Meditation Strategies

I don’t think that any one method works better than another, nor do I think that there is anything one can do to get to that state of “deep meditation” without knowing how it is for one to meditate. What I mean is that I don’t think I can tell anyone a special technique that is going to get them there if they don’t do it. Meditation is only tricky if you are expecting something to happen.

As cliché as it sounds; let go of your expectations and just do it.

It is possible to meditate with your eyes open and often you'll find instructions say to have your eyes only half shut. By doing this you might better avoid falling sleep but, perhaps more importantly, also to apply meditative practise more equally across senses - so to shut off visual processing in the same way you might be doing to other senses.

In that way binaural sounds help distract me from visual input which then might allow me to go deeper then usual, as shutting the eyes could trigger the subconscious that you are trying to go to sleep. Deep meditation seems to flirt with sleep for me, so if I accept sleep as integral then I try and use dreams as just another part of meditation
:huh:

Otherwise as I mentioned somewhere else here once, a rhythmic beat seems to create an oscillation in my awareness if I meditate to it. The pulse of sound being the peak of awareness and the trough being a depth moment. Perhaps a device that measured the brain waves and adjusted wavelength of the beats would serve well to assist in meditation, and it could feedback on itself to set parameters about depth and duration.

Zazen is done with eyes open.

Saying all meditations are the same is like saying all things with a motor do the same thing.

Well I can cut my lawn, or drive my car, or power a fan, or fly in an airplane, or ride on an amusement park ride, and all these things have motors to power them, but they don't all do the same thing.

You might be able to rig your car up to mow your yard somehow, however it is probably not advisable.

Each of these is a tool with a specific purpose and function, figure out what it is you want to do, then find the tool you need to do it.

Same goes with meditation.

Riding in your car just to be riding in your car might be fun, but probably isn't going to help you accomplish anything.

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to

Alice: I don't much care where.

The Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.

Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.

The Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.





Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll

"What are you doing?

Why are you doing it?

Where is this going?

If you know, you’ll succeed.

If you don’t, you won’t.

That’s not just pretty talk, that’s the law."


Jed McKenna - Spiritual Enlightenment The Damnedest Thing

maynoth wrote: Saying all meditations are the same is like saying all things with a motor do the same thing.

Well I can cut my lawn, or drive my car, or power a fan, or fly in an airplane, or ride on an amusement park ride, and all these things have motors to power them, but they don't all do the same.

What if they do all do the same thing all with a common purpose (running and powering a machine) but are all just Being used for different things by different people who use it? Might the difference simply be in the user and how they choose to use it?

It makes me think of, for example, a number of cases where people actually have used car (and even dirt bike) engines in things like airplanes, and sometimes get even better use out of them. If they had never learned the essential commonalities of motors, would they have ever figured out that they could do such a thing?

No amount of Zazen, metta (compassion) or vipassana (insight) meditation will allow you to control your body's core temperature, metabolism and immune system like tummo (inner fire) or neigong (inner mastery) meditation for example.

In 2011 tummo master wim hof was packed in ice for 1 hour 20 minutes under medical observation his core body temperature remained constant

http://www.innerfire.nl/files/can-meditation-influence-ans-hopman.pdf

Despite 80 minutes of full-body ice immersion and significant heat loss through the skin, core body temperature was maintained probably by an increased energy expenditure (and therefore heat production). This individual may have influenced the autonomic nervous system, thereby actively regulating the cardiovascular system and thermoregulation.

Video of this observation of tummo master wim hof being packed in ice for 80 minutes at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre.










Tummo master wim hof controlling his immune system via tummo meditation at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22685240

Journal: Psychosomatic Medicine 2012 Jun;74(5):489-94.

The influence of concentration/meditation on autonomic nervous system activity and the innate immune response: a case study.

Case study backing the video.

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/1000/full-body-ice-contact-endurance-

The longest time spent in direct, full body contact with ice is 1 hr 52 min 42 sec and was achieved by Wim Hof (Netherlands)

(tummo master Wim Hof)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2194593

Journal: Behavioral Medicine Volume 16, Issue 2, 1990

Dr. Herbert Benson Harvard Medical

Three case reports of the metabolic and electroencephalographic changes during advanced Buddhist meditation techniques.

