Meditation - Where do i start?

kayward2011

Where do i start with meditation, l havent tried its quite scary. I dont know what to do or where to start?
any advice welcome please! x

Jeffrey

Here is instruction by Trungpa Rinpoche.. its basicly the method that I use.

genkaku

Here's a pretty straightforward presentation of zazen, the seated meditation practice in Zen: http://mro.org/zmm/teachings/meditation.php

When I started out, I didn't really have a clue about what I was doing. I worried, "What if I do it wrong ... will the Meditation Fairy come down and turn me into a toadstool?" Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but I was worried. And what happened was that I pretty much made it up, altar and all, as I went along. And as I look back now I can tell you with assurance -- you can't do it wrong. Just start and continue. Bit by bit, corrections will assert themselves ... from books, from the Internet, from friends. Just begin and continue. And don't quit.

And no, Virginia, there is no Meditation Fairy.

DhammaDhatu

hi Kay

there are many video teachings, such as linked below:

http://tergar.org/resources/intromeditation.shtml

http://tergar.org/resources/videos.shtml

DhammaDhatu

NOTaGangsta

Where do i start with meditation, l havent tried its quite scary. I dont know what to do or where to start?
any advice welcome please! x

Your very wise to stop doing meditation when you feel it's not working right homeboy!!! Meditation can cause problems if your doing it wrong, whether your a begainner or advanced.

You should probably stop until you get instructions from experienced teachers in a real life situation. Following the advice of people on the internet without prior experience is not good.

jupitermadcat

Please explain what would be scary doing Meditation?

Mountains

Please explain what would be scary doing Meditation?

I was wondering that myself. Meditation is simply sitting quietly and letting things happen. Nothing scary about that

genkaku

Please explain what would be scary doing Meditation?

Meditation is fun to talk about or extol, but I think it is par for the course for anyone who is serious to confront some pretty visceral fears. For example, "Who would I be without my worries?" or "Where belief no longer applies, what is that like?" Etc.

kayward2011

Please explain what would be scary doing Meditation?

Hi all, l think the scared comes from not being sure if l am doing it right, and if not will l feel dishearted. Can it work for everyone? I feel the psychologist in me if taking over. I am intruiged and would love to let things go and just be me without all the other stuff getting in the way.

LesC

I went a really loooooooooooooong time before I could meditate. I wouldn't even try. Thought there was no way I could sit and be still for any length of time. And wouldn't I look stupid to anyone who saw me, just sitting there with my eyes closed... like an idiot.

Then I read this book entitled "Hurry Up and Meditate". In the book, the author answered many of my questions/fears and said if you don't think you can meditate for a long time, or can't count your breaths up to 10... then start with a count of 4. "1" in, out, "2" in, out, and so on, and when you get to 4, start over at 1.

And don't think you can do that for an hour? Try 10 minutes. So I gave it a shot. I was on 4 breaths for 10 minutes for a long time, and then I upped the ante, and went to 30 minutes, I was surprised at how quickly the time actually went. Eventually I stopped "counting" breaths altogether, just focusing on the in and out. Now I can meditate for hours.

Start easy, it'll come.

Namaste

kayward2011

Brilliant idea! i am going to order that book. I do think half of me is stalling on actually doing it! like if l read so much it will help, when actually i just need to do it! procastination springs to mind! thank you

kayward2011

ordered on my kindle so i can start reading and doing!!

ownerof1000oddsocks

This could be of some use to you:

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html

Jeffrey

Just sit with the fear. Stop meditating for a minute and just sit with the fear. Hello fear! Who are you? Isn't it so interesting you can just sit with and go into the fear and it can be an amazing practice. Notice that the fear is just a sensation and thought. Does the fear vary in intensity? Does it dissapear sometimes. Then breath out the fear and just feel your seat on the floor and listen to the sound of your breathing. Notice the wish to be happy and the strength to bear that fear. Welcom fear. Thank you for enriching my practice!

not1not2

I read this one a while back and it still sticks with me. It's from Ajahn Sumedho of the Forest Thai tradition:

http://www.what-buddha-taught.net/Articles/Ajahn_Sumedho_Only_One_Breath.htm

This morning I was talking to Venerable Subbato and he was saying he never has developed anapanasati, mindfulness of the breath. So I said, 'Can you be mindful of one inhalation?' And he said, 'Oh yes.' 'And of one exhalation?' And he said, 'Yes.' And I said, 'Got it!'

