Do you have a meditation practice?

[cdttmm]

I'm about to start a meditation class that teaches Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). I'm essentially a n00b when it comes to meditation, but I do know that there are a number of different types of meditation: mindfulness, transcendental, Zen, loving-kindness, etc. I choose MBSR because I've read a lot of scientific research that has been done on mindfulness meditation (I have a degree in positive psychology), but I think I could probably benefit from any meditation training and, more importantly, implementing a regular meditation practice in my life.

Do you have a meditation practice? I would love to hear about from others about their experiences. How did you learn to meditate? Do you consider your practice formal or informal? Do you ever attend meditation retreats or day long sessions with others or do you only practice on your own? How long have you had a meditation practice? How has it helped you? Any advice for a beginner?

I look forward to reading everyone's responses! Thanks in advance for sharing!

[catherine]

I started really learning/practicing mindfulness meditation many years ago after reading Thich Nhat Hanh's Miracle of Mindfulness. He just blew me away. Over the years, I've kind of found a balance between formal/informal meditation practice which boils down to morning and evening "sessions." Typically, while walking or lying in bed, I do the breathing exercises that I learned from TNH, and I created my own gatha: "Breathing in I feel God's love. Breathing out I share God's love." I kind of combine the actual meditation with Christian centering prayer. I have gone to formal sessions at a local sangha, but really don't feel I need to. However, I would like to maybe try some other workshops or sessions just to reinforce my practice.

In terms of beginning, I'm sure you'll learn great stuff at the class and I'm not sure I could offer you any better tips. But in my experience, I just have tried to increase my opportunities for mindfulness throughout the day with no guilt about doing it right vs. wrong. My little system works for me. I truly believe mindfulness is one incredibly important component in happiness and stress reduction (the other components being your ability to abandon yourself and contribute meaningfully to your world). I now can pretty much compartmentalize the past/future from the present moment pretty easily and it's just like cutting the fat off a steak--you're left with the real nourishment because it's impossible to feel negative emotions like fear and worry and guilt and shame in the present moment, unless you are consciously processing those emotions as part of the practice at that moment.



Good luck with it!!

[Rosemary]

Advice for a beginner: just begin.
I don't meditate often enough, but when I do, I can really feel a difference. There have been times when I've meditated daily for 30 minutes or so. Like most of my good habits, it too easily falls by the wayside when things get crazy.

[razz]

Each morning, I start with prayer based on my belief system and then let the thoughts come to mind and deal with them based on correcting or accepting them. Get so many insights this way.

[puglogic]

I meditate daily in the early afternoon for 30 minutes. It took me almost 50 years to get into a practice that I keep without fail, but I'm so glad it finally clicked in.

I don't think there's a "right way" for me and so I do a variety of meditations, from sitting with simple guided meditations (Pema Chodron, etc.) to metta (lovingkindness) to tonglen. A lot of tonglen and metta lately, with all the suffering in the news.

I consider it one of the most valuable things I do for my mental health. I learned by reading and listening to instruction, then just diving in. I've taken some Shambhala weekends (http://shambhala.org/meditation/) and they were quite wonderful, but I'd like to take a longer meditation retreat this year if I can swing it.

[larknm]

The Lakota Way by Josehp Marshall has prayer that's my meditation and it's made a lot of difference.

[Float On]

larknm, I'm going to have to read that. We work with a Lakota Sioux community in SD.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Well I've started to do brief meditations again. I often quit these things and I'm not particularly good at them :laff:. I quit last time because it seemed to drive a pretty deep depression to surface - out of nowhere, ok quit for many months (was not depressed most of that time or anything), but now the darkness lately drives me back *in* to meditation. I meditate on the breath or a mantra or a mantra plus breath, never taken classes or anything.

Was meditating the other day, monkey mind was doing it's thing of course, I thought it's like the mind thinks it's going to die if it doesn't keep thinking something, it has that urgency. Relax mind: it's only ego death :laff:

[awakenedsoul]

I've meditated daily for 27 years. I started out with Hatha Yoga and just relaxing at the end of the class. I got some of Louise Hay's guided meditations for self healing, which I really liked. I used Shakti Gawain's Creative Visualization, and that really helped me land auditions. I meditate at the end of my yoga session each night. It's really powerful. Now that I'm knitting, I find that to be very meditative, as well.

