Meditation techniques

I listened to a man who said he looked into a stearinlight for 1 hour, I never tried it. Also thinking about mantras like, confident , happy etc

 

Meditating is more about of letting things be whatever they already are, and not trying to get attached with them. Breath, and other meditation objects are just an anchor to prevent you from drowning in so many events in your mind.

 

meditation is more than religion. What i do is counting my breath for half an hour. Works pretty fine.
But, may i ask, why is it so important for you that it has nothing to do with an relegion?

 

Is this for your project or something? Haha. Religion is more of a belief system and meditation can be also a part of it. But you can meditate without having a religion.

 

well, people might use it for that reason; but you can use it for yourself. Meditation did not came to earth for the reason you stated. Keep it to yourself and use meditation to calm your mind or some other things you want to accomplish. Some people like to use discussion also as a way of worshipping, but that doesn't mean we should not discuss anymore
Just sit on your couch and start to count your breath. breath in 1 - breath out 2 - breath in 3 etc. And do it to 150 and back everyday

 

The idea is to remain free of thoughts or at least not to entertain them when they arise, observe and be aware.

I am struggling to start up a new habit currently, and finding that having a head full of numbers is not really much better than a head full of any other thoughts. I will probably switch over to a timer method to help me know when to stop.

Also, I tend to forget which number I am up to, and I only count to 10, so yeh. I suck, heheh.

It seems best for me to focus on deepening and lengthening the breathing as I go. Then I at least get some relaxation happening. If I just breath normally, it's just like doing anything else normally.

 

The more you meditate, the less important what you are doing really. When you go very deep in yourself, everything dissolves on its own including "you".

 

Here are some different options to look in to for guided meditation: HeadSpace, BrainSync

Also, there is a "buried alive exercise"

 

both. But, if you meditate everyday for 1,5 hour straight, on long-term you will benefit positieve things much sooner then for instance if you meditate every day half an hour

 

I have read something in the internet that the quality of your meditation matters more than the length of it. The more you do it, the deeper you'll go. The length of it will just depends on individual preferences.

 

Checkout the Headspace App and Wim Hof Method. Love them both and practice daily

 

You could research meditation methods that belong to Judaism. Most religions I know of have meditation techniques, I would be surprised if Judaism doesn't, which you may be able to find out from religious sources or forums about Judaism, etc.

Meditation can be prayer (and there can be longer prayers or shorter and repetitive ones), reading from the scriptures, bowing/prostrations, focusing on holy images, can be done with music, etc.

But it can be important to find out methods of how these things are practiced, for example, there are prayers that are synchronized with breathing and prostrations.

I could be wrong, but I think you could print meditation instructions from another religion on a piece of paper, then take a pencil and replace any religious references with references appropriate for your own religion.

Of course, it's your choice, just my point is that there are benefits to combining meditation and worship. And of course, worship according to your own religion.

That being said, you can do meditation without worship.

Another style of breathing meditation might go like this:
- letting go of past and future and any burdens, stresses that you have, of the desire to repair your past or to control your future. Not sure if the religious reference is appropriate, but during the 15 or whatever minutes that you meditate, let God take care of all that.
- focus on any place of peace, stillness, silence that you find in your mind
- move your focus to the breath, but in my experience it's more like allowing the breath to surface as object of your attention, and the focus is on the whole breath (so not necessarily on a certain area of your body)

Btw, there are more steps to follow and it's better to practice each step for a while, until you become somewhat established in the practice and move to the next step.

Another method uses a basic object of meditation (which may be the movement of the abdomen while breathing) and a secondary object, which is anything that comes to your mind (an image, a body feeling, an emotion, a sound that you hear, a thought, etc.).

You try to keep focus on the secondary object, with an objective and detached approach.

A version of this method uses continuous "noting", so you would use labels (a clear thought that you create in your mind). This noting is a short description of the object of your attention, such as: seeing hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking. And also, liking, disliking, pain, fear, sleepy, confused, etc.

This noting may bit annoying to learn, but it gets easier with time, and it's useful in more extreme or intense or agitated situations, because it supports the effort to meditate when you might not be able to focus with other methods of meditation.

This is a very short explanation, let me know if you have any questions.

 

Here is a simple basic unguided mediation that I find really good:

Zazen Breathing Meditation:

Focus on the breath going in and out of your body. Imagine it as energy coming in and your core getting brighter and brighter. If you notice your mind wondering, slowly bring it back to your breath.


Compassion Meditation:

Once I have reached a meditative state, I visualise other people in the world and the struggles they are going through. I build up a feeling of compassion for them. Firstly I do this for friends and family. Then I make a point of building compassion for people I dislike.

I believe the idea is to take any negative energy towards others and turn it into a more positive energy.


Loving Kindness Meditation:

Once in meditative state, I visualise beings somewhere I enjoy with friends. I visualise them all smiling and being happy to see me. Then I zoom out and its my hometown, everyone is happy to see me. Then I zoom out and its my country who are all smiling, waving and happy to see me. Finally I zoom out one more time and its the whole world happy to see me.



Meditation Ritual (increase/decrease times accordingly, if you have never meditated before perhaps only 3 min):

5 min: Zazen Breathing Meditation
5 min: Compassion
5 min: Loving Kindness

If my mind starts to wonder on the Compassion or Loving Kindness, I switch back to Zazen Breathing Meditation.

Hope this is of value to you guys.

 

Body scan, i wrote about it in 60 tips topic.