Practice

What do you do when you meditate? When do you do it? For how long? What is the experience like?

I'll go first, please add your own description and let's get a real discussion going.

My major influence was Zen, which to me represented the simplest and most direct approach to higher consciousness. The immediate goal is to achieve a state of no mind, the cessation of thought, where you as self disappear and become One. I learned to do this after many years but it mostly left me just as one might expect -- empty and void -- and by that I also mean alientated and, surprisingly, unhappy. So I searched and found, eventually adding love to my practice after realizing that the essence of Christ's teaching was loving God, and of course, God is One. Loving One, as an act, not a concept, fascinated me, so no mind became for me a kind of platform for this new stage in my practice, which was and still is an effort to will the feeling of love. Not easy, but here's the thing: doing this the right way (i.e., loving from no mind) sets up a feedback loop...The more I love the more love I feel. It's an amplifier that can take me all the way to a kind of ecstasy, to a place where Ervin's Akashic Field seems to become an extension of my own mind. Jung's Archetypes seem to become accessible, and new ideas flow. (BTW, Ervin tells how he achieved this same kind of ecstasy through music -- he was a concert pianist before he was a systems scientist -- and how he always had a typewriter beside his piano to record his insights... see the video Sustainable Transformation.)

So... that's what I do, as much as possible, even when I work. It doesn't take much time anymore, no extreme discipline, no special posture or breathing, that's all become second nature. Nonetheless it remains a challenge always, but often enough I'm successful in seeing things I might not have otherwise, and at the very least it keeps me in a good mood and better able to handle stress.

Please share your own Experience.

Tags: meditation

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Takashi Miki on July 11, 2009 at 6:01am

While meditaing I pay attention to what's going on wiyhin myself to feel . Usually I don't pay enough attention to them, then I uncousiously try to cling to those of which I like and reject thosse I don't like. This habitual pattern brings conflicts within myself, the conflicts between the real and my like-and-dislike. When I pay attention enough to what's going on inside, I just aware and feel the real, and no more conflict within myself , whatever myself is.
I am not good at English, but I did my best. ;)

Permalink Reply by Carl Carpenter on July 11, 2009 at 11:35am

Takashi, very well articulated. Yes, feelings are key, and you can amplify them by paying attention to them. My favorite part is when I find Love and that grows. I start smiling at that moment, a great feeling. Thanks for sharing.

Permalink Reply by Anita on July 11, 2009 at 11:16am

I have been practising meditation now for almost exactly one year.
The results of meditation has extended into every aspect of my life...one of my friends from Uganda uses a good analogy, he says meditation is the 'true medicine'.

As a result of working irregular hours for more than 2 years my sleeping habits were in chaos…I noticed right away from my first meditation session that I had the best night’s sleep in a long time!After that I noticed my temperament remained even, my relationships at work and in my personal life improved, I felt as though nothing could “get me down”. I discovered that there’s a source of peace within me and that discovery caused a revolution for me. This “inner peace” that I felt could not be touched by any ‘outside’ influence…unlike everything else in my life that was changing, my inner peace was not…
This process of cleansing, made me feel like not wasting any moment of the time I have…Time felt like a precious gift…Every moment was an opportunity, and I asked myself…what am I going to do with this opportunity...Someone once gave me the good advice, of living in the Now, Let the past go with forgiveness, and let the future go without any expectation.
Then I started living in peace…The blissful serenity spread to my thoughts, my speech, and into everything I did…The way I see things, the way I treat people…

Meditation is not just when you sit down and close your eyes, but extends into everything you do…Stilling the mind when you sit, when you walk, talk…work...its a continuous practise, even when your eyes are not closed.

I also realized that that exquisite source of peace within me, it is nothing else but my true nature...

I would like to compare it to roaming around Antarctica for so long that all you can remember is ice and wilderness, and then one day you wake up and find yourself at home…and there is a fireplace, and your warm your frozen body, and take a bath and wash off all the sweat and dirt that has accumulated from all this journeying…that lightness, and that comfort, that belonging…that is meditation for me...coming home...a voice welcoming you home.

Thank you to everyone for sharing their experience...
From a fellow 'meditation-junky' I salute you!

Permalink Reply by Carl Carpenter on July 11, 2009 at 11:42am

Wonderful description, Anita, love the way you put it.

Permalink Reply by Carl Carpenter on September 25, 2009 at 4:46pm

I started with Zen, Iulia, and never found a master. I stopped longing for a master to appear more than 20 years ago when I stopped reading spiritual books of every kind. I was reading Gary Zukav's Seat of the Soul and finally realized you have to do it yourself, inside yourself, and no one can do it for you. Having done this for 20 years I can happily encourage you to do the same.

I believe there is a new language coming that will integrate all religion and science. In so doing it will integrate the human mind. That integration is the core of the coming transformation, the emergence of a singular truth we all believe in. The Internet is part of it. It's happening right now, but barely visible as we're in the very early stages. Good luck.