[Tussiemussies]

I've meditated daily for 27 years. I started out with Hatha Yoga and just relaxing at the end of the class. I got some of Louise Hay's guided meditations for self healing, which I really liked. I used Shakti Gawain's Creative Visualization, and that really helped me land auditions. I meditate at the end of my yoga session each night. It's really powerful. Now that I'm knitting, I find that to be very meditative, as well.


I just love Shatki Gawain's meditations for each day!

[Zoebird]

Do you have a meditation practice?

Yes. I started contemplation (different from meditation) at age 11 and meditation at age 14.

I always mention contemplation in these kinds of discussion because, I believe, it was my process with contemplation that made meditation so accessible and easy for me. I learned to contemplate reading New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton. Yes, I was a weird kid.


How did you learn to meditate?

First, I got curious about buddhism. I'd read an article about a girl in a magazine -- a white girl no less -- who was buddhist. I was 12 at the time, and I didn't know what a buddhist was, but they gave a basic break down in the article (about two lines). And, that got me curious. But being in a catholic family and living in the south, any mention of buddhism caused big social fiction at home and outside of the home. So, I stopped talking about it.

A couple of years later, I happened to find a free publication that mentioned zen buddhism, and through it I discovered a group of ecumenical buddhists who supported each other's practice. At the time, their Renzai zen classes were the only ones available to me time-wise, because I could more or less "sneak" off to them. I would walk from the school to the church where they held their training (zazen). I told my parents I was going to a meditation group at the unitarian church. They didn't seem to mind.

At the same time, my parents did mind, of course, and talked to my aunt who was also practicing buddhism. My aunt is also catholic, so she ws in an ecumenical group. She connected my parents with the catholic priest who started the group, who recommended that my parents read a couple of books and direct me toward Thich Naht Hanh. So, they did.

They were still nervous about zen, but since Thay was also a form of zen (and had close connections to catholicism via Merton), he was ok. At the time, no one in the buddhist group (that I knew of) was practicing in Thay's tradition, but I started following his books in addition to what I was doing once-a-week with the community.

I would also meditate and contemplate daily -- they were really favored activities of mine. I usually spent about an hour or so that way. And I still do.


Do you consider your practice formal or informal?

I consider it informal. Even though I meditate daily, the time of day switches, as does the method. I typically do a form of mindfulness meditation (Thay -- Thich Naht Hanh's nick-name by the way), usually seated. It's usually about 30-45 minutes. I do not use a timer, I just meditate until I'm done meditating.


Do you ever attend meditation retreats or day long sessions with others or do you only practice on your own?

I have never attended a meditation retreat or day-long session. I have attended various meditation groups meeting anywhere from 1 to 3 hrs. I haven't done this in years, though, because either A. the groups were a distance to travel which took up too much time to get to/from, or B. the groups are at times that are not convenient for me and my family. Sometimes, it's a combination of both.


How long have you had a meditation practice?

Started when i was 14, i'm 36 now, so that's. . . 22 years.


How has it helped you?

I honestly have no idea. I just enjoy it.


Any advice for a beginner?

It takes time to learn the practice. You're not going to get it right away. Just relax and stick with it, because you will get it. And then it's nice and you will feel encouraged and even compelled to continue practice.

For me, not practicing yoga, not practicing meditation, not contemplating every day. . . it feels weird, like not getting enough sleep or not brushing teeth or some such. Sure, there are days when it doesn't happen, but it feels strange.

Once you get it, it's just something that you want to do. :)

I look forward to reading everyone's responses! Thanks in advance for sharing![/QUOTE]

[Zoebird]

Each morning, I start with prayer based on my belief system and then let the thoughts come to mind and deal with them based on correcting or accepting them. Get so many insights this way.

This is contemplation, which is powerful and I love it, but it is different from meditation.

