MY MEDITATION GUIDE - (for begginners)

A MEDITATION GUIDE

note: This another messageboard post. I decided to keep it because I put a lot of energy into it and I thought it could be useful in the future if anyone needed it. This is my guide to meditation.. for the new meditator that is. I think it covers a lot of the confusion surrounding it. But meditation is different for everyone of course. This is just general I think.

When meditating, get comfortable, breathe..through your nose...count to 4... exhale, count to 4 then inhale again.. this isnt that important and I STILL screw it up all the time, but it gets you relaxed. Focus on NOTHING..nothing but the breath, and the counts. If by the way you have trouble sleeping.. I find that breathing at this moderate pace, while counting, puts me out every time. Another bonus. Don't concentrate on falling asleep either, just reeeelaxx...sink into the bed, breatheing moderately and heavily through the nose, counting each step. It also helps to decrease how much air you take in gradually, dont force this, this should come naturally, and eventually your pulse will slow too and before you know it you're out like a light.

When meditating though its good to try and keep the breaths heavy, it helps keep you awake. The state you are going for is your body being relaxed and paralysed like you are asleep, but your mind is awake and pure.

So just relax and breathe for the time being, do that, while counting, as long as it takes for your over-active brain to settle down. Its really hard at first I know. Your body has to be comfortable, as well as your mind.. but the mind has to also stay alert so that you don't fall asleep.. A good sign of this is, thoughts dissapate..like you think it should during meditation, but its like.. theres no thoughts there at all, and its like a few second lapse in time and concentration and maybe even nonsense images or words will come to mind. Thats how you know you're falling asleep. When I know thats happening I make sure to make the breathes heavier incase they slowed too much, and I might crack the eyes open a bit to take in light.

NOTE:.. When your eyes are closed, your brain creates a drug to put you to sleep. The way around this for meditating.. Its simple. Meditate with your light on, but your eyes closed. The stronger the light, the better of course, the reason being is that even though your eyes are closed, light penetrates the eyelids and so your brain doesnt think its time to sleep.

OK so your sitting, lieing down, whatever, just be relaxed. sitting is optimal but if you can't, then lie down. The whole idea of the sitting is that you stay awake for one... that your spine is straight and energy can flow freely through your body unblocked.. and usually the hands or arms are rested on the legs, which are crossed. Essentially this is circulating your energy by keeping your limbs in contact in some way. You'll notice the difference. I lie down personally, but I kinda fold my legs like a pretzel..as comfortable as I can.. discomfort will constantly screw up your meditation, so get really comfortable, but again not so much as you'd fall asleep. Like lie on your bed, the floor if its not rock hard.. and even give yourself a pillow, why not. But yeah.. I lie down, fold my legs, and you notice a big difference in feeling when you dont fold them.. I relax my arms.. I used to clench my fists because it was most comfortable for me, but now I let my hands be open, resting on my bed, with the tip of my index finger touching the tips of my thumbs on the same hand... I find this peaceful, so I do it. With your hands open, fingers free... you can really feel your energy flowing more. It will feel like blood or water in your fingers but it will be tingling you know?

I also try to make contact with the roof of my mouth and my tongue. The taosist..qi-gong guys do this to connect their energy and I must say the first time I did this I felt something. It feels like it does connect something. It connects your conceptive vessel to your governing or something... front energy to your back.. I just know I feel relaxed like energy flows better this way.
Anyways... so now thats HALF the battle. Getting all comfortable, and peaceful... relaxed breathing, relaxed body..


First, I'd say.. throw out all pre-conceptions of what meditation is like because everyone's is different. Don't go into it expecting anything, just go with it. But its good that before you start, you set a goal, like something you want to figure out if you reach deep meditative thought..like a problem. I used to do that, but I feel I don't have any problems that need to be acknowledged..so... basically, yesterday my meditation goal was...reach a deeper state of meditation/concentration.. reach a higher frequency, and try to sustain it, and understand it, and let it transform me.

