You sound very wise.

These are not "my" original thoughts/concepts. Regurgitation is delicious.

xposted from hsplo:

I've started reading this book today:

http://www.amazon.com/Minute-Meditat...1005973&sr=8-1

And I'm going to be meditating everyday for 8 minutes for the next 8 weeks.

Do any of you want to join in? You can get it for the kindle.

Did my first session today and felt pretty relaxed and ready after it was over. This was after just waking up. I thought to myself: wow, this is more effective than playing video games for an hour to wake up

I'm pretty excited to see the results in 2 weeks. This isn't a religious thing at all. I've heard great things about meditation and breathing and so i want to get a first hand experience to see how real the meditation phenomenon is.

It would be really cool to hear about other people's experiences and results, especially from full time poker pros.

Xposting:

I'm really digging this and it's only day 2:

I just finished my 2nd session, and wow, I feel really great. I even managed to meditate for 8 mins on the dot in one go. I had to check my alarm heh, I knew I had left it on the wrong setting, so it was a nice surprise seeing I went the full 8.

What's helping me a lot is just enjoying it. I sit in my backyard so I have ocean breeze, sun, several different birds chirping, some random cars going around, and it's great. The sun feels amazing, it's rejuvenating. The birds chirping add to the morning and the cool breeze mixing in with the blanket of sun is a pretty cool contrast.

And when I catch myself drifting off or enjoying that **** too much, I go back to the first lesson which is just focus on your breathing for this week. And I think it's done that way because it really helps you set a baseline. I feel like the goal of meditation is to FEEL peaceful and breathing really helps establish that. You go from letting your mind think to actively just observing and noticing the sensation you get from breathing in, and out. Observe where you're breathing from, let yourself breathe, and if you still have trouble focusing, then breathe in really deep and you'll notice how your lungs tingle, and how after awhile of calm deep breathing, you feel much better, much more at peace, and focused. You're observing and noticing, you're not thinking.

it is imporotant also to be observant in maintaining a good posture and breathing.

fwiw

Even if you're feeling ****ty and don't feel like doing the 8 minutes, DO IT

Two or three times now I've wanted to skip out for various reasons but I've always felt much better after doing it.

Just read through a good chunk of this thread and am very intrigued. My only experience with meditation was a series of meditation practices spread over several weeks as part of a yoga class that I took in college. One of those practices was very successful and eight years later I can recall very vividly the sense of awareness and calm that I felt that day. A week ago, I bought Larry Rosenberg's Breath by Breath, but in my limited time reading it thus far I've had a difficult time focusing on it, I think because I've been reading it right before bed when I'm very tired and because I'm perhaps too eager to just go try meditating rather than read the preliminary stuff.

I may buy the 8 minute book after reading this thread. Any other testimonials in favor of that approach?

Any suggestions for a beginning meditator would be much appreciated.

I'm just starting as well and can def see some benefits. I've ordered several books but its proving tough to get english books delivered here from amazon.

My question is about when your actually grinding. Do you just passively gain from your past meditation or do you make a focused effort to only keep poker in your mind just like you try to keep just your breathing in your mind while you meditate?

Been reading Mindfulness in Plain English - so far it seems really helpful as to developing a general understanding of what meditation is, its benefits, the mindset underlying it, etc..

I've been meditating for about four years.

Got up to 6-7 consecutive weeks recently, but have missed the past few days. I've done up to an hour a day; nowadays I'm at 30-40 minutes a day of formal meditation.

As always, keep in mind: 99 percent practice, 1 percent theory.

A cool thing to do is to find Meditation groups via Meetup. I live in SoCal and found one nearby called Enlightenment in This Life. A lot of this stuff is free. I know the Claremont Colleges (elite cluster of private schools in one of the richest cities of the world) have a free Zen meditation Wednesday mornings.

My favorite pranayama exercise:

Inhale for 6 breaths
Hold for 3 breaths
Exhale for 6 breaths

For a little bit more of a challenge, when you inhale exercise root lock, as if you're trying to hold in a dump. Simultaneously suck in your lower abs. Hold that for the inhale and the hold. Exhale. Repeat.

Also, meditating with crystals has helped me a lot. Highly recommended.

Any approach is fine. We're all beginners. As our practice advances our methods will naturally advance. It doesn't matter what you do; almost any practice can lead to enlightenment at any second. Just do it.

Not sure if anyone posted this yet so:

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/how-to-meditate

you're wrong (at least for sure in Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism). In both reaching total enlightenment will end the cycle of karma/reincarnation on this earth, also while true enlightenment might be a binary condition, the path to enlightenment is anything but.

I'll check this out my doc said I should mediate once in a while hopefully I do it consistently.

^serious question rickyt88: care to elaborate on what kind of "doc" gave you this advice and what good (from a medical perspective) meditation would do?

A lot of doctors recommend meditation now. There are tons of benefits from meditation.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/artic...nce-meditation

Hey sorry just saw ur reply, a concussion specialist recommended it for me.

I have yet to try it yet should really do it

Just to underline the absolutely non-binary conception of enlightenment in the Theravada tradition, there is a well-known four-stage model in the classic Pali commentary Visuddhimagga which many practitioners aver the years have used as a guideline. These of course come at the apex of purification practice on the old ragged Eightfold Path and so are only a description of the most advanced stages.

