Meditation

I find meditation to be very rewarding. It gives me time to relax and reflect.

I will take 20 minutes and just focus on my breathing. Yes, thoughts enter my head, but when I do it, the thoughts are never of negative things or to-do lists. I feel refreshed. It's hard for me to find time when it isn't noisy or distracting, so I'll take a walk and focus on my footsteps. This really helps when I'm feeling fidgety.

I know people that recite a mantra over and over while they are meditating. While in rhythm with my breathing I just say "In with the good. Out with the bad." It may be cheesy, but it works for me and really helps me to pay attention to my breathing.

Normally negative thoughts may enter my brain like, "Man Eden is weird." This was not the case today. I actually had positive thoughts about him and how happy he makes my dear friend. See! Meditation is great!

Do you meditate? What do you do? Do you repeat a mantra or just focus on your breathing. What do you get out of it?

 

When I first started using meditation, I was introduced via Indian Sanskrit chants and a Tibetan Buddhist mantra.

The one that has really stuck for me is the mantra of Om Mani Padme Hung

For the historical base of the mantra and a rough translation, here's some information : http://www.dharma-haven.org/tibetan/meaning-of-om-mani-padme-hung.htm

For me finding this in a chant form is what really gets to me to a space of mental clarity. I've found myself putting it on repeat and actually losing track of time. I'd kind of snap out of it after about an hour or so, and for a mind like mine that never shuts off, that was a very unusual feeling to have.

 

I like to make time to just sit and think. It starts out with a busy mind and by the end of my 20 minutes, I about as close as I can get to drifting (which sometimes isn't all that far from how I started out).

 

Going through the five-element styles of the Short and Long Forms of Tai Chi used to be my bread and butter. Concentrated focus with post hypnotics to generalize them into daily movement. My daily movements now 'are' the ritual with which I 'center' myself. My 'inner game' began with Jungian Active imagination and symbolic analysis - special reference to Kabalistic paths, with a view to re-applying their effect on my daily life. The Da Silva Method was a great way of reversing the direction to build from daily life to symbols. Around 1980, I substituted Jungian Archetypes etc, with sensory based patterns which later, in the States, were formalized into NLP, then later, in Scotland, the technologies which replaced NLP. They are like inner versions of Short and Long forms ... representational sequences which develop processes which resource everyday life, and which evolve according to feedback from their effects on everyday life. Inner silence and stillness is one of them. I have a personal proclivity for overtone chanting. At present I am installing Anglican Symbology to link back to my Kabalistic origins, which sadly, these days, have a dearth of ritual fellowship. Kabalistic and Anglican rituals, when done right, are a western Tai Chi.

What do I get out of it? A sense of living on the threshold of 'tripping without acid', closer access to my and others' creativity, the choice to close it down when it's not needed in a particular context, and some magnificent friends and colleagues. And lots more besides, but which I can't put into words.

 

I can't stop my mind from wandering or stop thinking of todo lists. I've tried to do this and failed so many times.

I really want to be able to meditate, but I don't know how to shut my brain off.

 

As somebody with ADD, meditation is just about the only way I can truly relax and slow my mind to a comfortable speed. Sometimes it's a real struggle to keep stray thoughts from passing through my mind's eye, but when that happens, I just kind of reset, reattempt, and it usually helps. Sometimes I can't keep it up for more than 5-10 minutes, but just reaching a point where the internal chatter is calmed feels like an amazing accomplishment and can keep me in a relaxed state for days. I haven't done it in a while and don't really have any set mantras, but I tend to focus on envisioning myself and my surroundings, then slowly zoom out until I have the entire planet in the picture. It gives me a satisfying sense of being connected, which doesn't normally happen in my everyday life.

 

Thanks for reminding me. I haven't meditated in a long time, but I love the calm that it brings over me.

 

The only way I can get my mind to really shut up is by counting my breaths. The easiest way for me to do it is by running. My knees are whacked right now so I haven't done that in a while, but the other day I was stressed enough that counting them was the only thing I *could* do, and I ended up falling asleep. And it was grand.

I have also found that when I exercise I usually drift off into space. It starts as focusing on whatever motion I'm in (usually yoga or pilates), and ends in me in LaLa Land.