Not that meditation can't bring insight, but it is different from contemplation. :) Both are awesome. :)

[catherine]

This is contemplation, which is powerful and I love it, but it is different from meditation.


Please explain. As I said, I use meditation and centering prayer (contemplation). Would like to hear your take on it.

[Zoebird]

In my experience, contemplation is an unfolding, trans-rational thought process (or revelation process if you prefer), whereas meditation is a non-thought process, and instead a witnessing/observing process (or being process).

A centering prayer can be a doorway into contemplation or meditation.

To guide it into contemplation, the individual unfolds the mind (as razz describes), allowing it to move from emotional/patterned thinking (pre-rational) through rational to trans-rational (insight, wisdom). At the end of the transrational process, some people shift automatically into meditation because they are very closely related.

To guide one into meditation with a centering prayer, it's a process where the prayer is used to focus the mind to move it away from thought (no pre/rational/trans). Meditation uses many focal points (candle gazing, breathing, etc), and to an extent, even 'guided' meditation (I'm not really a fan of htat, as it tends to the mental/creative space. . . or thinking. . . and as such it's more akin to contemplation IMO).

[catherine]

In my experience, contemplation is an unfolding, trans-rational thought process (or revelation process if you prefer), whereas meditation is a non-thought process, and instead a witnessing/observing process (or being process).

A centering prayer can be a doorway into contemplation or meditation.

To guide it into contemplation, the individual unfolds the mind (as razz describes), allowing it to move from emotional/patterned thinking (pre-rational) through rational to trans-rational (insight, wisdom). At the end of the transrational process, some people shift automatically into meditation because they are very closely related.

To guide one into meditation with a centering prayer, it's a process where the prayer is used to focus the mind to move it away from thought (no pre/rational/trans). Meditation uses many focal points (candle gazing, breathing, etc), and to an extent, even 'guided' meditation (I'm not really a fan of htat, as it tends to the mental/creative space. . . or thinking. . . and as such it's more akin to contemplation IMO).

Thanks for your perspective, Zoebird.

[cdttmm]

Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond to my post about meditation -- your comments are always greatly appreciated!

I started my meditation class last week and I'm slowly getting the hang of doing a daily guided meditation (40 minutes long). The first session was pretty interesting. We did a brief moving meditation to start, then a seated meditation, then a lot of talking about meditation, then a brief body scan meditation, and then talking about how to practice during the week. There are 13 people in the class total and there are many different reasons why people chose to take the class. I think I am probably the youngest person in the class, which I found a little surprising.

A few comments from my meditation teacher that I thought were interesting (not sure if these are common statements associated with meditation, but they were new to me).

1) Sound and breath are two things that we can only experience in the present moment. So for many people focusing on a sound or focusing on breathing is very helpful when meditating.

2) We spend most of our time rehashing or rehearsing. In other words, we spend most of our time in the past (rehashing what has happened) or in the future (rehearsing what is going to happen). Meditation helps us learn to spend time in the present. We cannot live every moment in the present, but we should strive to spend as much time there as possible.

I'll try to remember to come back to this thread and post something about each of the 9 sessions in this meditation class.

And, of course, I would welcome any additional comments or suggestions that you might have about meditation or any meditation related stories you might like to share. Thanks in advance! :)

[Maxamillion]

I occasionally try to meditate (and have tried different styles) but find that it generally makes my depression worse and sometimes brings up suicidal impulses. Wish it would bring joy and peace like other people tend to say it does. :/ The only benefit I've found from it is that it helps me get to sleep sometimes. I really wish it worked for me.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I occasionally try to meditate (and have tried different styles) but find that it generally makes my depression worse

Ah so I'm not alone. I'm really not sure what it does "in general" for me anyway, don't tend to stick with it long enough, enough times to say :(, but there was that time that it really seemed to raise a depression out of nowhere, so I do think iit may not react with everyone well. The immediate result was relaxation but then some kind of backfiring ...

[Zoebird]

If it leads toward depression/anxiety, I would suggest that something is amiss, and a good meditation teacher is in order. You might actually need to learn to breathe, even (i know that sounds funny, but a lot of people breathe improperly, myself included).

