Meditation habits and tips

[Night Owl]

I figured I'd ask all of you what are your meditation habits and tips and so maybe everyone learns something new from someone else. What are your goals behind those different steps?

[Lighthead]

A good idea for a thread, MD!

I just recently got back into meditation. It was about a year ago when I was meditating regularly. I pretty much practice the same type of meditation that I did a year ago. It's a zen technique called, shikantaza. You just basically let any thought come to your mind while meditating. It's commonly referred to as a method-less method for meditating. It seems kind of pointless when you first hear about it, but trust me when I say that I've been able to get in touch with the Source many times while using that technique. It's a very effective "method." I've found it to be much more effective than mindfulness with its focus on the breath. I almost see it as tricking your mind into meditating by telling it that it's not meditating.

Here's the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Shikantaza

My goal is to constantly realign with the Source until I'm able to do it in my daily life.

[Raz]

For me, meditation is.

Life is one dynamic meditation. I flow with it, when I´m out of bed I have a active, creative phase of meditation.
When I go to bed I enter a phase of passive stillness meditation. Still the same meditation I have been doing from the day I entered this body, just another phase within it.
The one thing passive and active meditation have in common is the breath center and each phase has the seed of the other in it (yin/yang style).
There is always only one thing happening. What differs is how complex that one thing is. Driving my car while brushing my teeth is still just doing one thing; we confuse simple complexity with complex multiplicity which is a mental phenomenon that can be a practical tool but act as a disconnecting distortion if taken as fact rather than fiction...

[Night Owl]

So far I've tried focusing on chakras, balancement and distortions. I've tried lighthead's technique of letting all thoughts flow and also tried clearing my mind of all thoughts. I also came across the thot tablets presenting many different exercise. I hope I'll come across new stuff here. Have you guys connected to your higher self? And if so did meditation help?

[Lighthead]

So far I've tried focusing on chakras, balancement and distortions. I've tried lighthead's technique of letting all thoughts flow and also tried clearing my mind of all thoughts. I also came across the thot tablets presenting many different exercise. I hope I'll come across new stuff here. Have you guys connected to your higher self? And if so did meditation help?

One time, while doing the shikantaza technique that I described, I saw an entity who was "up there" in densities. I couldn't tell if it was my higher self or my alien, Wanderer self before I came here. I just remember that the entity had an intense gaze and looked a lot wiser than I. As soon as I caught the glimpse, its face kind of light up in a way. I personally don't think that the entity (that is an unidentified part of me) actually looks like that in its own reality, but it perhaps took that form so that I could better understand it in 3rd density terms. I remember it also had dark colored hair. It looked long and straight. I got the impression that I was looking at a very old being in terms of experience.

Right after that is when I saw a few other past lives. I got the impression that those past lives were in 3D, but not here on Earth. I got the impression that it was a long time ago and that they are my past 3D lives that I am connected to because of my life here in 3D. The past lives were also dark in hair color. But short hair. Their facial type was similar to mine. Kind of Roman looking. And they were wearing flowing white robes.

But not much of anything was given in terms of explanation. There were just images and impressions.

[sunnysideup]

Great topic, matrix_drumr. I use quite a few meditation techniques, depending on the situation and my mood. For example I often struggle with self confidence and self esteem issues so to empower my orange and yellow ray I use the Chiltan spirits posture. It is a standing position where you place one hand over the heart and the other hand between the solar plexus and navel, I choose to remain silent but you could call upon the Chiltan spirits or your own spirit guides to help you. Another one I often use is a shamanic practice, this is done in a lying position accompanied with the beating of the drum (I just play a cd with recordings of ceremonial drums). This technique is to open the heart, the drums mimics the heartbeat and therefore the focus should be on removing blockage of the green ray. My favorite one though is walking meditation, a kind of light version of the vision quest or walkabout. For this I spent a couple of hours in nature for some reflection and to strengthen my intuition. During my walking meditations I try to focus on any impuls that isn't coming from my senses and let those impulses guide me, I usually end up at a tree or plant.

