignore the countryside beneath our feet.

 

[wil]

One thing I often heard said is our experiences are so different that if we strive to achieve what others have done we get nowhere.

I listen to people who do guided meditations and come out and have all these visuals...I have virtually none. You know the one I'm talking about...the audio or leader says..."imagine your favorite place, the beach, the woods, a cabin, and you are thouroughly comfortable, completely at peace...someone walks by who beckons you and you feel compelled to follow, you begin to lose sight of them but you travel down a path you've never been before and after going over little brook with a small bridge you enter this field of flowers..."

That is as far as I get or not even that far before I just completely zone out. I don't see the beach or the woods, or the guru or the path or the brook...I'm just looking at the back of my eyelids and then I'm gone. I am at peace, but the next thing I hear is, "you are now on your way back to this place and time after your glorious journey" So I come out with the rest and hear how they could feel the sun on their face and later the light mist land on their skin and they spoke to the animals...or whatever (same issue with shaminic journeys...I don't see anything)

Now I can't say never... over thirty years I have two memories of being able to have clear visuals.

I also read a book once about how to quiet your mind from all the monkey chatter while you are trying to meditate. This person ran into a guru (virtual) during her meditation who took her to a bridge over a river and told her to watch the river rushing under the bridge. Any thought that came into her head she was just to acknowledge it and toss it into the river...watch it dissapear under the bridge.

I tried that visual...never saw it, but did learn to eliminate the chatter and go deep into the silence.

I go into meditation often with an issue, and come out often with an answer. But it is always interesting the answer feels like something completely ridiculous or something it seems like I've known all my life...but didn't know just 10 minutes ago.

A completely ridiculous:

After my divorce I was taking a vacation upto New York and was going to visit relatives with my children. On the way about 300 miles from home and 70 miles from our destination the car engine blew up, dead, over. So we got towed to my cousins house, arranged to have the car donated and I figured we'd rent a car to get home and use till I bought another. We spent the week visiting having fun without a care. And then at the end I tried renting a car and suddenly found out because I got rid of all my credit cards car rental companies wouldn't accept my debit card...I felt like a fool acting as if losing a car and all this wasn't affecting me.

I went into meditation with the worst possible attitude. My belief system says that I can find answers in meditation, that G!d has a solution for anything all I need to do is ask and wait. As I sit there I say to myself. Thank you G!d, I know there is a solution, please show it to me. While at the same time saying, yeah right, you've f'd this up royally there isn't a way out, you've screwed up ...yada yada yada...back and forth... So I go out..into the zone and evidently while I was out the boys came in the room I was in turned on the TV and started playing video games...my cousin came in and chased out her son and mine telling them to stop bothering me...I was out, I missed all of that. But when I came back, I had an answer, a ridiculous one, "Check your wallet"

I went to the dining room table and started going thru my wallet. My cousin asks, "What are you doing".."I don't know the answer was check your wallet, but I know nothing is in here." Now I have the kind of wallet that is packed to the brim with useless reciepts that I was supposed to track and business cards and phone numbers from who knows who. But I empty it, I clean it, I'm tossing stuff out and searching an looking. All the main pockets are empty and now I'm shaking out two year old dust and lint. I'm looking through all the little credit card slots and down at the bottom of one is about 1/4 of a credit card. You can read the number and experation date, it doesn't have my name or the name of the card. On the back you can read part of a disclaimer and a for information call:, no magnetic strip. This is crazy, I call the number. It was a credit card company, I go thru the rigameroll of answering the questions to prove who I am and yes the card is active, has a $5,000 limit hasn't been used in years but can be used right now...

Some would say "So" but to me, meditation provided me with access to knowledge that was not in my conscious mind, was not accessible otherwise...and led me to a solution where I thought there was none.

 

[Netti-Netti]

Yes, that would work. Still I am curious about peoples actual experience. Raw, unfiltered by language or method or doctrine. For example " During my daily practice there comes a feeling of lightness....

Kind of like this Nancy Meyers picture?....

Regarding the nature of self: I think it's like the Dalai Lama said, self is real - in a dependent way.

 

[Netti-Netti]

Yes, that would work. Still I am curious about peoples actual experience. Raw, unfiltered by language or method or doctrine.

But how to describe it without language?

Also, doctrine is not totally irrelevant. I think it's part of "faith seeking understanding" - a conscious working through issues.

Consider the longing for G-d. A recurring theme for me is a sense of unconsolable loss and unresolved grief. This actually sounds a lot like Sufism:

An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.
​

~Pema Chodron

My theistic solution to this is based on my understanding of the problem: we feel isolated/fragmented because we were separated from the Creator when we entered the world of finite forms. Being a finite creature means being fragmented. Our losses in this life remind us of the underlying and pervasive sense of loss and sense of being incomplete.

