What's The Purpose?
 

Meditation: we've all heard of it, and many people know its benefits. I personally enjoy simply sitting for a while. The thing is, what am I supposed to be thinking about while I sit? What's the goal? Should I be clearing my mind, being mindful, watching my thoughts, what? What is it that I'm supposed to be trying to achieve from meditating? More importantly, what CAN be done through meditating?

A Hicks keeps saying don't meditate, appreciate... yet if you cannot do the latter, do the former to move you towards a state of appreciation, which you arrive at when you let go of resistant thoughts :happy8:

Meditation these days is a buzz word, Like mindfulness it can mean myriads of things.
Thinking is just fine, as long as you don't spend all your "precious" meditation time getting caught up in the stories of your thoughts.

From a Buddhist perspective samatha or tranquility and insight (wisom) can be gained through meditation.

When you keep your whole being focused on a meditation object. (Which isn't striving or fight to stay, more a gentle returning to the object each time you wandered off)Usually the breath, but can be a mantra, a symbol, a kasina(candle flame for instance).

If you practise this long enough the mind will at some point remain fixed on the object of it's own accord. Giving you acces to all kinds of concentration states which are often quite pleasurable, even blissfull.

When trained like that it is possible to investigate your entire field of experience. Seeing how thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations arise, stay a while and then pass away. seemingly of their own accord. You see how clinging to those thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations can be the cause for stress and that they are in the end unsatisfactory, and you see that all that isn't You.

Which then is a basis for deeper and deeper exploration.
Some say there is an I or a Self deep down in there. Others aren't so sure of that and adopt the view that everything is happening on it's own accord.

With Love
Eelco

Relaxing your mind. Mediumship.

There are thousands of different variations of meditation. Just like you can do 10 different types of pushups, each to build specific parts of the same muscle. Meditation is like that for the mind, each type of meditation builds a desirable aspect of the mind. Some are for clearing the mind of thought, some are for concentrating the mind on one though (much easier in my opinion), some are to conjure a certain feeling (love, peace, etc), the list goes on and on.

With meditation you can do a great number of mystical and amazing things. One of my favorites is a growing sense of mental mastery. One becomes more comfortable in their mind, they understand it better, and through understanding it better can manipulate it better and have it work to their benefit. Like a cowboy learning to ride a wild bull, the mind is like a wild bull and meditation is like learning to ride it.

Two areas of mental mastery I've noticed are a more clear and vivid imagination that is under my control (rather than being the victim of a mind gone wild for 25 years). and better memory.

One thing I'm trying to achieve with my meditation practice is astral projection. I bet within a year or two I'll have it figured out.

What I intuitively felt in the height of my sufferings was to sit quietly and in a way let the storm continue in a way where momentarily I was not caught up within it .

There is a space within your own mind-self that doesn't hold the weight of the world . It doesn't hold the weight of you that is part of it .

Some who meditate want the normal day stresses to dissipate where others want to be drawn deeper into that space that is beyond reflection of this world .

This many find is a space where what you are is still present and that is all .

There are so many aspects and layers of self and mind that can be explored, experienced and realized .


x daz x

I started to try to improve my psychic powers but having been meditating for about 30 minutes a day for at least a couple of years I find I enjoy it. When it has gone well and I have really gone deep, I feel positively lifted for quite some time afterwards.

I also see some wonderful "insights" in the process too. Not sure about my "improved" psychic powers though - work in progress still!

Chris

“Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti

Do what feels right. but do it without judging yourself or worry of doing it wrongly. do this and you will eventually answer the question you asked here. which is a different answer for each soul.

Meditation is an opportunity to sit and BE without external distractions.

However, we then discover all the internal distractions - sore knees, wandering mind, etc etc.

If we can get beyond these internal distractions we discover the peace of a quiet mind and the joy of simply Being.

Peace.

That's good to take time to just sit. Most will sit with tv, computer, book etc and forget how nice it is to just sit with nothing.