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The Remarkable Brain Waves of High Level Meditators [video]

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Re: The Remarkable Brain Waves of High Level Meditators [video]

#11

Post by puranjay »

pcpcpc wrote: post #9

For those who are interested and new to meditation, I started meditating several years ago with Headspace and YouTube videos of Jonathan Kabat Zinn and others. It's a great place to start. I later went on a silent meditation retreat and learned a lot more about meditation and got confident with techniques I could practice on my own. This may not be available to everyone due to the time commitment (and being completel…

In practical terms, how do you feel meditation has changed you?

Curious to learn more

Re: The Remarkable Brain Waves of High Level Meditators [video]

#12

Post by wiz21c »

skilled wrote: post #2

I was staying at a yoga retreat in Cambodia back in 2015. Meditation was done twice a day for 30+ minutes. I was familiar with meditation for a number of year's already, but a lot of the attendees were "first timers". Not every day, but on some days we would share our experiences with the group after the meditation was over. One of the women who had never meditated before, had the biggest smile on her face and goes,…

I don't get what you mean in this sentence :

>> Try to hold focus on an imaginary object during meditation.

Could you explain what kind of "action" it is (or non action, I don't known anything about meditation except for clichés) ?

Re: The Remarkable Brain Waves of High Level Meditators [video]

#13

Post by tvladeck »

puranjay wrote: post #11
pcpcpc wrote: post #9

For those who are interested and new to meditation, I started meditating several years ago with Headspace and YouTube videos of Jonathan Kabat Zinn and others. It's a great place to start. I later went on a silent meditation retreat and learned a lot more about meditation and got confident with techniques I could practice on my own. This may not be available to everyone due to the time commitment (and being completel…

In practical terms, how do you feel meditation has changed you? Curious to learn more

Not the OP, but have a similar story. According to my goal-tracking apps, I meditate about 65% of days, and I average about 10 minutes a day. (So, not a ton, but pretty consistent.)

The most common way that meditation changes me is to help me identify that I'm in a rumination cycle and to break out of it, and to be more present in certain moments. For me, it's not that I have noticed a baseline change, but rather that it's a skill that's super-helpful in key moments. Some examples:

- When my mind is racing while trying to sleep

- In moments of anger or frustration when I'm ruminating about some slight or when someone has reneged on a committment

- Noticing that I'm distracted or anxious when out with friends or at a concert

Re: The Remarkable Brain Waves of High Level Meditators [video]

#14

Post by eigenschwarz »

pcpcpc wrote: post #9

For those who are interested and new to meditation, I started meditating several years ago with Headspace and YouTube videos of Jonathan Kabat Zinn and others. It's a great place to start. I later went on a silent meditation retreat and learned a lot more about meditation and got confident with techniques I could practice on my own. This may not be available to everyone due to the time commitment (and being completel…

I feel this describes my experience to a 'T' and wholeheartedly agree to the advice here.

Edit: All I am trying to do, from being a fellow complete newbie, is to add support from N=1 to N=2 of the path from Headspace-->Other videos and literature-->10-day retreat-->Local group. Hopefully this can help others who are intimidated about trying to pick up a mediation practice. :)

Re: The Remarkable Brain Waves of High Level Meditators [video]

#15

Post by me551ah »

One of the best ways to learn advanced level meditation is to travel to a vipassana meditation camp. They usually hold sessions lasting over 10 days where you are not allowed to have any outside contact with the world. It is also conducted by trained Buddhist monks. You'll easily find multiple reviews for this course on the internet ( just google 'vipassana meditation' ) and it's one of the best crash courses that you can attend. They charge no fees and you are free to leave at any point in time.

I've been meditating since I was 14. My father used to forcibly take me to a vihar(a Buddhist temple) every weekend for meditation sessions back then. Meditation is great for when you want to calm your mind. Just the act of observing your thoughts for a small period of time gives you a lot of insight on how your mind is working.

EDIT: This is probably not for meditation beginners based on comments but for people who want to explore advanced meditation techniques. They accept pretty much everyone though.

Re: The Remarkable Brain Waves of High Level Meditators [video]

#17

Post by hedgew »

me551ah wrote: post #15

One of the best ways to learn advanced level meditation is to travel to a vipassana meditation camp. They usually hold sessions lasting over 10 days where you are not allowed to have any outside contact with the world. It is also conducted by trained Buddhist monks. You'll easily find multiple reviews for this course on the internet ( just google 'vipassana meditation' ) and it's one of the best crash courses that yo…

No. This is dangerous advice. An intensive, torturous retreat away from friends and familiar places is one of the worst ways to start meditating.

https://www.google.com/search?q=vipassana+psychosis

Re: The Remarkable Brain Waves of High Level Meditators [video]

#18

Post by enraged_camel »

me551ah wrote: post #15

One of the best ways to learn advanced level meditation is to travel to a vipassana meditation camp. They usually hold sessions lasting over 10 days where you are not allowed to have any outside contact with the world. It is also conducted by trained Buddhist monks. You'll easily find multiple reviews for this course on the internet ( just google 'vipassana meditation' ) and it's one of the best crash courses that yo…

Um, a 10 day retreat where you are cut off from the outside world is definitely not a good way to begin meditation.

I mean you're basically advising a beginner hiker to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. It's grossly irresponsible advice.

Re: The Remarkable Brain Waves of High Level Meditators [video]

#19

Post by yoble »

The book they mention, Altered Traits, is a great read for those interested in what hard facts the numerous studies on the subject have yielded so far (+ some nice stories about "olympic level meditators").

The authors make a point of painstakingly explaining why these kind of studies are hard to conduct, what a good one looks like and why they had to discard ~99% of them to write the book because of statistical insufficiency, lack of proper methodology etc. At a time when many meditation apps claim to be "science based" I found this quite relevant.

They both are proficient in meditation and have been associated with the western scene very early on. It's mostly about mindfulness/vipasana meditation since that's the subject of the majority of the medical studies.

Re: The Remarkable Brain Waves of High Level Meditators [video]

#20

Post by kranner »

kaiwen1 wrote: post #16

Sam Harris recently released a meditation app for iPhone and Android. As the reviews attest, it is outstanding, the best thing I've seen for getting started on your own. https://wakingup.com/

I have to disagree. I tried it for a couple of weeks but have unsubscribed. The problem is that Harris talks way too much during guided meditations. A good guided meditation normally has a judicious mix of instructions and silence, but Harris keeps rambling on, making it difficult to concentrate on the instructions. He has an old guided meditation available on YouTube; that one is much better.

Insight Timer is a much better app IMO. In terms of better guided instructions, I would recommend Peter Russell, Michael Taft, Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg.

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