 

[seattlegal]

But how to describe it without language?

Also, doctrine is not totally irrelevant. I think it's part of "faith seeking understanding" - a conscious working through issues.

Consider the longing for G-d. A recurring theme for me is a sense of unconsolable loss and unresolved grief. This actually sounds a lot like Sufism:

An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.
​

~Pema Chodron

My theistic solution to this is based on my understanding of the problem: we feel isolated/fragmented because we were separated from the Creator when we entered the world of finite forms. Being a finite creature means being fragmented. Our losses in this life remind us of the underlying and pervasive sense of loss and sense of being incomplete.

The more I read of Pema Chodron, the more I like her.

 

[Snoopy]

Still I am curious about peoples actual experience. Raw, unfiltered by language or method or doctrine.

You don't want much do you?

My actual experience, speaking generally, is one of naturalness, of just sitting. Thoughts arise, of which I am aware, but I do not indulge them into discursive trains if possible. Where I do this, that means I have noticed that I have done this and bring my awareness "back" to just sitting. My efforts, such as they are, are perhaps to make no effort.

Is that enough struggle with language, Paladin?

We could compare the difference in competence and intent of each individual cartographer and ignore the countryside beneath our feet.

Competence?

My intention is to just sit.

Countryside?

s.

 

[Snoopy]

I take my understanding of self primarily from the investigation of Thomist metaphysics that began in the last century, focussing on Aquinas' Neoplatonism rather than his Aristotelianism.

In the Christian tradition, the self is a concrete existential being, and the first point is that it exists, as Boethius said, as "an individual substance of a rational nature" ... from then we get into the Thomist dimension of 'being-in-relation", in that every being defines itself in relation to other being around it, and other being around it locates that being in time and space (We both say 'I', but the 'I' of which I speak is irreducibly me, whereas the 'I' of which you speak is irreducibly you ... not me ... )

This goes way off the meditation topic ... if it's going to be pursued, it should be elsewhere, I think.

None of it is apart from doctrine, however. The self as I see it is Trinity-shaped ...

Thomas

How about here?

http://www.interfaith.org/forum/you-7639-4.html

s.

 

[Paladin]

But how to describe it without language?

Also, doctrine is not totally irrelevant. I think it's part of "faith seeking understanding" - a conscious working through issues.

Consider the longing for G-d. A recurring theme for me is a sense of unconsolable loss and unresolved grief. This actually sounds a lot like Sufism:

An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.
​

~Pema Chodron

My theistic solution to this is based on my understanding of the problem: we feel isolated/fragmented because we were separated from the Creator when we entered the world of finite forms. Being a finite creature means being fragmented. Our losses in this life remind us of the underlying and pervasive sense of loss and sense of being incomplete.

Yes, I should have used the word "linguistics" and perhaps my intent would have been clearer. Only an honest, genuine and heartfelt experience rather than relying on ones dogma to flavor what is happening.
This is not to say that doctrine and dogma are irrelevant but the experience of an oceanic feeling for example happens on a pre-articulated level and then a vocabulary is chosen to express it.
Sometimes I find that those who have not this sophisticated language express something very beautiful.

The pain of longing is something I have felt before, the frustration of being within the beloved but not knowing drove me to seek. There is empathy for those that suffer so until awakening happens.

 

[path_of_one]

Yes, I should have used the word "linguistics" and perhaps my intent would have been clearer. Only an honest, genuine and heartfelt experience rather than relying on ones dogma to flavor what is happening.
This is not to say that doctrine and dogma are irrelevant but the experience of an oceanic feeling for example happens on a pre-articulated level and then a vocabulary is chosen to express it.
Sometimes I find that those who have not this sophisticated language express something very beautiful.

This is what I find, as well. The feeling comes first, and then I struggle to express it in a language that is not fitting.

I think this is why it is easier for me to relate it through poetry, music, or art. It is easier, it sometimes seems, to evoke something in someone than to communicate it to them.

The pain of longing is something I have felt before, the frustration of being within the beloved but not knowing drove me to seek. There is empathy for those that suffer so until awakening happens.

I find that even though I have moments of profound unity, I still am homesick during much of my everyday life. It is a feeling of missing someone, missing the place I belong, feeling like I am wandering in a strange place. Time spent in nature, in meditation... these things lessen this homesickness. But I have not yet figured out how to completely integrate that with everyday life. I have wondered if the usual middle class US life is just not conducive- like mixing oil and water... There must be some reason for monasteries.

 

[path_of_one]

Wil- I would wager that the visualization thing depends, in part, on our different personalities and the way our brains work.

I am a very visual person in ordinary life, so it makes sense to me that visions are a big part of my spiritual life in terms of how messages are communicated to my consciousness.

