Please share your meditation experience till now

misecmisc1

Hi All,

Today a thought came to my mind to ask you all about your meditation experience till now, so i am starting this thread.

So please tell:
how long (in days/months/years) you have been meditating now?
how regular (daily once/daily twice/alternate days/ twice-thrice in a week/ only weekends in a week / any other option) is your meditation?
what type of meditation (sitting, standing, walking, laying down, or a combination of these) comprises your regular meditation?
the most important question - what is your learning till now through your meditation experience - please tell from your own personal experience - for example - anything which you later found useful in doing meditation like posture, place etc/or something you later found not useful in doing meditation like posture, place etc/some tips to follow or avoid in meditation/any method to see how your meditation is going/progressing - any learning which you would like to share about your personal meditation experience?

Thanks in advance for sharing your meditation experience till now.

misecmisc1

Hi All,

Anybody willing to share their meditation experience till now. Well, if you wish to keep it to a minimum, then you can tell your total meditation experience duration in years - and - now, when you look back at your beginning your meditation, what do you think you have experienced that if there is something/not something which helps in developing meditation.

Thanks in advance for sharing your meditation experience till now.

taiyaki

1.5 years. 1 hour minimum per day.

usually begins with nine breath purifications. then dropping of everything. then resting in spacious presence.

sometimes i practice vase breathing. sometimes tonglen.

i find that doing preliminary meditations prior to meditating really helps. also knowing what you're aiming for directly helps. also knowing when and where to place effort and knowing when to just rest.

fundamentally meditation isn't trying to produce anything but rather to settle deeply into what is. this helps with not making meditation into another ego project.

also it is important i feel to dedicate ones practice for the purpose of those around us who suffer. one starts to take everything very seriously when other people are on the line.

it also helps to juggle two types of personalities. one of the meditation master who is strict discipline. the second personality is one of carefree and play. this corresponds with rigorous discipline for the horizontal path towards enlightenment and the discovery path of the vertical enlightenment.

this is just some stuff that i've found to help my meditation.

no experiences though.

misecmisc1

@taiyaki: Thanks for sharing your meditation experience. Nice stuff. :clap:

Invincible_summer

Hi All,

Today a thought came to my mind to ask you all about your meditation experience till now, so i am starting this thread.

So please tell:
how long (in days/months/years) you have been meditating now?

I think.. ~1 year give or take a few months.

how regular (daily once/daily twice/alternate days/ twice-thrice in a week/ only weekends in a week / any other option) is your meditation?

Everyday, but maybe 3-4 days a week of serious sitting meditation. The other days is just when I'm in a waiting room or on the bus, washing dishes, situations like that.

what type of meditation (sitting, standing, walking, laying down, or a combination of these) comprises your regular meditation?

For the actual dedicated meditation time, just sitting on the cushion. But, as I mentioned above, I try to integrate mindfulness into standing on the bus, washing dishes, cleaning, cooking, etc.

the most important question - what is your learning till now through your meditation experience - please tell from your own personal experience - for example - anything which you later found useful in doing meditation like posture, place etc/or something you later found not useful in doing meditation like posture, place etc/some tips to follow or avoid in meditation/any method to see how your meditation is going/progressing - any learning which you would like to share about your personal meditation experience?

I used to try to meditate before I went to sleep, but I always ended up getting too sleepy and crawling into bed. So now I meditate in the morning or afternoon if I can.

I don't really have any tips though.

misecmisc1

@invincible_summer: Thanks for sharing your meditation experience.

RichardH

Learned to sit around around 89 with a forest sangha teacher. Struggled earnestly on the cushion for about ten years.. a big sufferer (lots of retreats etc.). Fell away for a year or so . Suffered even more. Then sat diligently and struggled for another 5 years.. finally let-go and realized non-suffering (duh!) .. it turned out to be too simple... but you gotta go away to come back.. or something. Then the Thera/Maha thing presented as a fork of sorts.. odd maybe, but true, even though both are "right". The last couple of years has involved a lot of very mundane reflection about real life values .. and the value of ordinary humanness, and the idea that can be implicit in Buddhism, that life as it is, ordinary human life...ordinary suffering, is a cosmic error.. and how all those qualities that make us rich and human should be uprooted, so that we may kiss this world and its problems goodbye. A lot of reflection on that... and on the nature of idealism. So, it's been full road.. not just a sitting road.. and the way of practice.. the manner of provisional "right view", has been clarified for me.