Ok so anyway... relaxed, breathing moderately, through your nose.

Ok.. so eliminating distracting thoughts... I'm not plagued by these so much anymore but I used to be for sure. I did what this book told me and it worked. I used to close my eyes and do it for 15 minutes every day. If you can't ignore a thought... if you can't basically tell it... you're of no use to me right now, go away.. then try to cancel it out like. It sounds negative.. but.. it worked for me. Like say you got a food craving.. think about how disgusting the process of eating and digestion really is.. killing a filthy animal and putting its filthy body in your mouth just to stay alive. Ha. You know when you see something disturbing and you're like AHH i dont wanna think about it. Yeah, well that works.

So that should get the big distractions out of the way.. Now of course your mind is going to have little pointless BS thoughts about random stuff that just pop up constantly. This is something the meditator must over-come. Concentrating on your breath should keep you a little focussed and make these thoughts slow down in the frequency in which they appear.

Theres another thing I was tought which helps you get pretty focussed right away: Count down from 10 to 0.. see the numbers in your head, when you get to 7 picture it being a red 7...and then orange 6, yellow 5, green 4, blue 3, violet 2, white 1, 0 nothing.. It requires more concentration then you'd think. I do this 2 or 3 times in a row and I notice my attention begins to sharpen.

Next you can listen to sounds, pick each sound out individually, listen to is frequency, try to anaylse where its comming from etc. I find that doing this you'll notice like 10 sounds you didn't know were there. For some reason.. this has the tendency to put me to sleep. You can also analyse what your body feels, like the texture of your clothes of course you'd be feeling yet un-aware of since it's constantly touching your skin.. maybe feel what your hands are rested on too.

Feel the blood squirt in and out of your heart, feeling the thumps.

Little stuff like this should get your mind PRIMED. This is the alpha state, or like access meditation. Its like the point where your mind finally settles in and says lets do this..

Then... its simple... you focus on an object. Create it visually in your mind, focus on its attributes. It can be whatever you want. The whole point is to sharpen your concentration..taking you further into meditation, and altering your state of mind.. By focusing on one object in your mind, distracting pointless thoughts will fade over-time, until all you're thinking about is the object, and then depending on the person.. after an amount of time, you can abandone the object and think about NOTHING... just be in the moment. Usually around here you'll notice you don't feel your body unless you choose to acknowledge it. Maybe your head will feel like its swimming, and its like you don't think, you just FEEL with your mind. You just ARE.

At any point in the meditation, the beginning..or like 3 hours in like some people, you can do like excercises or something, solve your problem you know? Pose a thought and see what our mind produces from it.

You know, its your meditation, do what you want with it. But this should help you concentrate and get into it.

MUSIC.. ok.. I find dead silence to be boring and thus starting meditation can be tough... when your far enough in, you won't care I don't think. I put the music on so I can hear it, but I don't blast my ear drums so I can't think. I make it loud enough to acknowledge but not loud enough to disturb my thoughts. You might not meditate long at first.. I usually try for 45 minutes every day but once in a while I'll go for about 2 and half to 3 hours. And trust me.. right around the hour mark or however long it takes you to get really focussed.. when some strange sounds come into your awareness, its a great experience, it creates all sorts of interesting thoughts and you really feel the music, you become it, you match your frequency to its frequency. Its wonderful.

OK well i don't know how I had problems pasting that. It kept repeating. Frustrating, well its done, I think..

When meditating: I personally. I put on the radio station DRONE ZONE from SomaFM...GOOGLE IT... on winamp. It sounds nice.. spacey ambient music.

OK so again, this is how "I" meditate. Maybe it can help anyone whos new to meditation. Its confusing at first. I had no idea what to expect, and I must say... don't expect nothing. Whatever someone tells you, your meditation will differ, so don't stress yourself if your meditation isn't like theres. Everyone is unique.

Ok well have an enlightening meditation.