Not quiet sitting still

[keyasofree]

I would like to be able to sit quietly and meditate but am wondering if what i need to get a quiet space to exist is to sit.

If i sit still and focus on my breath then i am more open and receptive to the spiritual and energetic around me. Almost like becoming a vessel for all things, part of all things, no limitations, i feel in my body and outside of it at the same time, i feel inside the building and outside of it at once, my temperature rises and a vibration i dont have words to explain.

I have this picture that meditation makes out experience in our bodies less active or present .... not even sure what that means ... the way mindfulness was explained to me and equates to meditation seemed backwards ... like a tissue box is a box .... no description of color, size shape, purpose, then focus on each feature separately ... in my mind thinking that way puts limitation on observation ...

The only time i have that kind of quiet is while letting what is around me energetically go through me ... which for me is through mandalas, writing (not journalling which is an entirely different story) and healing touch or talking to people who are in need. Oh and walking in nature - the further away from man mad structures the better (unless an old tree or the ocean)

So what is the purpose of medition? do people meditate differently based on their needs? Is this one of those terms that has been over used or oversimplified? Categorizing and limitation based on our experience and only a mediocre application based on average common ground?

I have been told by one of my teachers that people work many years and dont ever have the experience i have while practicing traditional medication. Still dont get it ...

[keyasofree]

Meditation .... not medication

Silly auto correct

[Visitor]

Accept, accept, accept.
Accept everything and you will be still and quiet regardless of what is happening within and without you.

Non-acceptance is anything that you perceive as not going your way. Trust that it is okay if people, places, things and situations don't go your way. Trust that it is okay not to be or feel okay.

Accept everything, and there will be no resistance.

[Aham Brahmasmi]

Originally Posted by keyasofree

I would like to be able to sit quietly and meditate but am wondering if what i need to get a quiet space to exist is to sit.

If i sit still and focus on my breath then i am more open and receptive to the spiritual and energetic around me. Almost like becoming a vessel for all things, part of all things, no limitations, i feel in my body and outside of it at the same time, i feel inside the building and outside of it at once, my temperature rises and a vibration i dont have words to explain.

I have this picture that meditation makes out experience in our bodies less active or present .... not even sure what that means ... the way mindfulness was explained to me and equates to meditation seemed backwards ... like a tissue box is a box .... no description of color, size shape, purpose, then focus on each feature separately ... in my mind thinking that way puts limitation on observation ...

The only time i have that kind of quiet is while letting what is around me energetically go through me ... which for me is through mandalas, writing (not journalling which is an entirely different story) and healing touch or talking to people who are in need. Oh and walking in nature - the further away from man mad structures the better (unless an old tree or the ocean)

So what is the purpose of medition? do people meditate differently based on their needs? Is this one of those terms that has been over used or oversimplified? Categorizing and limitation based on our experience and only a mediocre application based on average common ground?

I have been told by one of my teachers that people work many years and dont ever have the experience i have while practicing traditional medication. Still dont get it ...

Hi.
One of the mistakes we make in life is to see ourselves as ordinary people. We are not! Just accept that you, like all else are here to experience the things you are going through.
Some one who is teaching meditation or someone else who is learning it can be at two different levels of awakening. Not necessarily in the order widely accepted.
Smile and enjoy whatever you have chosen to experience in this life. God bless.

Aham Brahmasmi
Ahambrahmasmisite.wordpress.com

[Gem]

It's really only about the balance of the mind, but people are usually chasing something and have purposes and all these other things, so people have invented various exercises to meet those ends. It's pretty much all misguided, and just about everywhere you turn another teacher is suggesting another direction. The actual practice isn't concerned with any of it. It is only concerned with what is happening right now. There no aspirations apart from being conscious of what's actually happening at the moment. We usually find that the mind isn't used to that, so it's running here and there as it accustomed to doing, which isn't a problem. The mind is moving around and so be it. The difference is, one becomes conscious of it.

The purpose then is to become conscious of what the mind and body is doing. All the other stuff like writing and healing and so on are good for life, but to sit perfectly still is revealing in terms of self awareness. The body and mind typically aren't used to stillness so the body wants to fidget and the mind wants something to do, but the meditator is just aware all that going on, and keep still instead. They soon realise that 'just being' isn't easy, and there's a lot of distraction and disturbance going on. Sensations in the body create mental reactivity and 'you' lose the balance of mind. It takes a while to learn how to be still and let everything happen freely. It's not about the choice to accept or not or anything else. You're aware and you watch what happens all by itself, without losing the objective, neutral balance of that awareness.