It is different for everyone. What feels right in the gut, is different.

DairyLama

I have been addicted to meditation since 1980...

snGus

I'm still reading about meditation so I can do it right when I go for the actual practice. I found an awesome book for ppl on my situation by the way.

genkaku

I'm still reading about meditation so I can do it right when I go for the actual practice. I found an awesome book for ppl on my situation by the way.

@snGus -- Better to do it than to do it right. That way all the clothes come out of the washer clean.

RichardH

If you "have it together", in control, and you are "on top of things", meditation will never do-you-in. Instead, just do it wrong... not "having it together".. and suffering... but sticking with it, and cultivating formal discipline. Just keep the form, and suffer. If you happen to have the unfortunate character combination I have, of being both too clever, and really thick... it can take a while.

It's that old untrue story (apologies for my limited collection) of Oscar Wilde on his deathbed. Forced to lay there looking at some hideous wallpaper his last words were... "One of us has to go"

genkaku

It's that old untrue story (apologies for my limited collection) of Oscar Wilde on his deathbed. Forced to lay there looking at some hideous wallpaper his last words were... "One of us has to go"

@RichardH -- Thanks for the laugh. I don't care if its true or apocryphal, it sounds like Wilde ... and I hope I have something equally witty to say.

misecmisc1

I have been addicted to meditation since 1980...

@porpoise: are you serious or are you joking?

misecmisc1

@RichardH: long journey seems to be yours. nice to read your insight.

well, now since you say that you have clarified for yourself the dilemma of 'right view'- can you share with us - as per you, how to deal with this world, by not turning us into rocks and also not indulging in Samsara? please share your view on 'right view'.

misecmisc1

I'm still reading about meditation so I can do it right when I go for the actual practice. I found an awesome book for ppl on my situation by the way.

@snGus -- Better to do it than to do it right. That way all the clothes come out of the washer clean.

@snGus: well, i agree with @genkaku. i read it somewhere that there is no right meditation and no wrong meditation. my understanding till now says: meditation is not about doing anything, rather it is about letting go - it is bringing the attention of the mind to natural breathing and to observe the breath and train the mind to let go of any thought which arises and bringing the attention back to breath and just observe the natural breath and keep on doing it till the mind develops some calm. everything else will follow naturally, when their time will come.

Sabre

I've been meditating for about 7 years now. In those years sometimes I meditated a lot, sometimes not so much. But I've found it most useful to meditate at least daily, otherwise progress is not really noticable. Lately I've been meditating twice a day or more, both sitting and walking, totalling 1.5 hours or so. Also mindfulness in daily activities is what I do a lot; at a certain point this will start to happen automatically so it can't really be avoided anyway. But when it doesn't yet, it is still a useful tool to develop sitting meditation.

Other things that are important in my experience are virtue (the precepts), finding some support, trust the teachers, but at times also be wise enough to see which teachings benefit you and which do not. And mostly: Have fun with it and smile.

I can say meditation (and the rest of Buddhism) totally changed my life (in a positive way), so I'm forever thankful for encountering it.

misecmisc1

@Sabre: thanks for sharing your meditation experience. just to let you know, i have started metta meditation also after your suggestion in my other thread. thanks for suggesting metta meditation to me.

taiyaki

I'll share some other meditations I've done:

Sitting still focus on sounds. Be it internal chatter or the sound of birds.

Focus on the external location of the sound in relationship to the ear. Notice basic space where all sounds appear, abide and disappear. Focus on the presence, absence, presence, absence. Or sound, silence, sound, silence.

Notice how basic space is always there. And there is no difference between space, silence or sound.

Rest in that.

or

Breathing in, notice your tensions of body and mind.

Breathing out and follow your breath into space. This is natural letting go.

Focusing on space allow everything to come and go.

Continually open to basic space, which is our fundemental goodness and intelligence.

Relax.

RichardH

@RichardH: long journey seems to be yours. nice to read your insight.

well, now since you say that you have clarified for yourself the dilemma of 'right view'- can you share with us - as per you, how to deal with this world, by not turning us into rocks and also not indulging in Samsara? please share your view on 'right view'.

I don't have a tidy "right view".. but an unfolding one. Around meditation it now clear to me that it is the practice of dying to Wilde's wallpaper.. Dukkha. We can't fake it.. we can't play dead while keeping one eye open. It may take a while. Once it happens it seems like a big deal at the time, a total life changer, but then it isn't, it is just the beginning of ongoing practice, dying to the wallpaper over and over. But there is something that happens the first time. Certain kinds of suffering are done for good... the kind of suffering around "ultimate questions".., spiritual and existential confusion and doubt. Existential doubt and the search for meaning, is over.