[Lighthead]

Another thing that you can do is combine the balancing technique that Ra describes with shikantaza. I just tried this about an hour ago and it was amazing. For example, you can use shikantaza to get to a state of unity (or intelligent infinity). When you feel that state real intensely, you can then feel its antithesis which is separation. This provokes a really transcendent state that is hard to describe with words. It's really amazing.

I perceived unity as light, and then I used the balancing technique to put out the light and make it dark and neutral. It sounds like an STS technique, but it's just a form of the balancing technique that Ra describes.

[anagogy]

I like to pretend my life is almost like a nature documentary, where my meditation consists of just "watching" the details of my life unfold.  You start to realize things about yourself you never knew.  I never really was aware of all my strange quirks and idiosyncrasies, but after watching this person that I seem to be for a substantial period of time, I've become more conscious of the biases and distortions that make up this construct called "me".

It is an interesting exercise to be sure.

[Billy]

The shear amount of meditation techniques sometimes overwhelms me and causes me a great deal of anxiety as I feel as though my methods are inadequate and my growth and time would be better served practicing something else. Anyone else feel this?

As for my technique, it involves focusing on and being aware of the breath, in and out.  I have lately started counting the breath from 1 to 10 and repeating for a period of 15-20 minutes.  I sometimes use guided meditations on YouTube when I am finding it hard to maintain a regular practice.  One of things I have noticed is that I have a tendency to block out and try to force my mind to be still and thoughtless.  It's almost like I try to think my way out of thoughts.  Not very effective if I must say so.  I think I am making some progress in this regard however, and with more practice, hopefully I will continue to improve and be more accepting and loving.

[Raz]

When I say I use the breath as a center I would like to note that it is part of the spectrum of perception within perception. I can note; breath, heart beat, smell, taste, touch, sight and sound but I view it all as one undivided perception spectrum where focus is what creates direction.

One incredible meditation phase was when I had focus on the heart in a rain forest, it was like there where other energy centers that merged in to the heart and I lost sense of the rest of my body, entering an ecstatic white light that felt like an never ending cosmic orgasm. I would guess that was what is refereed to as the bliss field...

Another incredible meditation phase was when I was fire dancing on a beach in intense present slow motion. Suddenly it was like I put my perception in one place, continued to move and left another in a second place, after the third place it was like my energy had formed a pyramid and I found my self looking up at the sky that was full of stars, my focus landed on a individual star and there was an explosion like sensation as everything apart from that star went totally black. Time stopped... I was one with the star for what felt like an eternity and then suddenly as unexpected as the timeless connection had initiated I was back in time... When I looked down on my body after coming back I could see my clear colorful light body within the layer of my physical body... It was all so beautiful...

I think it is important to note that no matter how beautiful or blissful a phase of meditation is, attachment to a phase will hinder new fresh phases from entering our experience. It can always deepen, it can always expand, meditation is infinite in nature...

[VanAlioSaldo]

The shear amount of meditation techniques sometimes overwhelms me and causes me a great deal of anxiety as I feel as though my methods are inadequate and my growth and time would be better served practicing something else. Anyone else feel this?

As for my technique, it involves focusing on and being aware of the breath, in and out.  I have lately started counting the breath from 1 to 10 and repeating for a period of 15-20 minutes.  I sometimes use guided meditations on YouTube when I am finding it hard to maintain a regular practice.  One of things I have noticed is that I have a tendency to block out and try to force my mind to be still and thoughtless.  It's almost like I try to think my way out of thoughts.  Not very effective if I must say so.  I think I am making some progress in this regard however, and with more practice, hopefully I will continue to improve and be more accepting and loving.

I get anxiety too! Its like i feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot!

My technique is tailored to me. I sit on 2 to 4 pillows, sit, get comfy, slouch or sit straight. I like having something to lean back against personally (couch, bed frame, tree, garage door, chair to name a few I've done)

Im bad ADD i have next to no focus unless I'm immediately interested. This conflict with meditation has me in an odd place of inability to meditate at times.

