I have a meditation question.
rickyd123
New
I have meditated in my own way for many years. I've read a lot about it and taken a couple classes. I've never felt I was getting much out of it. I always felt I was missing the mark. I know that many people say you cannot meditate incorrectly. The only wrong meditation is to stop meditating.
Since finding this site, I've read about using a meditation object. I've never heard of doing that before. Here's my question. I pick my meditation object. It happens to be a penny I found under my car seat. It had been there for many years soaking in dried soda. It has turned green in areas from some kind of fungus or some thing. So, when I meditate do I closely examine the penny. The copper color, Lincoln's head, the year printed on it, ect... Or do I just clear my head like I normally do. If it's the first one is that all I do. Spend the entire meditation closely examining my object, or is there more.
Comments
http://www.dhamma.org/en/locations/directory
This link might help you practically.
That won't work for me. I don't get out much, and I live a long ways from any where.
If you're using an object, you're using it to focus your mind... not to actually examine. The easiest "object" to use is your breath. Just notice the inhaling, pausing, exhaling, to the fullest extent that you can. This stabilizes and focuses your mind, building concentration. Once your mind is concentrated, allow yourself to also notice every thought and feeling arising and passing in your mind. The guiding rule is about a fourth of your concentration should be on the breath, and the rest on the "happenings" of consciousness.
So I'm supposed to allow thoughts to arise in my mind. Then think about them. ie. I'm supposed to mow the lawn this afternoon just arose in my mind. I need to get gas for the mower. I hate mowing the lawn. So on and so on. How am I supposed to examine that thought?
Try youtube, I'm sure you'll find some cyber gurus who will be able to assist you in your quest...
@rickyd123 No no no no no, you're not supposed to think (or examine) the thoughts. Simply notice the thought or feeling when it comes and goes, and then return to the breath. Don't latch on, don't follow it, don't daydream, just let it go. Meditation is watching the mind, not engaging the mind. Maybe that's where you're getting confused.
We don't "feed" thoughts in meditation.
It's okay to catch yourself thinking and return to the breath, and it'll probably happen often at first (in fact it's expected; the mind is unruly). Returning to the breath strengthens your concentration, like exercising a muscle, so even that serves the purposes of meditation when it happens.
The breath is your anchor and it maintains the "space" between your awareness and the fleeting contents of your mind. We have to separate ourselves from those contents in order to understand their true nature (the true nature of mind).
Meditating shows us what our mind is really up to. That's where we gain insight.
Found a link also: http://secularbuddhism.org/meditation-support/basic-meditation-instructions/
Maybe my personal example will help. (I practice pretty spartan zazen.) The "object" I use is a spot on the wall (not a fancy spot, just a naturally occurring whatever wherever I happen to be meditating). There isn't much to be thought about a spot on the wall, it's simply a place to rest my eyes. I'm not exactly looking at the spot, it's just there as a focal point. Many people also use a candle flame for this reason, although I think a flame can be a little more exciting than a spot on the wall, lol.
The point of meditation is not to concern yourself with ceasing thought, but to learn how not to engage thoughts... if that makes sense. Don't follow your train of thought. You might think about mowing the lawn, but just gently remind yourself to return back to your breath or your spot or candle flame or whatever. It's about being in the moment as is, not thinking about the future (mowing the lawn) or the past (what you should have said in a previous conversation)... just whatever is happening in the moment, which is just you... here... in the now.
Thich Nhat Hanh has a pretty easy practice involving a mantra to use the breath to focus on the present moment.
The breath like the copper-coloured penny is just an object of on which the conscious awareness remiains focussed on; see it in that way and then relax and allow your awareness to be the penny, and your knowledge of it being the penyy on the place it sits, the carpet, then as you relax being present on that object observe how you are also that ovoid field of awareness, which you are self-consciously aware as your present experience. It's not hard to do, but it's hard to remain focussed:
Thanks for the feedback and the links
Such a choice for an object of meditation should be left up to a qualified teacher that you trust.
There are other objects meantime that are much safer to use for a meditation focus when a teacher is not available..eg Your breathing?
Ay Caramba [bodhi Bart mantra]
What exactly?
Attention focus object is important, why on earth manky money?
If filling your attention why not something neutral, inspring or primal? Any object can be used for meditation and in magic systems the ability to create a visualised image is important. However that is another area . . .
The breath (internal object), flame or Agni is possible but personally I would use the full range of traditional elemental representations.
http://www.wildmind.org/six-elements/earth
This is the variation I was taught . . .
http://yinyana.tumblr.com/post/31454196568/elements
reminds me of Brighton beach stone balancing artist: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgbalancesrocks/170335670/in/photostream/
Today I went to a meditation class for beginners and the teacher instructed us to "enjoy" the breath. Don't focus on the breath. When your thoughts wander (and they will), just go back and enjoy the breath again. And again. And again.
