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beginner
Hey everyone, I'm new.
I'd like to share something with the people of this forum, and see what they think of it.
But first off,
I didn't randomly pick this website to come to, I looked around for a while.
I've read about 1/3 of " How To Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life" from the Dalai Lama (until my brother spilled liquid on the book and ruined it.)
And I've read a few things here and there about the teachings of Buddha online and I have some books about the chakras and related things.
Basically what I am trying to say is that I came here because I enjoy Buddhist teachings and they make sense to me, where a lottttt of other things on this earth don't. And so I suppose I wanted to learn a little more about meditation (and get some feedback) from the Buddhist perspective.
Because I like their "style" and from what I've read, it makes sense.
But anyways, to get to why I came here:
Ok lets see.. A couple years back I was reading about meditation very briefly online, and I decided to give it a go (for the first time), being as nobody was home and it was a quiet, lovely day.
I went to the living room, sat on the ground with my back up against the couch, with my legs extended fully outward (not a very recommended posture, I know). The the fan above me was quietly moving air around the room and the little fan-chain-switch was dangling down and clicking to the rhythm of the fan movement. I calmed my body and mind down, and began to relax and slow my breathing. After a few minutes of this, I started to use the chain clicking as a mantra I suppose (before i knew what a mantra was). I used the clicking to banish all thought, except for the sound. Very soon after that, it was just 'me' and the clicking. And then very soon after that, something awesome and startling happened. I released the thought of the chain, and then my mind was totally empty. I'll try to explain what it felt like for me, without being too hokey or false-sounding, but here we go.
All of a sudden I snapped into this state where it felt like I was weightless, and it felt like my 'mind' came up out of the top of my head and was (i was) floating a handful of inches over my own head. It also felt as if my body was a couple inches off the ground as well (but im surely not saying it was, just felt like that). I was basically, from what I remember, a ball of energy floating above myself. I'm not sure what I remember about what it looked like around me at the time, but it was a mix of nothing, but also something. Whatever it was, was just infinite, all around, as if I was in space.
This only happened for a total of 1 or 2 seconds, and then a rush of very human conscious thought came to mind "holy crap!" and it all snapped back into normalcy. Everything that I experienced rushed back into myself and I awoken into reality.
I went back online after, very happy with my results, and I was humbled and excited when I found that some other people had experienced nearly the same thing. So to me, it seemed like I really did attain some small measure of real meditation. It just seems weird to me that I even got that far on my first try. But ever since that day, Ive tried a handful of times to attain that state again, but it just hasn't happened.
I know now that 'trying' is counterproductive, so maybe that is why I was never able to get even close to what had happened before.
I know it wasn't sleeping because i was up very straight, I knew beforehand that I had to be comfortable, but not in danger of sleeping. I was up straight, attentive and open and ready. And SOMETHING happened that day. But I don't know what. All I know is that I've never experienced that before, or since.
Also, a hugeee chunk of this type of thing is self exploration, with some amount of guiding, but most of it is things you can figure out for yourself.
And I do honestly feel that what happened was real. It felt real.
What do you guys think of that?
I'm not saying I'm some kind of prodigy or anything. But I mean, that really happened. I also think why I've never been able to get close to that again is because I was very excited, and I think i was trying too hard, which just killed it. When that happened I was not filled with cockiness or feelings of accomplishment.. I only felt humbled and very, very excited and happy that something that I believed in, turned out to be true, for once, and I wanted to go back to it.
When I meditate It helps me with social anxieties and my speech impediment. So I would really like to "jump back on the wagon."
I like how it makes me feel, and it truly does help me.
It makes me feel and see the one-ness in everything and I feel like, for a couple hours after meditation that the perspective and feelings of understanding that linger with me really decrease my stutter and anxiety..
I'd like those feelings to last longer, you know?
Also, I don't really want to eat meat anymore. I'd like to start off by banishing red meat from my diet all at once, and sticking to chicken and fish for a while, until my body gets used to that, then try to come off meat alltogether.
I want to read more about buddhism.
I just want to be a better person all around.
Anyways.. enough of my rambling. I haven't meditated in a long time now, and I'd really like to start again.
I'd like to share something with the people of this forum, and see what they think of it.
But first off,
I didn't randomly pick this website to come to, I looked around for a while.
I've read about 1/3 of " How To Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life" from the Dalai Lama (until my brother spilled liquid on the book and ruined it.)
And I've read a few things here and there about the teachings of Buddha online and I have some books about the chakras and related things.
Basically what I am trying to say is that I came here because I enjoy Buddhist teachings and they make sense to me, where a lottttt of other things on this earth don't. And so I suppose I wanted to learn a little more about meditation (and get some feedback) from the Buddhist perspective.
Because I like their "style" and from what I've read, it makes sense.