But we are people who live and love and care and suffer... being human still hurts, and we still make mistakes all the time, and we still get confused over this and that.. we never "have it together".. that is being human. So it is always work...always an ongoing effort to make a better world. Gone however is any idea that something is fundamentally wrong. ... even when we get disturbed by this or that.. then drop it and forget. Ongoing practice is the integration of that sitting.. that dying to the wallpaper.. then emerging again to hold and suffer. Nirvana and Samsara, form and emptiness, are not two.. that realization is endless.


This is just one person in one tradition of Buddhism... no better or worse.. But it is where my life and practice has lead.

misecmisc1

@RichardH: what is this story of Wilde and wallpaper - i think i have not heard it - so can't get the context of your first paragraph above. Can you please tell the summary of the story in short, please. Thanks in advance.

RichardH

@RichardH: what is this story of Wilde and wallpaper - i think i have not heard it - so can't get the context of your first paragraph above. Can you please tell the summary of the story in short, please. Thanks in advance.

It was this earlier post here...

If you "have it together", in control, and you are "on top of things", meditation will never do-you-in. Instead, just do it wrong... not "having it together".. and suffering... but sticking with it, and cultivating formal discipline. Just keep the form, and suffer. If you happen to have the unfortunate character combination I have, of being both too clever, and really thick... it can take a while.

It's that old untrue story (apologies for my limited collection) of Oscar Wilde on his deathbed. Forced to lay there looking at some hideous wallpaper his last words were... "One of us has to go"

seeker242

how long (in days/months/years) you have been meditating now?

Since 1993

how regular (daily once/daily twice/alternate days/ twice-thrice in a week/ only weekends in a week / any other option) is your meditation?

Sometime once daily sometimes twice

what type of meditation (sitting, standing, walking, laying down, or a combination of these) comprises your regular meditation?

Zazen breath following and Shikantaza

the most important question - what is your learning till now through your meditation experience - please tell from your own personal experience - for example - anything which you later found useful in doing meditation like posture, place etc/or something you later found not useful in doing meditation like posture, place etc/some tips to follow or avoid in meditation/any method to see how your meditation is going/progressing - any learning which you would like to share about your personal meditation experience?

Holding on to (insert whatever here) makes suffering, letting go of (insert whatever here) stops it.

However, that is easier said than done!

DairyLama

I have been addicted to meditation since 1980...

@porpoise: are you serious or are you joking?

Yes, I first learned to meditate in 1980 and have been doing it more or less continuously since then. I did Dzogchen shamata for quite a long time, and in recent years have been focussing on anapanasati ( tranquillity / insight ).
I'm still learning though.

Jeffrey

@porpoise, did your Dzogchen teacher say it was merely shamata? My understanding is that the Dzogchen meditation is pretty much what Buddha did to become enlightened.

Just curious. I'm doing formless meditation which my teacher says 'opens out' to Dzogchen or mahamudra. Those are the highest tantras of the vajrayana. Did you do prostrations leading up to your study of Dzogchen?

Sabre

@Sabre: thanks for sharing your meditation experience. just to let you know, i have started metta meditation also after your suggestion in my other thread. thanks for suggesting metta meditation to me.

Good to read. Have fun!

DairyLama

@porpoise, did your Dzogchen teacher say it was merely shamata? My understanding is that the Dzogchen meditation is pretty much what Buddha did to become enlightened.

Just curious. I'm doing formless meditation which my teacher says 'opens out' to Dzogchen or mahamudra. Those are the highest tantras of the vajrayana. Did you do prostrations leading up to your study of Dzogchen?

With Dzogchen shamata we were taught to have 25% attention on the breath and remaining attention on "spacious" awareness. This is quite similar to the anapanasati practice I do now, and also similar to some of Zen practices, effectively a combination of shamata/vipassana ( transquillity/insight ).

I did quite a lot of mantra accumulations which were seen as preparatory practice - though I didn't find them particularly effective except in terms of developing concentration ( or not ).

Jeffrey

I find mantras a stimulus to my innate devotion to the practice. If I think of the mantra it is only a tiny step away to meditate or study talks.

snGus

Thanks for the infro, @genkaku and @misecmisc1