Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Examples: Monday, today, last week, Mar 26, 3/26/04
Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.

Next Step

Most of us are engaged in formal, informal, occasional or theoretical meditation. Mindfulness or aware being is the goal but how about the next step towards that?

eg.

  • Change in posturing. Recently I mostly abandoned cushion support and sit on carpeted floor.
  • Movement whilst sitting. Recently been doing mindful adjusting …
  • Gentler nasal breathing.
  • Relaxation of mind body states and even nazi straightening …

What and where is your next step?

Shoshin1Jeroen

Comments

  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    Walking meditation, of course (so obvious)…

  • FosdickFosdick in its eye are mirrored far off mountains Alaska, USA Veteran

    I rarely know what the next step is until I've already taken it, and I tend to see discreet steps on the path only in hindsight. My meditation these days is informal at best, is indulged as the need arises, and is shaped by that need rather than by any predetermined plan. Actually deciding on a step to be taken and then hammering away at it has become to seem counter-productive. But it is an interesting question - I hadn't considered the problem from quite that angle before.

    Jeroenlobster
  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    @Fosdick said:
    Actually deciding on a step to be taken and then hammering away at it has become to seem counter-productive.

    That is a good point. Meditation is not a problem to be solved by many small adjustments, that seems very goal-oriented thinking.

  • @Fosdick said:
    I rarely know what the next step is until I've already taken it, and I tend to see discreet steps on the path only in hindsight.

    Quite true.
    That is why a journaling of the inner journey can be productive.

    My meditation these days is informal at best, is indulged as the need arises, and is shaped by that need rather than by any predetermined plan.

    Oh indulging in mince pies as the need is always present? ;) You seem to be expressing a great variety of technique? Here for example are some lesser known practices:

    • In Shingon, letters of the Japanese kanji (letters) are focuses of contemplation. There is nothing especially sacred/auspicious about Japanese or any language. Try English, find meaning.
    • Mandalas, pictures of teachers or any pictorial inspiration can be widened. What inspires?
    • Buddhist Yoga
      https://www.zenyoga-berlin.de/blog/what-is-buddhist-yoga/

    Actually deciding on a step to be taken and then hammering away at it has become to seem counter-productive. But it is an interesting question - I hadn't considered the problem from quite that angle before.

    My hammer is made of butter. It is a natural melding …

  • FosdickFosdick in its eye are mirrored far off mountains Alaska, USA Veteran

    Water over rock. Rock is worn away, water endures.

  • ajhayesajhayes Pema Jinpa Dorje Northern Michigan Veteran

    The practice is like standing at a crossroad with no destination, then suddenly taking a step. Hard to say what the step is until my foot hits the ground.

    Fosdicklobster
  • Standing, sitting, walking, running, lying down - the next step s to "take" the "next step".
    We move even when we are still.

    lobster
  • FosdickFosdick in its eye are mirrored far off mountains Alaska, USA Veteran
    edited December 2021

    I rarely know what the next step is until I've already taken it, and I tend to see discreet steps on the path only in hindsight.>

    Quite true.>
    That is why a journaling of the inner journey can be productive.>

    Yes, journaling can be very useful, although my own scribblings hardly merit that term, mixed up as they are with doodles and drawings and chore lists. I most often attempt to deal with emergent problems by this means, journaling forward rather than backward, and I suppose that solving those problems could be regarded as steps in the practice.

    In that sense, my own next steps would be to get control of my pipe smoking, and to eliminate my inevitable irritation and annoyance at so many of my fellow shoppers in the grocery store, the ones who will not move their carcasses by a single inch to let me and my two canes pass by on my way to the canned goods.

    lobster
  • WalkerWalker Veteran Veteran

    Yeah, @Fosdick I find myself getting annoyed by other shoppers as well. I see so many people that are totally immersed in what they are doing and completely oblivious to what others are trying to do, and where they are trying to go. I should be used to the behaviour and just accept the fact that's the way things are, but it still triggers me much more often than it should.

    Shoshin1lobster
  • … annoyed …

    Nobody has annoyed me
    as much as my self …

    FosdickWalker
Sign In or Register to comment.