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What kind of meditation do you practice?
lightwithin
Veteran
I know there are several types of meditation and being that this website encompasses all Buddhists from all traditions, I was wondering what kind of meditation you guys practice.
A lil description of your particular practice, what position you use, how long the sessions are, and what tradition it stems from, would be great. I'm just curious as to what all of you out there are doing.
Personally, I do Zen sitting meditation (Zazen), which focuses on body, mind and breath. I sit in the Burmese position and my sessions are 30 minutes each day. I do two sessions when I have the time, but that hasn't happened in a while.
I'm also interested in trying Vipassana meditation some time and also loving-kindness meditation or Metta in the future.
A lil description of your particular practice, what position you use, how long the sessions are, and what tradition it stems from, would be great. I'm just curious as to what all of you out there are doing.
Personally, I do Zen sitting meditation (Zazen), which focuses on body, mind and breath. I sit in the Burmese position and my sessions are 30 minutes each day. I do two sessions when I have the time, but that hasn't happened in a while.
I'm also interested in trying Vipassana meditation some time and also loving-kindness meditation or Metta in the future.
0
Comments
I do a few different meditations, depending on what I feel I need at the moment. My main practice can fall into two meditations from Theravada Buddhism: mindfulness of breathing (Anapanasati - resting the attention on the breath and breathing with thoughts, physical sensations, judgments, etc. in the present moment) and the Four Limitless Qualities (Brahmaviharas -- lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity).
I sit in a chair. Years of contact sports have done a number on my knees. Sometimes, when I feel "disembodied" I will practice mindfulness of the body, which is done lying down and by scanning different parts of the body (feet, legs, etc.) and feeling the moment-to-moment flux of sensations there. My meditations usually last about 30 minutes to 45 minutes, depending on how much time I have. I do it when I get home from work, after eating a light snack and showering.
Jellybean
-anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing)
-and now i add meditation:Metta (loving-kindness) wich is great,makes u very happy
Time: like 1,5hrs every day
Position: Burmese, when im very relaxed i try lotus but cant more than 15minutes.
Oh man, I've read so many good things on these forums about Metta meditation, and I have still to try it. I am gonna get off my ass one of these days, and learn how to do it!
:eek: That's a lot of meditation! (for a layperson).
Yes Metta its so effective and simple..a keeper.
Im very disturbed haha.. so i now if i try only in a regular way a layperson would do i wont succeed -_-
Oh yeah, disturbed is my middle name too.
Then I chant a sutra sometimes in English, sometimes in Japanese. Mostly I use traditional Pure land sutras...Juseige or Sanbutsuge from the Larger sutra, The Amida Sutra, Shoshinge from Shinran Shonin, or rarely Junirai from Nagarjuna. I also sometimes chant the heart sutra, or even the "Turning the wheel of the Dhamma sutta". Then a few more Nembutsu and I'm done.
I do this every morning and every evening.
The last month or so I have also been practicing Shikan-Taza. My Buddhist roots are Soto zen, and in fact I never left it in some ways...there just wasn't a Soto Temple in my area but there was the Jodo Shinshu Temple.
I actually think the two paths are very compatible! (though of course each is fine on its own as well)
Usually I sit on a chair for chanting and Nembutsu, but for Shikan-taza I have a small bench from the Temple that allows me to sit in the Burmese position.
Jellybean
On a disciplined, focused day, I'll clock two sessions of 45 minutes. On the other days (which are depressingly more common at the moment), I'll manage one session of 20-30min, or an emergency sit-in-bed at 1am (to calm my monkey-mind) lasting upwards of until-I-get-too-sleepy
I only have two main 'practices' at the moment - mindfulness of breathing and the metta bhavana. I haven't sat a metta bhavana session for several weeks though.
As for my position; if I have a meditation stool, I'll use that, otherwise I'll sit crosslegged or in a half-lotus. I always sit rock-still and straight like in zazen. I loves it
I don't follow a particular tradition, per se. I am investigating a more 'westernised' one, but I feel that trying to 'choose' a tradition is kind of like trying to choose which colour cup I want to drink my tea from :S
I choose not to mix and match,but that is just me.(I can not multi task)
Nice metaphor
LOL, LnP a second a day, to the micro second?? That made me chuckle. Keep it up though, doing better than me :P
I learnt these by listening to guided meditations on www.wildmind.org which I thought was pretty good.
I notice that some people are talking about Mindfulness of the Body and I heard there are actually 4 mindfulness meditations - can anyone recommend a good guided meditation or resource for learning more about these?
yeah meditation is the space between when one thought has descended and the next one will raise - sogyal rinpoche
Well I have a little black Buddha called Samsung Taco Lite and he goes *bleep bleep* when he wants me to awake
I'm reading Breath by Breath by Larry Rosenberg at the moment - it is very clear and well-written, I think. I still prefer to just sit and work on the mindfulness of body, but occasionally I'll shift gears without thinking about it
What is meditation? Getting used to 'it'; integrating the self; the action of being aware and alert to the here and now, here and now.
Tried metta a couple of times and liked it too.