But, it does require effort, so if it's too much effort, it's perfectly ok to not do it. After all, there are *lots* of spiritual disciplines, and I've found that the best one for depression/anxiety is community service.

[Maxamillion]

Ah so I'm not alone. I'm really not sure what it does "in general" for me anyway, don't tend to stick with it long enough, enough times to say :(, but there was that time that it really seemed to raise a depression out of nowhere, so I do think iit may not react with everyone well. The immediate result was relaxation but then some kind of backfiring ...

My best guess with it is that without the distractions of my thoughts and staying busy, my emotional state comes to the forefront. It's hard to be relaxed and peaceful in the present moment if you're in severe pain. I have ptsd too and anytime my mind is not occupied with something (like when trying to go to sleep) I find myself remembering and reliving past events.



After all, there are *lots* of spiritual disciplines, and I've found that the best one for depression/anxiety is community service.

Community service does help with the depression. If my social anxiety wasn't so bad, I would get involved more often.

[cdttmm]

I just wanted to report back about my progress with meditation as my 8-week class will end next week. I have to admit, the first few weeks I was pretty good about keeping up my home practice, but these past few weeks I have floundered. Part of it is due to my partner's erratic schedule and it makes it hard for me to consistently practice in the evenings the way I would like. He suggested that I switch to a morning practice, but I haven't been able to commit to that as my morning schedule isn't regular either. <Sigh.> But I have thoroughly enjoyed the class and the day-long meditation retreat that we did. I did not think I could spend 6 hours in silence, but I did it and when it was over I realized how fabulous it was.

I would love to hear tips and tricks about what works for others in terms of committing to a regular home practice. Our teacher recommended one 45 minute per day session, but I'm wondering if I might be better about committing to a shorter amount of time initially. How long do you meditate? Do you find that longer is more beneficial or just regular meditation is what benefits you most? As always, thanks in advance for your help!

[cdttmm]

One more thing. Deepak Chopra and Oprah have a 21-Day Meditation Challenge starting on Monday, March 11th. Here's the link for more info.

http://www.chopracentermeditation.com/bestsellers/LandingPage.aspx?bookid=178

It's free and open to anyone. I've registered and I'm looking forward to participating. Anyone else interested?

[chord_ata]

I have never been able to stretch beyond a daily ten minute insight meditation session. Doesn't saolve any of my problems, but it does help me detach from them a bit.

My all time favorite book on meditation is "Everyday Zen". Very low key, but useful.

[catherine]

One more thing. Deepak Chopra and Oprah have a 21-Day Meditation Challenge starting on Monday, March 11th. Here's the link for more info.

http://www.chopracentermeditation.com/bestsellers/LandingPage.aspx?bookid=178

It's free and open to anyone. I've registered and I'm looking forward to participating. Anyone else interested?

Awesome! I just signed up! Thanks!

[ashleenshannon]

hi , i started meditation lost two years back, that time i was feeling very uncomfortable, i had lost of tensions, so i decided starting meditation for mind relief, meditation one of most powerful tool for maintain our main, body always be cool.

[cdttmm]

One of my favorite positive psychology researchers, Barb Fredrickson, has some free meditation resources available on the website for her new book "Love 2.0". You can check out the resources here:

http://www.positivityresonance.com/meditations.html

[cdttmm]

"Free The Mind" is a new documentary about meditation and how it helps rewire the brain. It specifically focuses on the application of meditation for American veterans who suffer from PTSD and for children. It's being shown various places around the country and thought some people here might be interested in checking it out. You can visit the film's website here to see if it's being shown near you: http://danishdocumentary.com/site/freethemind/index.html

[Yossarian]

My all time favorite book on meditation is "Everyday Zen".


Mine too. RIP Joko.

But along those lines, awareness doesn't have to and probably shouldn't be limited to meditation sessions. I find picking up a few minutes here and there throughout the day works better for me than hoping to get a long block of time somewhere. Puts it closer to those "baseboard" events too.