Looking at ground instead of breath

Jeffrey

I hear psychotic (remember this is a brain disease) voices and have been meditating every day all day for five days. One thing I noticed is that often I am looking at the ground, grass, and counting the breath but I am not noting the breath. My curiosity is from experienced meditators to know how that will affect me. I know there are a lot of different meditations and I wondered how I am affected.

So since I am stable with visuals over these five days I wonder if I should just stick with that or should I make an effort to return to the breath. Some other meditations I have done is asking 'is this space mine?.. No it is not mine'. Body scans and metta which is scary because the voices have comments on my sending them metta, ah epiphany I should not do metta on the voices as much and instead on family and old aquaintences that are not represented in the voices in my head.

RichardH

One of the best bits of advice I ever got regarding awareness of breath was "Don't become a unicorn!". Get the image of fixating on the breath ?... and struggling to sustain "concentration"? The breath is there, the whole body is there, the floor is there, the room is there, sounds are there.... the totality of experiencing at-once is there... all by itself. Just snap out-of reveries, and sit body and mind... simple and open. That is the discipline... over and over.


ed. .. and in the context of your illness.. a voice that says "You will never get this right!" ... is a voice saying you will never get this right.. if it is a compelling voice , it is a compelling voice. ... along with breath and floor,and room and sound... and so forth.

Jeffrey

Thanks RichardH

I try a lot of different things. My teacher said the same thing as you. Let myself be the quiet one hearing all the chatter.

Sabre

Meditating with eyes open can be a very helpful practice. Looking at things as a meditation practice is probably as old (or maybe even older) as Buddhism itself. We can find some references to this in the Vishudimagga (Path to Purification), which is an ancient Therevadan commentary on the suttas. It goes into great detail of different objects, to me that's a bit too much. But it's important that the objects are very simple, like 'earth' (ground) indeed, air, colors, things like that.

It says these things can provide as good meditation as breath meditation itself. If you want to know a bit more, you can find something here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasina

I have a white wall at my balcony I sometimes stare at as a meditation when I'm sleepy. I find that helps a bit. In some form of Zen they also stare at a white wall. But you can just as well use grass or the ground.

So if you find it helps, the above shows you are not the only one who thinks so!

Happy meditation to you,

Sabre

pegembara

Thanks RichardH

I try a lot of different things. My teacher said the same thing as you. Let myself be the quiet one hearing all the chatter.

Would it be possible to live with the voices as if it was coming from another irritating person who has nothing useful to say and ignore them? They are there because of your brain condition. They don't belong to you and are definitely not you.

Just thinking.

Regards

Jeffrey

Thanks RichardH

I try a lot of different things. My teacher said the same thing as you. Let myself be the quiet one hearing all the chatter.

Would it be possible to live with the voices as if it was coming from another irritating person who has nothing useful to say and ignore them? They are there because of your brain condition. They don't belong to you and are definitely not you.

Just thinking.

Regards

Yeah, that's how I do it. One problem I have is some painful feelings towards a friend who had a neck injury and now I have guilty feelings, kinda mixed up. The voies say I am sending 'e-mails' in my mind that hurt this person. So I believe I could be hurting and get caught up. Once I regain composure and stop the guilty feelings then I switch to not believing.

My lama says to just be the quiet one at the eye of the storm.

lamaramadingdong

There’s a wonderful story about the Tibetan Buddhist yogi Milarepa. Having only recently begun a solitary retreat, he was in his cave preparing tea when he heard a steadily intensifying racquet just outside. A host of demons had arrived and were gnashing, wailing and agitating. Milarepa invites them in: “I’ve been expecting you”, he says. “Come on in and have a cup of tea.”

Jeffrey

Cool, my Lama is from Karma Kagyu and part of the lineage is Milarepa.

taiyaki

I've also heard tht he got rid of all except one through the power of meditation.

But the last demon he just opened its mouth and went inside it.

TheFound

u got a brain problem that makes u hear voices?

don't worry
we'll do good, not bad. and thats good shit... every single impulse of ours goes out into the world and has incredible echoes and vibrations, there isn't anything negative or positive about these, but
if u can use delusions skilfully they become mechanisms of enlightenment..
I must add that I am not in ur head yet..
but I will be probably.
Please don't hate the useless ones, they are just not wise... or not digested

DairyLama

My curiosity is from experienced meditators to know how that will affect me.

It probably varies a lot from person to person. My experience is that eyes closed leads to stronger concentration but it can feel a bit claustrophobic. I've found that eyes open usually means weaker concentration but maybe being more alert.

Jeffrey

u got a brain problem that makes u hear voices?

don't worry
we'll do good, not bad. and thats good shit... every single impulse of ours goes out into the world and has incredible echoes and vibrations, there isn't anything negative or positive about these, but
if u can use delusions skilfully they become mechanisms of enlightenment..
I must add that I am not in ur head yet..
but I will be probably.
Please don't hate the useless ones, they are just not wise... or not digested

I've enjoyed your posts over the years. To be honest though my mind is a full house!

taiyaki

Ever hear of body work by reggie ray?

I've been doin some body based meditations. Its really interesting. Gets you out of the head and more into our bodies.

Might be worth a try.

pegembara

@ Jeffrey

Everyone "hears" voices in their heads. These are voices of guilt, regret, doubt etc.
The difference is that the voices or guests are not as loud or insistent as yours. We are really not that different from you! You have to find ways to deal with these rude guests. If you can't get rid of them, at least learn to ignore them although I agree that sometimes it can be very difficult.

Jeffrey

@Pegembra, what catches me up is feeling that the voices are like a walkie-talkie connection. Like if I get angry towards a pressure point I feel the voices themselves are real people who we are having a conversation with. I have running grudges. Sometimes there is a 'rainbow' and all sorts of other words to mark a transition in the voices. The worst thing to be is 'non-consecutive'. And I admit that my thoughts are really not all that clear. I am not a person who makes good transitions in sentences. The hardest is when the voices criticize me. Not allowing me to smoke pipes or at least urging me not to. The reason they give is that my mood is unregulated and I am casting stereo types and inconsecuitive outbursts of words like 'hot momma' or something else that wipes out the paper, rocks scissors, of trying to make a triangle in Florida.

It's completely impossible to explain. But I see my behaviour in others who don't have the voices criticizing them. Mixing uppers and downers is an example. For example...

Brainstorming can be dangerous because you never know what you will find.