My solution, trick my brain literally physically by holding a sphere palm sized forcing me to grasp it open palm. In my right hand it puts me in the perfect pplace.

The results are so far not extranormal with a few odd exceptions i hope will grow in occurrence. Otherwise, i Focus on the sphere, and once I'm.past my surface thoughts i relax my body with my breath with a few small yoga breathing tips and let the Theta and maybe Delta states settle in.

Thats when i begin experiencing everything more clearly and things start making sense.

[Minyatur]

I tried sleeping with a black quartz pyramid under my pillow and woke up a few times with strange energy influxes within me.

I tried to meditate but the experience was very unpleasant so I stopped. It felt exactly what I feel when a psychedelic trip starts and it becomes very unpleasant for about half an hour until my mind expands.

Unlike a psychedelic trip I could stop... (dumbass me) and removed the pyramid before falling back asleep.

Definitely going to try that again!

[Minyatur]

To actually get somewhere with meditation I should also fast. I only fasted once in my life as a Christian, and that is a very very very powerful tool. It'd probably be much more useful as of now than with my old mind set.

That time was one of the only time I was actually alligned with the Source, I was filled with light and love for about a whole week, never felt as joyous as that afterwards. (while sober, with psychedelic drugs I've been the extreme of every emotions)

Now I'm more synching myself with my unveiled self rather than the Source. Since I've got results with that, might be a good time to reach back to the Source once more.

I'll try not eating, smoking cigarretes nor smoking weed for a few days and post back the results in term of meditation.

[Aion]

I've tried tons of meditation techniques. None of them 'work' unless I have opened myself to the possibility of them working. I think everybody just decides for themselves what works based on comfort and preference and then from there individual styles develop.

So my 'method' is simply to have faith in whatever it is I am doing.

I have one goal and that is conscious living.

[Reaper]

My meditations tend to be very sensory experiences. I get very involved in my senses, and it's almost as if, when utilized without any emotional attachment, they transport me. The flickering of the candle light, the smell of the incense, the sound of the bell I ring...they all add up to something that is more than the sum of its parts when I manage to get into the right frame of mind. I enter a sort of over-sense that allows for a type of experience I normally wouldn't detect, mainly an acute sensing of the energies around me, an awareness of multidimensional reality, and something that I can only describe as energetic geometry, which I become a part of. It's like sinking into an enormous sea of experience, not so much absorbing things as having them pass through me in infinite proportion.

[Matt1]

I practice the meditation i was taught, its basically just watching the breath and integrating mindfulness throughout the day. There's a lot of different methods of meditation but i think they all basically boil down to focusing ones attention of conscious mind on an object, be it the breath, a point on the body, a visualization or mantra, to allow the unconsciousness mind to be tapped.

[Night Owl]

For me, meditation is.

Life is one dynamic meditation. I flow with it, when I´m out of bed I have a active, creative phase of meditation.
When I go to bed I enter a phase of passive stillness meditation. Still the same meditation I have been doing from the day I entered this body, just another phase within it.
The one thing passive and active meditation have in common is the breath center and each phase has the seed of the other in it (yin/yang style).
There is always only one thing happening. What differs is how complex that one thing is. Driving my car while brushing my teeth is still just doing one thing; we confuse simple complexity with complex multiplicity which is a mental phenomenon that can be a practical tool but act as a disconnecting distortion if taken as fact rather than fiction...

I feel you on that, I feel like I'm always meditating but I guess you can really go deeper when you focus on that.

[Night Owl]

So my 'method' is simply to have faith in whatever it is I am doing.

I have one goal and that is conscious living.

We have the same goal about life and that's why I like talking to you. Though I have a really hard time having faith in whatever I do.

