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is meditation constant?
Is meditation a way of life or the action of sitting and focusing on breathing/quieting the mind?
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My answer would be this: It's not constant, but it's effects are.
Do you ask these questions because you can't find the answer within your mind, or are you trying to stir up discussion?
Of course as Shift says there are many types of meditation.
Namaste,
I'm with Shift on this one. I can't afford the luxury of being in meditation constantly, but the more I meditate, the more steady I find myself in situations where I previously would have flown off the handle. It helps but like all things, practise makes....more practise?
In metta,
Raven
If one always holds your object of virtuous concentration in mind you will find it much easier to meditate when you are on the cushion
Ditto. I have to do things like go to school, make dinner, take a shower, etc, so I can't meditate constantly either. But what meditation I do (usually 20-30 minutes early in the morning) has definitely had the same sort of effect you describe. It scares me to think how often I used to fly off the handle!
Mtns
excellent freudian slip/typo here! my erstwhile teacher krishnamurti would have agreed wholeheartedly with this, that on-the-cushion meditation is basically a drug or self-hypnosis, that the only kind of meditation that really matters is moment-to-moment mindfulness.
i dont see things quite that way anymore. i feel that on-the-cushion meditation is key to the process of awakening. but i do think that it is possible to live much of the time in a meditative, altered state: mindfulness, awareness, grace, ________ , etc. in this sense i would definitely say that meditation is a way of life, even more: it is THE way of life. :-)
Hi TheJourney,
We set aside a period of time for formal meditation everday and it can be calming down your mind and putting your mindfulness on the breath. But the real training takes place in your life too because just a short period of calm followed by all kinds of non-stop distractions for a much longer period of time is not going to help one progress much in the long run.
So we need to maintain mindfulness in daily life too. This can be done by reminding yourself to be mindful at various times during the day. When you first do it, it may be less frequent, then you slowly increase the frequency as time goes by. It may change the quality of your life in a very apparent way. Try it.
The formal session is very important to set the momentum and to give you the time to go deep without any external disturbance. You can do this every morning to set the mindfulness momentum for the day. Then when getting up from the cushion, bring that memory of that deepness with you into your daily life. Now and then , allow yourself to release into mindfulness. Mindfulness is truly healing for the mind.
Both post-meditation and formal meditations should be combined and don't leave out any.
And I ask the questions so I can be at peace with the answer in my mind, as sometimes doubt creeps up.
Teacher: "24 hours a day, 7 days a week."
nicely said.
doing absolutely nothing -- without falling into either a hypnagogic state or asleep -- can be a big challenge for me. when meditating i often catch myself trying to do something, get somewhere (even if that somewhere is: nowhere/emptiness), make something happen (connection with the divine, a spicy little kensho, etc.). this trying is often unintentional and unconscious ... which makes it harder to spot and let go of.
I know that in peoples busy schedule it is not always possible to do one thing at a time but when we can perhaps we should.If you are at school or work just being focused on the task at hand will make a difference to how well or how quickly we may finish the task.If you are doing a maths exam it is better to remain focused on the exam,rather than doing the exam and thinking about what you and your bf/gf are going to do on the weekend.
Having said that,perhaps being a monk makes this easier for me.
I meditate on my food,I meditate when I walk,sit,stand etc.Nobody is going to tell me off for zoning out.Thats my job.He he.
Here is another way to look at it: It's like going to the gym - you exercise and build up muscle, which has lasting effects on your everyday life. When you do sitting meditation, you are building up the "mindfulness muscle" which helps you be more mindful during your day.
what effect does attending to relative reality (sensory input, mental formations, everyday actions like drinking coffee) have on your felt connection to the absolute?
i'm confused about buddhism's exhortation to be aware of "what is." what we perceive as "what is" is a product of our senses (and the other aggregates) and is therefore relative, without essential substance, and illusory. on the absolute level, there is no cup, there is no coffee, there is no drinker. instead of attending to these relative illusions, why not give one's attention over fully to the absolute = pure awareness?
per buddhism, is relative "what is" reality the only doorway to felt connection with the absolute? is it the best doorway? are there other doorways?
or doesn't buddhism care about this thing i'm calling the absolute? does it only care about ending personal suffering, something for which a felt connection with the absolute is not necessary?
thanks. :-)
This is a Zen perspective, the absolute is found in the full expression of the relative. Emptiness-form = absolute-relative. This means experientially, the absolute is realized in the fullness of the relative, the true subject is realized in the perfect aloneness of the object.
ok .......sorry goingforth.:)
That form is empty was one of the Buddha's earliest and most frequent pronouncements. But in the light of Prajnaparamita, form is not simply empty, it is so completely empty, it is emptiness itself, which turns out to be the same as form itself.... All separations are delusions. But if each of the skandhas is one with emptiness, and emptiness is one with each of the skandhas, then everything occupies the same indivisible space, which is emptiness.... Everything is empty, and empty is everything.
How long do you usually sit for? I know what it is like to sit and end up with a 'when will this be done' feeling
Isn't it interesting how something we enjoy so much can, at times, be something we can't wait to be done with?
In my experience I find 30 minutes to be a good amount of time. Usually the first 15-20 minutes are spent observing my monkey mind rather than my breath and then things start to click. If I didn't do 30 minutes I would likely not get the experience of 'getting' mindfulness very often.
See i've been sitting less than that lol. But I have been being mindful almost constantly recently so it's like not that fun to just sit there and be mindful when you could be interacting and being mindful. Although I suppose being mindful on one's breathing, instead of ones actions, would be helpful. hmm
thanks for your responses. :-)
this relative/absolute subject is a biggie for me, so i'm going to open a new thread about it. that way TheJourney's thread won't be hijacked.
hope you join me, so we can explore this together?