Meditation for busy minds - what works for you?

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wilburforce
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11 Jun 2016, 4:17 pm

Edenthiel wrote:
The second works when the first one doesn't. It's a moving meditation, doing something strenuous in rhythm or pattern. Skating to music & hiking (w/o music) work especially well for me, as does digging or raking. The key is to keep my body and much of my body-connected mind occupied with something repetitive so that my Self can focus without getting distracted. Works great so long as I don't trip and fall off the trail, or run into a tree branch or chop off my foot. Rarely happens.

Neither of these were easy when I first started some time in my teens or early 20's. At this point they are formalities, or triggers or maybe just rituals, but they do work & sometimes just a token is needed. It takes practice.

I think the key to not becoming a jellyfish is to stay focused rather than dissolve (although that can be really nice for plain relaxing to relieve stress). Also, what do you *do* when you are in a meditative state? That might be key to how you will be when you come out of it.


I think this is why movement yoga (there is a Sanskrit word for this particular type of yoga, possibly vinyasa) works so well for me--it engages just enough of my mind with the repetitive/memorised patterns of motion in time with my breathing to make meditation possible. If I'm just sitting still or lying down I get distracted too easily and can't focus enough to get through to the right mindset, but the movement and breathing focus of yoga allows me to slip into that relaxed and centered mental space much more easily. I think Tai Chi works for many people in the same way, and probably some martial arts too.

ETA: I found a youtube video for a sun salutation (a set of poses and transitions between poses) that illustrates well the important combination of breath and movement that makes yoga work for me.


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Last edited by wilburforce on 11 Jun 2016, 4:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

friedmacguffins
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11 Jun 2016, 4:34 pm

Place fervent, ecstatic, single-minded focus on one, single outcome, you are trying to accomplish.

Then, clear your head, of all worry, desire, emotion.

If disturbing feelings come back, repeat.

I have found that some solution or coincidence follows, eventually.

I have heard of all kinds of colors, flowers, patterns, natural features, and animals. But, what occurs to me is a diving bell spider.

Your name was an interesting coincidence.

As you are creating a sort of bubble or tension of mental energy, he/she/it is filling a bubble with air.

As it subsumes, you subsume.

It accomplishes it's creation, under water. You accomplish your creation, under trance.

I think that doing physical things can have a hypnotic quality to it, but can cause buried frustrations to surface, at first.

And, I believe in "labeling".

I find that my actions are usually consistent with my beliefs, or I admit when they are not. Most of my frustrations are not my own.

underwater wrote:
I do manage to meditate, and at the end of it I am a limp jellyfish with no sense of time, and no memory of what I was supposed to do that day.


Only once you've found purpose, that is a good thing.

The amount of energy, which some people carry around is truly massive and said to be the cause of literal diseases. You get a neurotic, wily feeling around them. I believe that it has to be put to some use or becomes harmful, some might say the cause of poltergeist phenomena -- typically, nothing deserving of a movie. Nothing to make a true believer out of a skeptic or shill. Maybe, more along the lines of subtle, unlucky coincidences, that could happen to anyone.



drlaugh
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11 Jun 2016, 5:38 pm

Savassana or corpse pose at the end of a group yoga session.

I use the same ideas at home with youtube savassana music.

I have had positive and negative reactions to isochronic or binaural videos.


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