[Lance & Rite]

There's lots of forms of meditation. Yoga and tantra (not as sex) may work for you if sitting still has not been working well. Calm metaphysical contemplation has also been called meditation. Christian musical meditation has fallen out of favor lately but has always intrigued me.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Lance & Rite

There's lots of forms of meditation. Yoga and tantra (not as sex) may work for you if sitting still has not been working well. Calm metaphysical contemplation has also been called meditation. Christian musical meditation has fallen out of favor lately but has always intrigued me.

Stil silent sitting works well, and it is pretty much required for serious meditations, but it doesn't work in the way meditation is 'supposed' to work according to common popular misconceptions. However, by all means, if the aim is to experience the pleasures of 'spiritual experiences', then for sure, do something that produces those experiences.

Being still will be more likely to make a person conscious of agitations like reactivity to discomforts and impatience and bring about acute awareness of the restlessness of the mind. Most 'teachers' would devise some kind method to distract their students from these, but meditation itself brings these straight to the fore. This is insight into the movements of mind, its reactions to the body, and the types of mental habits/emotional blocks that create a lot of unhappiness in life. This doesn't sound like the pretty pictures painted by anyone reputable, but it is predicated on the notion that the purity of love exists as the core of our being, and there is only to 'remove the obstacles'.

[Mr Interesting]

I just saw this thing on facebook that was labelled 'cats training their owners' and all the little clips put together were of the cats making their owners pet them then I went outside and the cats who arrived and share their life with me are so not that way. I don't even call them my cats simply because they aren't, they are cats who have chosen this area I too share as their turf and so this is what is. It's as if they get, like I try to get, that whatever is is actually what it is so they simply allow themselves to be cats and I simply allow myself to be human.

And it seem's meditation is exactly the same in that it can either be owned and taken into life and within that have a set of rules put upon it where what was once wild adjusts itself to an almost overwhelming need to not be wild or it can simply be what it is.

And then that wildness grows and becomes a wildness with it's own way of discovering what wildness is and is neither caring of what others might think wildness is or even caring of itself what wildness is.

Does this happen to all? That point reached where there is no longer any railings to hold us back and that we simply have to come to terms with whatever terms may or may not become available?

My feelings are that meditation somehow follows wider cycles than most can actually apply and that we go inwards for as long as seems appropriate and then we go outwards for as long, again, as seems appropriate and the going inwards effects the outwardness whilst also going outwards effects the inwardness.

The silence found inwards I would suppose wants itself found outwards... or something like that.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by Mr Interesting

The silence found inwards I would suppose wants
itself found outwards... or something like that.

Brilliant!

[Lance & Rite]

Originally Posted by Gem

Stil silent sitting works well, and it is pretty much required for serious meditations, but it doesn't work in the way meditation is 'supposed' to work according to common popular misconceptions. However, by all means, if the aim is to experience the pleasures of 'spiritual experiences', then for sure, do something that produces those experiences.

Being still will be more likely to make a person conscious of agitations like reactivity to discomforts and impatience and bring about acute awareness of the restlessness of the mind. Most 'teachers' would devise some kind method to distract their students from these, but meditation itself brings these straight to the fore. This is insight into the movements of mind, its reactions to the body, and the types of mental habits/emotional blocks that create a lot of unhappiness in life. This doesn't sound like the pretty pictures painted by anyone reputable, but it is predicated on the notion that the purity of love exists as the core of our being, and there is only to 'remove the obstacles'.

I've had the greatest success with still meditations but I think there's definitely something to be said for Practice (with a capital P) as meditation (yoga or tantra). Although it's rare and more difficult, you can sometimes reach a similar mental state while doing something like stretching, which can give you a unique mental approach to discipline. This is why stretching is the most common form of these disciplines, it's always hard enough to be challenging but easy enough that pretty much anyone can do it without the aid of other objects while still clearing their mind. In theory though the technique can be applied to any activity.

With this in mind, yes, even petting a cat could be considered meditative under the right circumstances