@Nerima It's both, because you can't choose to enjoy something. When we concentrate on an object and give the thinking mind a break, that can be a pleasurable experience. It's enjoyable. Good thing too or many people would give up on meditation early on!
I'm fairly new at this attention-paying to the here and now, otherwise known as meditation (I don't 'sit', though) and seems to me, no matter how many ways it is explained, semantics is always an obstacle in understanding what the purpose is.
Like has been already said, the penny or the spot on the wall or the candle or whatev, is a focal point, not something you need to examine -- just observe -- it's just that our 'thinker' / mind wants to 'do' something like its 'duty' is to 'learn' something from the act of observing it -- sorry for all the single quotes, hah...
Meditation is for getting your mind to sit in the back seat without the backseat driving!
Who is in control? your mind or you?
"Who is the who?" might be more apropos. Otherwise these questions posit a couple of things that need examined: That "you" are one thing and "your mind" another, and that one of these is in control and the other not!
You decide to sit your mind decides that you need to mow the lawn. What do you do?
The outcome determines the one in control. There is a separation because there is no-self It is the who. It was only associated with the mind.
As a baby you had to discover your body and then the world.
@Greg911 You're not the one, not the other, not neither, and not both.
I think of the meditation object as an anchor, which helps to prevent the mind being repeatedly dragged off.
I believe after a while, you can even drop multiple methods/techniques if your mind can already become focused and calm without much effort. But sometimes we need still need those training wheels after many years.
You are the one. Where is the one? The one gives its existence to the illusion. The one is all that exists.
When you have the supernatural power of creation how does it work?
Do you believe that is even true? It is written.
@Greg911 You're not making any sense.
That is what is meant by - God is the only thing that is real. If you can get past the word God or your meaning for it.
Each thing I have said could be a meditation in its self.
Someone sent me a link and in it there were four supernatural powers. Do you have them? I Do.
@Greg911 God is not a Buddhist teaching. You could try Emptiness, which is. There is no "Ultimate Being" in Buddhism.
Greg911 what do you mean by real? Do you mean 'refuge' ie 'reliable'?
I am talking to you. You don't know what the baggage is. What is Emptiness compare to the illusion. They are two different things and both the same. Except the Emptiness is the one that is real and it has everything in it. To us we are empty because we are directly connected to the one part of the illusion but not the same way.
@Greg911 I give up. Mystic-speak is not conducive to shared understanding.
Never give up. Why do you want shared understanding?
Here is some shared understanding.
I am blind in one eye
I have a stent in my hart
I am hard of hearing
I can't taste because of radiation treatments for an aggressive cancer
I have been on chemo for 30 years
I have multiple myeloma from agent orange from Vietnam.
I have Kidney failure and will soon be on dialysis.
Three strokes
One hear attack
All I can say is it just gets funnier and funnier.
I am considered a miracle by the medical community.
I live in the sticks, in a town of 3000 people many miles from the nearest Walmart or Mcdonalds, and even we have a meditation group (along with yoga teachers who assist with meditation) and a traveling monk who visits us several times a year. You'd be surprised what you can find when you stop assuming "nothing like that will ever be available here." There are people who know how to meditate everywhere. In grocery stores, law offices, schools, hospitals. Start talking to people and being open with who you are and those people will come into your life. They are out there, probably more numerous than you think.
A teacher is an ideal way to learn because not only do they have a knack for explaining the unexplainable, but they can help you get unstuck when you inevitably get stuck. Often times, the problem is that one is expecting something from meditation. To feel better, to feel relaxed, to feel less stressed, to feel warm and fuzzy, whatever. When you expect something and then compare your experience to that expectation, that is where you lose the joy.
meditaion is focus. Focus on breath, focus on compassion, focus on a coin,
focussssss......
For us cushion squatters, what we are doing becomes apparent . . . but not to the stuffed (aka Ms Cushion - yes she is back) - did I mention she was supportive of all bums/bottoms?
Here is the whole family with baby bolster cushion (yes lobster is an anagram of bolster)
. . . however we often discuss common experiences or their lack, the stylistic semantic differences between focussed awareness and awareness of focus and even tantric party tricks like becoming an imaginal personification of a Buddha attribute . . .
Here is my latest support . . .
yinyana.tumblr.com/day/2014/11/06
Wonderful.
Could it be stated any simpler.? Could it be made any simpler?
Sometimes we don't understand you.
You've been to places we haven't.
Happy to see you don't give up.
Please don't!
There was a post about the self earlier. I was going to comment on it. Sorry about off topic.
Everyone has an individual Ego.
Everyone has the same self.
You're right. it's off topic.
And frankly, some of your responses are smart-ass, which I have to say in the popularity stakes, is quite low down the scale, and there's only so much of it we're prepared to put up with.