Meditation techniques?

[zack231]

Greetings my good friend,

I have meditated for many years (over 10 years), so I offer my experience to you if it helps you. A few concepts to take into your heart first.

Be very gentle with yourself. Do not think you are doing it wrong or right. There is no judgement, just being. Don't get angry at yourself. If you follow your thoughts and get lost, just say to yourself "It's okay, lets gently go back into my awareness of being here now". There is no reason to be upset with yourself, that will only hinder your practice. Love yourself and your practice.

Try practicing throughout the day. Even in 10 second increments. Take the time at a stop light. Or while you go to the bathroom, while you walk somewhere. Little meditations add up through out the day and help you stay in the moment. Again, be gentle. Start slow. Give your mind a 'part time job' first, because a 'full time job' will be too much!

Set aside at least 10 mins a day (not all at once necessarily) to meditate. Even if this is 10 - 1 min sessions, or a hundred 10 second sessions, or one 10 min session. Whatever works for you. No need to count strictly...just a guideline. Try and get at least 10 mins. Increase from there after a while.

Thoughts are usually treated as enemies or your boss (Mingyur Rinpoche's description)- you either push thoughts away or accept them as true and do exactly what they tell you. In meditation, we love our thoughts as friends. We see them, notice them, say hello and let them go by, like clouds in the sky. It's okay to think. The point is not to negate your thoughts, it's okay to think thoughts. Just watch them rise in space, and disspear in space, just like all phenomena. All things are impermanent. Gentle, Gentle, Gentle now.

Keeping this in mind for your practice, I will describe a few methods.

I suggest starting samatha meditation first (calm-abiding), this is just following your breath. You could also use counting (only 1-2 first, then try 1-4, then 1-6, then 1-8 and 1-10) The point here is to develop what Buddhists call "one-pointed consciousness". This is also to help you in further meditation techniques. Once you can count to one and two, back to one, without interruption of thought, then move onto 1 to 4. Don't rush. Don't skip. This is for you. No one to brag to, no need to progress any faster than you need to. All things come as they will, and will help you grow.

Once you are able to do this, I suggest moving onto breath (if you did not already start with this). If you are able to breath and focus on the sensation of your breath, and do it with focus, that is meditation. If you are thinking something and just notice it come up and let it go, that is also meditation. Being aware of right now (of what your thinking and understanding it's impermanent nature), that is meditation. The only thing that is not meditation is not being aware of yourself getting lost in thought. Catching yourself- when you say "Oh, I got lost in a thought". That moment is meditation. Meditation is awareness, and developing it. Allowing it to rest, and expand into infinite space. We start at the body to help slowly increase this.

At this point of development, you can move onto anything- meaning all things can be a support for meditation. Feeling pain, anxiety, anger, confusion, etc? Meditate on this, notice it without judgement, without getting caught into it. Just sit, observe, become good friends, thank it for being a support of your meditation. Watch how it changes, grows and dissipates....

Experiences, beliefs, and feelings, anything! This can be where you explore and discover the most about yourself.

Advice for moving into larger "sensations" or "experiences"- break them down into 'digestible' chunks. If you went through a break up, this is a combination of many feelings, experiences, and sensations. Focus just first on how it feels in that moment. Do you feel angry, sad? Depressed? Just notice it, observe it, and let it go. It will pass, just as all things do in space. Focus then on the sensation...does your stomach feel tight? Do you feel sick? tightness in your shoulders? Relax them, observe them, let it go....So on and so forth.

I hope this helps. I'd be happy to give more techniques, but this give you a solid foundation towards developing, and cultivating awareness. As you do, you will develop compassion and loving kindness with it, as it is necessary to be truthful to yourself, and towards observing things without judgement.

Remember, all things can become tools towards bettering yourself. Remember all your supports for meditation are your friends! Thank them deeply for what they teach you, and use them.

With much love, respect, support and light my friend, I dearly hope this helps you in your seeking.

Ok so I have meditated before had a few weird experiences that I am not going to explain right now but I am going to try and meditate every night now and I would really like your suggestions on meditation techniques and how to get into a deep-meditation. Ie do you breath deep, do you repeat something out loud or in your mind, do you visualise etc please if you have techniques that work please explain..

Thanks

We are One
Love and Light

Thankyou for your amazing detailed explanation of our techniques last night I meditated and I look at my clock and it was 11:26 and I said ok ill meditate for 10 minutes.. I followed our techniques and became very relaxed.. Once again while meditating I had this feeling as though I was getting lighter, and felt as though I was falling down hill slowly i could also feel this pulsating feeling through my arms which were sitting on me knees with two of my fingers touching, it sort of felt as though I had energy flowing through me it was amazing! Also I heard a message in my minf "OK that is enough for now" so I ended my meditation and looked at the time and it was 11:36 exactly! I meditated for exactly 10 minutes!

Ok I thought I might share two of my amazing incidents I had from meditating a while back, this was after meditating repeatedly for a while.. The first one was when I had a very bad cold, I just seemed to not be able to get over it blocked nose, sneezing the lot. Something one night told me to meditate on it.. So I focused a whole meditation on healing myself of my cold I got into a fairly deep state and lasted about 15 mins.. I wa very tired after it and fell straight to sleep and to my amazement I felt almost 100% in the morning and my cold was basically gone.. The runny nose was unblocked my head felt unblocked I just felt much better it was amazing!... Another time was even more interesting when my Mum was very sick with the Flu so bad she had to lay in bed most of the time and she looked very sick she had it for over a week and it was really bring her down so I decided to dedicate a meditation to her being getting over her flu.. I just kept thinking of her feeling better of her not having the flu anymore and of her having energy flowing through her.. Again I was very tired after this and fell to sleep.. When I woke up my mum was down stairs and she was walking around and I asked her how she was feeling and she said "much better".. I smiled in amazement.... Now some will probably say it is just coincidence.. But I think it is something more..

Have you ever had these experiences during meditation? Is it normal to be able to do this?

Love and Light
We are One