But anyways, to get to why I came here:
Ok lets see.. A couple years back I was reading about meditation very briefly online, and I decided to give it a go (for the first time), being as nobody was home and it was a quiet, lovely day.
I went to the living room, sat on the ground with my back up against the couch, with my legs extended fully outward (not a very recommended posture, I know). The the fan above me was quietly moving air around the room and the little fan-chain-switch was dangling down and clicking to the rhythm of the fan movement. I calmed my body and mind down, and began to relax and slow my breathing. After a few minutes of this, I started to use the chain clicking as a mantra I suppose (before i knew what a mantra was). I used the clicking to banish all thought, except for the sound. Very soon after that, it was just 'me' and the clicking. And then very soon after that, something awesome and startling happened. I released the thought of the chain, and then my mind was totally empty. I'll try to explain what it felt like for me, without being too hokey or false-sounding, but here we go.
All of a sudden I snapped into this state where it felt like I was weightless, and it felt like my 'mind' came up out of the top of my head and was (i was) floating a handful of inches over my own head. It also felt as if my body was a couple inches off the ground as well (but im surely not saying it was, just felt like that). I was basically, from what I remember, a ball of energy floating above myself. I'm not sure what I remember about what it looked like around me at the time, but it was a mix of nothing, but also something. Whatever it was, was just infinite, all around, as if I was in space.
This only happened for a total of 1 or 2 seconds, and then a rush of very human conscious thought came to mind "holy crap!" and it all snapped back into normalcy. Everything that I experienced rushed back into myself and I awoken into reality.
I went back online after, very happy with my results, and I was humbled and excited when I found that some other people had experienced nearly the same thing. So to me, it seemed like I really did attain some small measure of real meditation. It just seems weird to me that I even got that far on my first try. But ever since that day, Ive tried a handful of times to attain that state again, but it just hasn't happened.
I know now that 'trying' is counterproductive, so maybe that is why I was never able to get even close to what had happened before.
I know it wasn't sleeping because i was up very straight, I knew beforehand that I had to be comfortable, but not in danger of sleeping. I was up straight, attentive and open and ready. And SOMETHING happened that day. But I don't know what. All I know is that I've never experienced that before, or since.
Also, a hugeee chunk of this type of thing is self exploration, with some amount of guiding, but most of it is things you can figure out for yourself.
And I do honestly feel that what happened was real. It felt real.
What do you guys think of that?
I'm not saying I'm some kind of prodigy or anything. But I mean, that really happened. I also think why I've never been able to get close to that again is because I was very excited, and I think i was trying too hard, which just killed it. When that happened I was not filled with cockiness or feelings of accomplishment.. I only felt humbled and very, very excited and happy that something that I believed in, turned out to be true, for once, and I wanted to go back to it.
When I meditate It helps me with social anxieties and my speech impediment. So I would really like to "jump back on the wagon."
I like how it makes me feel, and it truly does help me.
It makes me feel and see the one-ness in everything and I feel like, for a couple hours after meditation that the perspective and feelings of understanding that linger with me really decrease my stutter and anxiety..
I'd like those feelings to last longer, you know?
Also, I don't really want to eat meat anymore. I'd like to start off by banishing red meat from my diet all at once, and sticking to chicken and fish for a while, until my body gets used to that, then try to come off meat alltogether.
I want to read more about buddhism.
I just want to be a better person all around.
Anyways.. enough of my rambling. I haven't meditated in a long time now, and I'd really like to start again.
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Comments
I can totally relate to what you're saying. I've had the same thing but haven't been able to recapture it. I think that it has to do with grasping and trying to attain that feeling once more, which gets in the way.
I think I'm in the same state where you want to explore it further but don't know where to start or how to relate what you experience to any teachings. My advice is to just "go" with it and maybe visit a Buddhist centre in your neighborhood and start from there. I think it's always best to share what you experienced with other people, cause that can get you a hell of a lot further in a shorter time than trying to do it all yourself. But I think that after your "burst" of insight the real work begins before
you can easily get such a feeling again, in my own situation I think of it more as a "wake-up" call to get my ass moving :-)
Did it feel like a moment where there was just pure, direct understanding, where "everything made sense"?
Those "flashes of enlightenment" are great, and most people describe it as life-changing even though they can't explain why or what happened or what exactly it is they understood.
The only way you can make those "feelings last longer" is by being mindful in everyday life, not just formal meditation.. i.e. meditate no matter what you're doing. Of course, that's easier said than done. Start small... when you're doing a chore, focus on the present moment, be mindful of everything in that moment.
Red meat provides a lot of necessary nutrients to your body. So if you want to eliminate a certain kind of food from your diet entirely, you have to make sure you're finding another source for those nutrients. Most people don't eat very healthy to begin with, so cutting out meats entirely without making any other changes is dangerous and unhealthy. Make sure you talk to a nutritionist before doing this.