First Level is Stream-Enterer. This is probably analogous to Zen Satori or Eckhart/St Theresa type Christian Mystical Union with God. The Stream Winner is held to have abandoned the concept of being a self or having a self, and has clarity regarding the Nature of Reality and the Dharma. In the traditional (to me, superstitious) conception, this also frees one from lower births in hell realms, or as a Hungry Ghost or an animal.

Then there are three more levels, Once-Returner, Non-Returner, and Arahant.

Arahant is the highest level of attainment in Theravada Buddhism, full enlightenment on all levels. However, there is no Theravada path to actually becoming a Buddha. For that you must turn to Mahayana Buddhism with a Bodhisattva Vow and an understanding of Emptiness. See Shantideva and Nagarjuna, respectively.

Personally I think Bodhisattva vows are pretty much bull**** and that a Theravada practitioner gains the deepest possible understanding of Emptiness by examining the Three Characteristics (in Pali: anicca, anatta, dukkha) through hardcore Vipassana Meditation resulting in no Ultimate difference between full enlightenment in either tradition.

Also, this is just one map from one branch of one school of Buddhism. If this kind of stuff interests you (holy **** I hope not) there is no end to the rabbit hole. Daniel Ingram actually is an Arhant who got there using the traditional Thai Vipassana meditation techniques (while getting a medical degree and doing his internship) and wrote a great book called Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha which has a ton of info on the maps, how to use them, and how to actually traverse the territory they describe.

Does anyone in here have any experience with Meditation camps or retreats? I'm thinking I'd like to try something like this.

Yes.

I recommend learning Burmese Vipassana meditation from a Goenka retreat, but it's definitely jumping into the deep end. To learn the technique, you must do a full 10-day retreat which involves a minimum of 10-12 hours of sitting meditation per day, vow of silence, no reading, the whole deal. But at the end you will have a very strong grounding in both anapanasati and vipassana meditation. There are many retreat centers all over the world.

They don't even charge for room and board so you should definitely throw them a nice donation at the end.

If you have any specific questions about any of this just ask.

So you must do a 10 day one? There is nothing offered, or suggested by u that is less? 10 days is tough, I have 2 small children, Although I'd still consider it.

To learn this particular technique, you must complete a 10-day course. After that, old students can do 3-day courses or help out at the centers and meditate. There is nothing offered or suggested by me that is less. I'm sure the world is full of less strenuous suggestions.

Why do you want to meditate in the first place? What exactly do you want?

The entire answer to that question seems like too long to post in this thread. But the short story is I feel like my brain is massively undisciplined and almost broken in some respects. Over the course of the last 5-6 yrs I have increasing amounts of anxiety, stress, and it has gotten to the point for me where I see actual physical symptoms I attribute to these things.
But I'd have to say the biggest reason for my sudden need for change is the fact that I can see myself turning into my father, letting my stress, anxiety, and fragile ego rule my life and my close relationships, and my ability to truly enjoy almost anything in life. The really short answer is I feel like my Brain and thought processes need to be re-wired. And from what I've read about meditation, and specifically vipassana meditation, it seems like a good place to start.

gambooooool

Deep Vipassana practice might alleviate a lot of your symptoms very quickly, or it might plunge you into a hellbound runaway trainload of goddamn explosive mania regarding the actual nature of reality so far removed from ordinary experience that it leaves you unable to navigate daily life and act like a normal human being. It is designed to tear you apart at the seams and leave nothing.

Vipassana should give you equanimity and insight into the Three Characteristics. Equanimity is always helpful, as these experiences arise "I am feeling stress" "I am feeling anxiety" "This activity is only serving to prop up my ego", instead of reacting to them, you can watch them, observe how they arise and pass away. Observe their edges, how it feels in yor belly to be anxious, exactly what sensations are arising. It gets out of a conceptual obsession and going into the bare sensate experience.

The Three Characteristics is a whole thing and I'm not going to get into it right now.

I like your statement about feeling that your brain needs to be rewired, that is exactly what needs to happen. You have a whole self built up based around well-worn reactions to things, habitual patterns of cognition which you fall into before you even realize it. One can start to eventually realize while this is happening "I am getting anxious, remember to observe sensations. Observe sensations, forget about these obsessions." Eventually you can remember earlier and earlier until the barest hint of anxiety arising causes the reaction of observing and calming rather than obsession. That's what gets rewired, and that's why it takes time. Realization is instant, but preceded by laying this groundwork.

The problem with all of this as it relates to being a father, husband, citizen etc is that tearing your entire persona apart isn't pretty, and it can take a long time to adjust. The Dark Night of the Soul is a lot of territory and can be difficult to traverse.

My recommendation for you:

Mindfulness in Plain English This book is bursting with practical advice on meditation, a decent grounding in vipassana theory, and tons of little gems of wisdom.

Bhante's description of what it feels like to begin meditation:
Somewhere in this process, you will come face-to-face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill, utterly out of control and hopeless.

Apt description of what your mind is like? This is where most people incorrectly assume they are doing something wrong, and stop. On the contrary, sitting still and recognizing this is the beginning of wisdom.

The other recommendation, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, is that integration of personality, coping with trauma, and just generally dealing with your **** in a way that makes you a better person, is the domain of therapy, not meditation.

Appreciate your insight, ty a lot. Coincidentally I had just bought Mindfulness in plain english and was going to start reading it.