Metaphors, similies, and analogies for meditation.. anyone?

Jeffrey

I thought of it as you are a stagnant pool and meditation is a spring feeding into the pool that cleans it.

Another thought was that your whole practice over a period is like sitting on your back waiting for shooting stars. Sometimes you see one or two but your time is mostly spent watching. But the few stars you see make a difference in shifting your feelings and attitude.

person

I like to think of it in terms of physical exercise but for the mind. Often its hard work and sometimes you don't really feel like doing it but you almost always feel better afterword and it builds up those spiritual muscles.

A more traditional analogy that I like is one of a dirty pool of water. Our normally active mind is like stirring the water but when we sit and meditate its like we stop stirring and let the dirt settle until eventually the water becomes clear.

fivebells

@Jeffrey There are many different types of meditation, and no one simile covers them all. The type of meditation your simile is pointing to is quite advanced and, as you note, a rather indirect and unreliable approach to adjusting feelings and attitude. Generally the kind of meditation you're pointing to is only likely to be productive when feelings and attitude have been all but put aside using other meditation techniques.

Jeffrey

In my teacher you don't put them aside You make friends with your stuff in an atmosphere of unconditional friendliness. We develope loving kindness and not agressive goal oriented practice. Like meditating based on I should do this because it will be good for me or make me a good Buddhist. But rather than feel bad about all that you discover who you are at your wisest and at your most confused. You see yourselves as completely sane and as a basket case with an unconditional friendliness. That is the attitude you bring. You also learn to let go as that is an important aspect of friendliness and not make a big deal. Sometimes this is called shunyata but it comes from training in not making a big deal. Again and again and again acknowledging open heartedly. As a human we do make things a big deal so some kind of attitude of honoring things in themselves but not making a big deal. Glad to be alive is the balance between acknowledging and making not a big deal. Not belittling but not fanning.

Posture
Object that we return to
How we work with our thoughts (unconditionally friendly)

Jeffrey

Yay I am a bill board for my tradition Seriously I appreciate your advice @fivebells. Recently I've been tuning into what you say and have gotten a resonance. I tried feeling the good feeling in my breath and the feedback loop and it helped me pay attention more rather than day dreaming. As you probably guess my meditation method is difficult. It is not dzogchen but it opens outward to it according to my teacher.

It's like mahayana talks where they say at the beginning of the talk 'now cultivate bodhicitta'. If you could do that you wouldn't need to hear the talk!

fivebells

Yep, I love meditation practice, too. It's one of the more direct attitude adjusters I was thinking of.

Sorry, didn't mean to belittle your tradition or practice. I do think it's a valid approach, just too hard for me at the moment.

lobster

Is it like sitting with and without being SAT

. . . like a lotus blossoming or opening/relaxing in its own radiance.

Like the sun always shining on all things when the clouds have cleared . . .

a stream we finally flow with, rather than against.

. . . maybe its just an empty cushion

maarten

I like this one: meditation is allowing the mind to come home.

Sabre

One of the most inspiring ones I've heard:

pegembara

Movie in our minds

We don't have to let go, we simply have to not hold on. Freedom is to be able to feel without the added notion of identification that "this is me," "this is who I am." Because it's not. A phrase one of my teachers used to describe the meditative experience is "empty phenomena rolling on." And that's really what's happening. It's empty phenomena with no one behind it, no one to whom it is happening. The problem is that we get attached or react in aversion and that's where we get caught in the story.

In the same way we are often lost in the movies of our mind. There's a Zen story about a hermit monk who painted a tiger on the walls of his cave. He painted it so realistically that when he finished, he looked at it and became frightened. It takes practice to wake up, to emerge from our mind-created worlds.


Kalakarama Sutta

Whatever is seen, heard, sensed or clung to,
is esteemed as truth by other folk,

Midst those who are entrenched in their own views
being 'Such' I hold none as true or false.

This barb I beheld, well in advance,
whereon mankind is hooked, impaled,

'I know, I see `tis verily so'---- no such clinging
for the Tathàgatas.

driedleaf

Physical, mental, and spiritual reconditioning is for lack of words the best I can come up with.

karmablues

As Ajahn Chah puts it: "If you listen to the Dhamma teachings but don't practice you're like a ladle in a soup pot. The ladle is in the soup pot every day, but it doesn't know the taste of the soup. You must reflect and meditate."