There's nothing more to it than that. However, one tends to expect to develop some special kind of ability to go into some special state. And because we don't do that, then we think we can't do it.

But the way of the spiritual life is through renunciation, relinquishment, letting go not through attaining or acquiring. Even the jhanas [1] are relinquishments rather than attainments. If we relinquish more and more, letting go more and more, then the jhanic states are natural.

The attitude is most important. To practise anapanasati, one brings the attention onto one inhalation, being mindful from the beginning to the end. One inhalation, that's it; and then the same goes for the exhalation. That's the perfect attainment of anapanasati. The awareness of just that much, is the result of concentration of the mind through sustained attention on the breath. From the beginning to the end of the inhalation, from the beginning to the end of the exhalation. The attitude is always one of letting go, not attaching to any ideas or feelings that arise from that, so that you're always fresh with the next inhalation, the next exhalation, completely as it is. You're not carrying over anything. So it's a way of relinquishment, of letting go, rather than of attaining and achieving.

The dangers in meditation practice is the habit of grasping at things, grasping at states; so the concept that's most useful is the concept of letting go, rather than of attaining and achieving. If you say today that yesterday you had a really super meditation, absolutely fantastic, just what you've always dreamed of, and then today you try to get the same wonderful experience as yesterday, but you get more restless and more agitated than ever before - now why is that? Why can't we get what we want? It's because we're trying to attain something that we remember; rather than really working with the way things are, as they happen to be now. So the correct way is one of mindfulness, of looking at the way it is now, rather than remembering yesterday and trying to get to that state again.

continued on link

There are no real goals in meditation. Just pay attention to what it is happening. If you have an object of focus, just bring your attention to that whenever you catch yourself moving away. You are not trying to achieve anything special, get enlightened, or anything. You are just doing your meditation thing at that moment. The mind is going to do its mind thing. Don't worry about it. Just remember what you are doing and do that every time you remember.

Also, something that I keep remembering in regard to meditation. Do not feel you have to do marathon sessions, but rather regular sessions. If 2 minutes is all you can spare mentally or physically for whatever reason, just do that. 2 minutes a day is much better than 30 minutes here, an hour there, and the rest of the time nothing. Once you get into a regular habit, even the thought of your approaching meditation time will bring your awareness back together. Eventually, once it becomes habitual, the sense of making an effort or lifting a burden will subside and you will naturally want to do it more as you are ready. At least that's been my experience.

Mountains

I can't recall who said it - it may have been the Dalai Lama. But there's a great quote that goes more or less:

"Better one breath in awareness than none at all."

In other words, nobody is going to expect you to sit and meditate for four hours the first time you do it. I've been practicing for several years, and it's rare for me to sit for more than 20-25 minutes at a time even now. Don't worry about it. You're not going to ruin yourself if you're "doing it wrong" since (and some don't agree with me here) I don't think you *can* do it "wrong". It's like breathing - you're either doing it right, or you're not doing it at all. Some breathing (and meditation) methods are more effective than others, but all of them keep you alive...

Another easy to read, very good book is "Full Catastrophe Living" by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Cloud

I was wondering that myself, how meditation can be scary. Read through the whole thread just to see "why". Deeper meditations can be scary for real, like when you can no longer feel or sense yourself breathing or anything and have to have confidence that you're not in fact dying (that becomes a real scare until you're used to it).

LesC

This could be of some use to you:

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html

I just checked out your link! It's actually awesome! One of the best pieces I've ever read on Vipassana meditation. I'm definitely going to work through this course. I've wanted to do Vipassana for a while, but everything I've ever looked at was dry and stuffy or too layered with ritual. This is none of the above.

Thanks for posting this.

Les