 

[Izheheruvim]

Hi to everyone,

I'm a newcomer, so be kind and gracious to me Just in case, I'm not a native English speaker and can't express my thoughts just the same as in my mother language, but I will do my best I practice Sahaja Yoga meditation, and the experience I acquired gives me right to talk about its positive results. I could talk long about what preceded choosing this path and what dreams I would have prior to that, but I'd like to zero in on the most significant thing I happened to experience - feeling of inner solid basis, unchangeable and having no particular form, very deep and peaceful, and sensation of joy and love evoked by Kundalini's surges.

In brief, my spiritual path was pretty much complicated as I entered it being psychologically impaired, I would have a sort of paranoia that physically expressed in stuttering, on a subtle level it was deep feeling of insecurity and tendency to self-destruction, and in my nightmares I could see "entities" making me feel so. From the other hand, this psychological problem helped me to make the criteria of validity, I decided that the practice that would solve the problem and elevate my personality is a worthy one. Sahaja Yoga turned out this one.

I would be glad to go into details and share my experience with whoever interested in that.

Peace

 

[Netti-Netti]

I think it is problematic to say that meditation is not religious experience. Buddhism is a religion, and meditation is a subset of practice that happens within that religion and within other religions. If you mean there are different types of religious experience, well yes, of course.

And of course there are different kinds of meditation, too. Meditation can be religious or spiritual. However, it is also true that meditation may not have any spiritual content. The kind that does, has a different effect.

Is spirituality a critical ingredient of meditation? Comparing the effects of spiritual meditation, secular meditation, and relaxation on spiritual, psychological, cardiac, and pain outcomes.

This study compared secular and spiritual forms of meditation to assess the benefits of a spiritual intervention. Participants were taught a meditation or relaxation technique to practice for 20 min a day for two weeks. After two weeks, participants returned to the lab, practiced their technique for 20 min, and placed their hand in a cold-water bath of 2 degrees C for as long as they could endure it. The length of time that individuals kept their hand in the water bath was measured. Pain, anxiety, mood, and the spiritual health were assessed following the two-week intervention.

Significant interactions occurred (time x group); the Spiritual Meditation group had greater decreases in anxiety and more positive mood, spiritual health, and spiritual experiences than the other two groups. They also tolerated pain almost twice as long as the other two groups.
​

Wachholtz AB, Pargament KI. J Behav Med. 2005 Aug;28(4):369-84.

Maybe it's just a matter of degree, but secular and spiritual meditation obviously have different effects on a person's functioning.

 

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

When you meditate, is it with eyes closed?

Your eyes are lowered, only slightly open. (Follow your nose.)

I try to keep my eyes relaxed, unfocused and half-closed.

Wouldn't it depend?

First, I think it would depend on environmental conditions. The Soto Zen 'blank wall' approach assumes you have a uncluttered environment or at least a nice blank wall.

Sometimes you don't have a blank wall handy. If the immediate environment is visual messy, maybe better to close the eyes entirely.

Supposedly the "blank wall" method is most natural. But some people find staring a blank wall too weird and they need something to look at. The threshold for how much vidual stimuli a person want to take in at any given time would likely to be influenced by their nervous system, their tendency to generate visual stimuli, and their state at the time.

If the person is somewhat agitated, it may be helpful to at least initially close the eyes entirely. People who close their eye and see elaborate sacred landscapes (like Chinese mountains with shrines and such), may actually be better off just keeping their eyes closed entirely to minimize interference and thereby help stay in focus.

I'd say people should feel free to experiment and see what gets them the best results. They may want to start out with one kind of meditation tradition and then another kind at some point.

 

[GlorytoGod]

I have almost decided on a method for meditation, it is Kriya Yoga but altered slightly by me to be more Biblical but when I am able I will just get into the River and stay there for as long as I can

 

[jasmine234]

I was searching about types of meditation with the help of Google Search Engine and found your site also Buddhism Without Boundaries and Types of Meditation | Spiritual Eyes (spiritualeyes (dot) info/types-of-meditation.html)

But none of the siteis explaining the types of meditation. Even this thread also going to ir relevant. Is there any can explain me the types of mediation. I dont want to talk about religous meditation.

Is meditation in religion or religion is in meditation ??

Best Regards
Jasmine

 

[Snoopy]

Is there any can explain me the types of mediation. I dont want to talk about religous meditation.

Hi,

So what meditation do you want to know about, if not that associated with relgious traditions?

Is meditation in religion or religion is in meditation ??

Snoopy.

 

[jasmine234]

I donot want to talk about regligions. As we are from different regions and religions. I want to learn meditation for benifits of human beings. for example if any body is suffering from any dangerous disease then i must cure it by meditation.

I have also read about color mediation and found it very benficial for human beings. We can treat dangerous diseases ( those have not speicific cure) with color theropy.




Best Regards