As your practice becomes a habit, you will experience all sorts of different 'states', many of which may seem boring, unprofitable or plain tedious. The brief experiences of connectedness and comfort can be held in memory as encouragement when meditation is hard going.
BUT: if you make such moments your aim, if they are the intention behind your practice, you will be disappointed.
They are not really my aim per say. I liked that state very much because of how it felt and what I learned in a split second.. But I thought holding deep states like that was the end-all purpose? I guess I overlooked the other things. Thank you. Maybe I only got that deep the first time because I needed to see it?
I feel sorta juvenile about it, lol.. But I suppose it's a learning process.
Appreciate all the input.
The main reason why I was so happy and excited when I slipped into such a deep state (deep as relative to myself) is because, I've always been skeptical. But the thing is, is that I have a 'believer' personality. I want to believe in many, many things. But I've just never seen any proof or felt anything before. And to me, if what you see is what you get in this world, then frankly I'm very disappointed.
And that's how I felt for a long time. UNTIL I had the experience I talked about. And I was filled with lots of amazing feelings, including love, because I had just had a taste of something greater than myself and it let me know that there was actually more to life than just what I see on a daily basis.. That's all I ever wanted to know... and for that, the experience really did touch and change me.
I've always been a nice, understanding, humane, caring, (and somewhat detached) person, so adopting Buddhist lifestyle philosophies isn't too much of a stretch for me, and I've always been a very, very open person, so with starting meditation, I'm not surprised that I was able to get some sort of results right away. But it was just very strange for me about how it felt. Is regular concentration supposed to feel how I felt?
I'm not power hungry or bent on achieving the same state, I just need to know if that is normal or not.. if i am supposed to be aiming for that state or if that was something i just happened to get into by accident, or because it was something my higher self thought it needed me to experience. That's basically what I am asking I suppose.
I don't want to go as far into Buddhism as to practice banishing love from my life, and possessions, because I want to live a normal life. I am fine, and I think I can still eliminate a good enough amount of karma by living a nice, but normal life. But I really do want to practice it so that I can be a better human being and to break some karma chains.. Because... I have terrible, terrible, terrible karma.. No matter WHAT I do, I am always met with adversity, anger and BAD luck.
And as a human being, my 2 big flaws are that of anger and idleness.
I'd like to overcome them with Buddhist teachings and meditation.
Part of becoming a better person, and breaking karma chains, is to turn the other cheek and to UNDERSTAND that i deserve everything i get. To learn from my mistakes, and not to hurt the other person again and restart the karma chain. But I need help with that.
I am a very, very angry person. Not in normal every day life.. but if somebody sets me off, by being ignorant or mean or just plain rude... I get veryyy angry and very quickly. I have a bunch of anger built up and locked away inside of me that when it is triggered by something relatively trivial, it acts as a gateway for all of that anger to come out..
and that is terrible.
And about my idleness, I have a bad stutter (and anxiety as a result) which basically makes me a hermit and just destroys my will to go out and experience the world.
Meditating does help with this a lot.
I cant help the feeling that it is my duty to teach them and at LEAST bitch at them until they understand and at LEAST feel stupid enough to know they were wrong, and to quit acting like that.
Most of the time I feel like people won't learn fast enough, and I want to show them now... I don't trust other people's awareness enough that they will learn to do the right thing.. I feel like nobody even cares anymore.
I know this is wrong, but I cant help feeling this way.. It's so frustrating to me how people can still be so ignorant and mean.
And I know it's not my place to teach people anything..
Which is why I dont like that I feel like that.
It's the same with these strange experiences. Whatever particular erratic circumstance is prevalent in you will become magnified when you start to look at it.
So it in and of itself isn't meditation and concentration. Single-pointed meditation is a matter of sustaining concentration one a single object of focus without becoming the slightest bit distracted by dullness or excitement and moving off the object.
Why would a person want to do this? So that the faculty of experience becomes clearer and sharper. Thinking and directly discriminating subtler objects of knowledge becomes possible which an erratic mind could never do.
To answer your question from the buddhist pov, positive experiences like insight into love, renunciation, the ineffectiveness of selfish attachment etcetc are good results born from past efforts. These were the karmas which were ready to ripen during the current circumstances when the ordinary erratic state was slightly lessened. So, they're different things. Concentration is one thing which must be developed regardless, and karmas ripening may continue to do so if their conditions are met (ie. a karma for anger can only ripen when you misperceive a person or an object as being a self and the mental factor of wanting to avoid (ignorant disliking) is generated).
Developing Balanced Sensitivity: Practical Buddhist Exercises for Daily Life (Revised Second Edition)
that was great.
really was<3
tons helpful.