41–50 of 122 posts
Nothing fancy, I just sit there breathing and take everything else out of my mind.
Since I do it when I feel I need it doesn't feel like a waste of time or anything like that. I know I'll be more focused after meditating and will do a better job.
Never meditated in the Buddhist sense. I'm not a particularly spiritual person, and the idea of doing some sort of 'meditating' doesn't appeal to me at all - it's not something that fits my concept of 'me'. That said, I do spend a little bit of time - every day if I can - thinking about the many good things in my life and how much worse things would be without them. By doing so I find that I appreciate my situation a…
I find it has great benefits-- much more than any other activity I could do in the time I'm spending.
I'd definitely recommend that you (or anybody else interested) go to a center, and take a few sessions with an in-person teacher. Learning to meditate from a book (or website, etc.) is a bit like learning to swim from a book: it might be possible to do it that way, but it is far from optimal.
In my experience, Buddhist centers are happy to show people how to meditate with absolutely no expectations or conditions; there's nothing special you have to believe or commit to, or anything like that.
I can relate a little about my experiences doing zen-style meditation over the last few years. After long periods of meditation, like a weekend retreat or even a day of sitting, I tend to be very focused and relaxed. My normally chaotic emotions are subdued and I have a profound feeling of well-being and peace. This generally lasts for several days to several weeks depending on the lengths of sitting. Sitting daily s…
I obviously don't know you or your situation, but is it possibly a good thing that these suppressed things are coming out now? In the long run, perhaps you can work through them and you'll be in a better place at the end?
Awareness by Osho is also a great book on meditation: http://www.amazon.com/Awareness-Living-Balance-Osho-Insights...
I've had the same reservations as you, is it doing any good, how can I tell? It is trivially easy to be wrong.
I do like something I see in the people who are more advanced practioners and I keep being drawn back to it.
My latest thinking is that since I can not for the moment find anything longterm to measure, I'll do it for the immediate enjoyment I get directly from the session - from physically relaxing if nothing else. This has now made my sessions very short, just a few minutes at a time before I stop enjoying it.
I'll add another recomendation for "Mindfulness in Plain English", I like it a lot. I'm slowly consuming it, reading a few paragraphs before each meditation session.