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good list of meditation types and purposes?
Hi, I've been doing breathing meditation for a while, and just started walking meditation, but I keep hearing people use the term seeing meditation, visualization meditation, object meditation, and deity meditation. can anyone point me to a good site that has all the types of meditations in Buddhism? I search but It's so hard to tell the difference sometimes between traditional meditation and that sort of new wave senior lifestyle meditation. And also there are so many sites that seem good but then describe performing the mediation in one posture only, not even mentioning the others, making me question the quality of the information when they don't even acknowledge that there are types outside of their practice.
Any information on this would be useful.
Any information on this would be useful.
0
Comments
If you're the type of person who needs a really strict practice with lots of structure, then just try one of these techniques that you're reading about without worrying too much that it's, "wrong." Just making the effort to meditate is right in itself.
So I do this for mindfulness and concentration, but would like to expand and learn others. A comprehensive list would be helpful.
walking meditation, your object is the feet.
image meditation, your object is the image.
These are all pretty much the same.
You may want to learn metta meditation, where you pretty much generate love and kindness.
This is good.
but there is more to this.
You should also eventually gain insights into the nature of the mind and the nature of reality by doing breath meditation and vipassana.
Perhaps reading the suttas might be more appropriate for you instead of learning a different meditation technique.
and here is a good place for this if you are interested and you do not have this link already.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/
patbb, to be honest I'm a little lost. I can do the things I say up there, but only because I know what I'm aiming for and how the process affect this. When I hear people say insight into the mind or nature of reality, it has this mysticism sound to me. It's a personal thing, I just cannot do something without being aware of how it's supposed to progress or to what ends the process is heading. It feels incomplete. that's why I want a list. I will try anything, i just need a definite goal I believe I can attain like mindfulness, concentration etc. So I hear something like visualization meditation, and only have this vague idea of what to do, and an even vaguer sense of what it will do for me and why i should do it. Like Deity meditation. I've read it is used to imagine oneself as having the qualities of these beings in oneself and drawing them out, but nobody seems to be able to tell me how it does so, or how to actually do the meditation. It's just fragmented information overload.
Anyway, thank you for the link, and for responding, and I will read them, but may I ask how they might help my meditation or progress as a Buddhist? I can understand them, but feel like I only do on a face level. Should I meditate on specific suttas and try to figure out the deeper personal meanings? or meditate on how to embody certain aspects on them? I really don't have a clue.
(I have a lot of doubt don't I?)
Perhaps there is a more fundamental misunderstanding on how you approach meditation.
From reading your post, it would seem as if you believe that concentration is the goal of your meditation. (please correct me if i'm wrong).
Obviously this is good to develop concentration, but this would not lead to much insights.
Instead of concentration as the heart of your attitude toward meditation, perhaps keep "let go" as the heart, goal of your meditation. this is what your aim should be. the purpose. to let go.
So you let go of your habits, of your cravings, of your attachments, of your need to control, eventually of your self.
eventually realizing that you could indeed let go of those, and that they weren't you, that they were only layers of stuff that were piling up on top of you, that these things were creating much pain for you, this is the wisdom part of it...
Does this sounds right to you?
I'm a budding meditator myself. Frankly I'm not sure I believe much of 'What Was Said' or 'What Was Written' of traditional Buddhism. However I do find the practice of meditation as it is done in the Buddhist tradition to be wonderful and enlightening (lowercase 'e'). Perhaps I will come to understand and/or believe in the other tenants as well, but for now, I'm just concerning myself with mindfulness and meditation. In Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana he says to approach the meditation as something like a scientific experiment - don't take things on faith. Do the meditations and feel what comes.
Sounds like you go into all your meditations with a lot of expectations & goals. You've mentioned breath and walking meditations. Try to just do those to and watch what happens. I realize you think you are a type of person that needs to have the end goal, but before meditation I thought I was the type of person that had to live in the future because I've always been such a worrier and obsessive. But I've found that perhaps the type of person I considered myself to be might be more flexible after all. Perhaps you will too.
Hope all that blathering is helpful
Twaitsfan
Concentration is my current goal, not my ultimate goal. I use meditation to sharpen the mind by drawing it into the present, and then try to develop concentration on specific aspects of the moment to better make right choices and actions. It's almost like my goals are layered but missing steps like:
1. Concentration and Mindfulness
2. using the developed concentration and mindfulness to meditate on my own self and how to better myself.
the problem is in between these two. I don't know how to get from one to the other.
I do believe in letting go, and accept that nothing is solid, change being the nature of existence, but letting go of notions of the future and letting go of clinging to the past. I still want to better my present self. However I am able to sharpen aspects of myself through meditation, but have trouble being introspective, and there are certain things I need to sharpen to do this. Like I need to figure out how to sharpen my confidence, because right now when someone says the answer to doubt is confidence, well I'm already doubting, in my mind it's like giving me a towel and telling me do dry off while I'm standing in the middle of a pond. I can't do one while still being affected by the other, but if I can figure out a way to dispel one even for a limited time, I may be able to develop the other and strengthen it until the balance shifts to my confidence being greater than my doubt. but how do I suppress my doubt even temporarily?