[Night Owl]

Never thought of it before this instant but since I'm playing drum this is probably my best way of meditating and it's definitly something I'd recommend to anyone. Reaching new levels everyday with deep focus definitly brings me closer to intelligent infinity and I think intelligent infinity definitly likes flowing through people doing that

[Raz]

I really like this thread, a big "fuzzy lovey thank you" to everybody contributing to it! =)

Loving meditation is loving life!

[Minyatur]

I'm going to drop my fasting from eating (going to finish today for the sake of it). I'm already close to be underweight and I know fairly well that by not eating today I'll have to force myself to eat tomorrow anyway. The craving for cigarettes is something else though and I think this is what hinders me most spiritually as of now, so I might instead extend a few days to a long while away from cigarettes and see the impact it has on my meditation. Might do a full fasting at a later time to test if it has any impact at that point.

About eating, I usually eat very close to my bed time and I was wondering if it has a negative impact on meditation. Do you all usually try to meditate on an empty stomach or see a difference?

[Minyatur]

Oh yeah I didn't share my meditation technique! The only thing I tried that seem to get somewhere with me as silence simply brings me into timelessness.

I enter a trance like mode and focus on my rays to find distortions. When I find a distortion in the energy web, I keep my focus on it until a thought comes to my mind and I re-work the thought and affirm with Will how I want the thought to be and usually I feel the distortion fade away. Worked quite a lot of them already but still have many to do, it gets somehow tiresome to do after a while but it's going somewhere unlike just going into timelessness mode.

[Lighthead]

I get the impression from Ra that the whole point of balancing our energy centers is to reach intelligent infinity. I wonder if anybody can confirm this. I feel like the lower I go in my rays, the more I have to work on them. The lower I go, the more sluggish and inactive they feel. But I seem to have no problem in accessing intelligent infinity during meditation. I wonder if anybody could give me some advice, or to at least tell me if I'm doing things right or not. I also wouldn't mind if someone could just go ahead and shock my chakras. Just tell me how many nickels that would be.

[AnthroHeart]

When I try to meditate I feel dense energy in my teeth, and sometimes in the area of my heart chakra. But it doesn't feel like love. It feels more like pressure.

[Night Owl]

When I try to meditate I feel dense energy in my teeth, and sometimes in the area of my heart chakra. But it doesn't feel like love. It feels more like pressure.

When you focus on that heart chakra pressure long enough what thoughts arise to your mind?

[AnthroHeart]

That once a wanderer always a wanderer.

[tamaryn]

Many techniques waking, and in meditation. But they all fall away and a new one is sought.

Tanner's advice is imperative to living a conscious life and healing the self. Faith in all that is will forever be one of my greatest lessons, and a practice I will work with for the rest of my life.

I ground myself with the heart of the earth in the form of a great almost godlike crystal at the center. I believe this is literally the center of the earth and makes grounding exercises all the more exciting to visualize. This crystal will take each and every bit of energy you send it, and it will thank you a thousand times over for this service.

If I wish to perform strong energy work of send energy to others I align the tip of the great crystal with the source (7th, 8th chakras); stream these energies to meet at my heart and send the energy wherever desired. I use in-breath to draw the energy and out-breath to compact the energy or send it elsewhere.

My most useful technique in meditation is simply surrender to any arising thought and follow the transformed thought deeper (surrendering more and more) until it is emptiness. Usually this process is instantaneous for me.

[Night Owl]

That once a wanderer always a wanderer.

That thought is more than likely linked with a distortion. What is it about being a wanderer that you think would be a distortion?

[AnthroHeart]

That once a wanderer always a wanderer.

That thought is more than likely linked with a distortion. What is it about being a wanderer that you think would be a distortion?

I've gotten distinct impressions that I could never come back. Never go back home.

[Night Owl]

That once a wanderer always a wanderer.

That thought is more than likely linked with a distortion. What is it about being a wanderer that you think would be a distortion?

I've gotten distinct impressions that I could never come back. Never go back home.

That looks to me like the root of this thought is fear. What fear makes you not feel at home?