I do, you know what? I remember being told that I expect to much to quickly, and that may be part of my issue. The above post was meant for patbb, but it sums up my mentality pretty well. But see, the thing is. I don't have to see fast results, but I have to know what I'm looking for... how do I put this... If someone told me it would take a hundred years of difficult work to do what I wanted to do, I would do it. But if someone told be that I could do it in a week, but didn't tell me how I'm supposed to go about doing it, I wouldn't even try. I know what I'm working towards. I just can't blindly follow, so when people give me the answer, don't think about it, you'll get there, I want to know how they know, and all the steps, not just how to start. I am expecting a big change, not quickly though, I'll take the time, but need assurance I'm moving... does this make sense? Part of me is saying it's wrong because I don't have faith, but the other part is saying it would be wrong to blindly follow anything.
you let go of that feeling of doubt. in your belly. or that feeling of fear that make it difficult of being confident.
you let go of these descriptions of yourself, these walls that you created in your mind that prevent you from being simply you and doing whatever it is you want to do...
about this idea that insights are somewhat mystical... it is very normal. especially with westerners but it only come from a misunderstanding of what Buddhism is.
Normal but not harmless has it can prevent you from going further into meditation and disregarding a big part of Buddhism as "mystical stuff".
I got to Buddhism after reading many books on behaviorism, and having a growing interest in neurology.
A good way to eliminate this obstacle is to learn more about the structure of the brain. What is a thought, what is an emotion, what is a concept in the brain...
get interested in neurology, things like this :http://petridishtalk.com/
or this great video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf6Q0G1iHBI
(pay attention to "the flexible self")
or interest in behaviorism (why do one individual react a certain way to a certain situation, and the effects of these...)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1877467554618436978#
While you do so you happen to find out who you truly are, how to appreciate life and how to live.
Also, sorry, I didn't make it clear that I don't think it's mysticism, I meant I don't like it when what I read or study give it this air of mysticism when I know it isn't. I know the brain pretty well I think, I've studied anatomy, biology, and sociology. I admit though I haven't been considering them in my meditation or anything. Thank you, I'll have to try to remind myself of these next time I meditate, and the links will be helpful for anything I cannot remember.
"The Mindfulness Solution"
http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Solution-Everyday-Practices-Problems/dp/1606232940/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277228588&sr=8-1
You could start here http://www.buddhanet.net/insight.htm. The focus there seems to be on Therevada practices, so you will need to look elsewhere for Mahayana and Vajryana practices like visualisation and deity practice - maybe others here could point you in the right direction.
P
If you are in one school of Buddhism, stay within the guidance and framework that is given. The negative of the internet is that there can be too much information, which can be distracting for the students, not to mention unhelpful. If you have a real life Sangha and teacher, and follow your practice determinedly it will be enough.
Blessings.
I've learned that there is (or shouldn't be) no particular purpose to meditation. We all come into it with a somewhat gaining mind, this is, we start meditating to gain insight into ourselves, to lower our blood pressure, to improve concentration, to help us relax, etc, etc. But the focus of your practice shouldn't be on these things.
We should meditate for meditation's sake. Make meditation it's own end and purpose. Not because we are seeking to gain something from it.
As you have seen through your research, there are many kinds of meditation, but one that has been suggested to you by Richard H, is Zazen. This is a very simple, direct and no-frills kind of meditation and if you do it with a gaining mind, you're missing the point. The point being, that the only thing that matters is to be present, to be here and now and to really see this. This moment. Nothing more, nothing less.
Just being aware of your thoughts as they come and go, your feelings as they rise and fall, your breath, and your body, is enough. Trying to make meditation a self-help tool, is missing the point in my opinion.
That being said, I'm a beginner meditator myself and you shouldn't take MY words or anyone's words as absolute truth unless you do your own testing and research.
For in depth, step by step instructions on what Zazen is and how to do it, I'd recommend the book "Meditation, Now Or Never" by Steve Hagen.
I agree that there's lots of information online and sometimes it amounts to nothing more than overload and not much is learned in the end. This is why books and teachers are good to consider as well.
That is one of the more difficult realities for me. It's a little like training for a marathon (something I doubt I could do). You decide to run a marathon for whatever reason. But each time you run, if you are constantly looking at your running in the context of completing a marathon you can easily get discouraged and confused, especially at the beginning. You have to learn to do each run for the run itself and not for the end goal.
I don't know if that's a good analogy or not. But I look at meditation as slowly rewiring your brain. Your brain has evolved and learned to work a certain way, to have certain habits, that are instinctual but cause much needless suffering. Here's another analogy. The processes of your mind are the waters of a melting snowbank on a mountain. Over your life they have dug a deep groove into the ground where the waters run each spring. Each time you meditate you scratch a different groove as a path for your mind to take. The more you meditate, the more occasions your mind will follow the path of the new groove when the snow melts. Somedays the earth might be hard and your meditation might not make a big scratch in the dirt. Sometimes the earth will be soft. But either way, as long as you keep scratching, eventually you'll get a nice stream of water.