Resting metabolism (VO2) could be both raised (up to 61%) and lowered (down to 64%). The reduction from rest is the largest ever reported.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html

They were astonished to find that these monks could lower their metabolism by 64 percent. "It was an astounding, breathtaking [no pun intended] result," Benson exclaims.

To put that decrease in perspective, metabolism, or oxygen consumption, drops only 10-15 percent in sleep and about 17 percent during simple meditation.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html

During visits to remote monasteries in the 1980s, Benson and his team studied monks living in the Himalayan Mountains who could, by g Tum-mo meditation, raise the temperatures of their fingers and toes by as much as 17 degrees. It has yet to be determined how the monks are able to generate such heat.

Body temperature changes during the practice of g Tum-mo yoga

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v295/n5846/pdf/295234a0.pdf

Dr. Herbert Benson Harvard Medical

Nature 295, 234-236 (21 January 1982) | doi:10.1038/295234a0; Accepted 26 October 1981

Tibetan Buddhist meditational practice known as g Tum-mo (heat) yoga living in Upper Dharamsala, India. We report here that in a study performed there in February 1981, we found that these subjects exhibited the capacity to increase the temperature of their fingers and toes by as much as 8.3°C.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/07/meditation-types-mindfulness-mantra-zen-qigong_n_1651902.html


Not All Meditation Types Are One-Size-Fits-All, Study Suggests


If you aren't enjoying your meditation practice, a small new study suggests a possible reason why: You aren't doing the method that's right for you.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/155778857X

The Experience of Meditation: Experts Introduce the Major Traditions

"One common misconception, often found in popular books and articles, and even sometimes in textbooks and research articles, is that all meditation procedures are more or less “the same.” But this is simply incorrect, for major meditation procedures often differ in important ways. The chapters of this book, written by experts in the relevant traditions (abbots of monasteries, heads of meditation centers, well-known scholars and teachers, etc.), make this quite clear. Zen Buddhist practices are likely to use concentration, whether directed perceptually towards one’s breathing, or conceptually towards paradoxes (koans) that defy intellectual resolution. Taoist practices emphasize circulation of energy throughout channels of the body. Transcendental Meditation (TM) uses relaxed attention to special sounds (or mantras) repeated silently within the mind. Yoga adds many other procedures and objects, such as concentration on energy centers in the body (chakras), the “light” of the mind, and attributes of God. Therevada Buddhism emphasizes dispassionate observation of the impermanence of sensations, thoughts, and whatever else is meditated on, including the self itself. Tibetan Buddhist Tsonghakapa emphasizes reasoned deconstruction of the reality of objects experienced in meditation, as well as concentrative practices to quiet the mind. Integral Yoga emphasizes attending to a sense of seeking, and remembering calmness and divinity both during and after meditation.

There are tens of thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands of types and forms of meditation.

In the Buddhist tradition:

Insight Meditation (Vipassana)

Tranquility Meditation (Samatha)

Loving Kindness Compassion Meditation (Metta)

Inner Fire Meditation (Tummo)


And many many many many more




There are more forms of Taoist qigong meditation than I could possibly ever list.



There are internal objects of focus, external objects of focus, mantras, visualizations, guided meditation, transcendental meditation, yoga meditation, walking meditations, running meditations, sitting meditations, trance meditations, awareness meditations.

Not to be rude to anyone, but most of these forms of meditation are useless for my personal goals for my practice.

One man's junk is another man's treasure though.

There certainly is not one type of meditation for everybody.

I tend to see a core commonality between all types of meditation, though, which reflect the nature of the human condition, universally, inside every individual.

I've been learning about a basic form of meditation which surrounds that core commonality. It's not for everybody, but I personally enjoy using it, because it helps me achieve many things that various specialized types of meditation aim to achieve. In this way, I can use this one meditation for various things, and not having to try to learn specific specialized types of meditation to achieve the same thing.

Vipassana meditation is probably what most people think of when they hear the word meditation. Sitting quietly and observing the breath and bodily sensations, being intensely aware of the present moment, letting thoughts flow by and being aware of them as they pass.

But that simple form of meditation isn't the same as many other schools concepts of simple meditation.

For instance the type of meditation I study revolves around the attainment of a deep state of relaxation and trance, the state between sleep and waking, consciousness and unconsciousness.

Others might focus on the emotion of love, kindness and compassion for all holding onto the feeling of that emotion and thought as an object of focus.



All of these are simple but can one be said to be the one true common basic form?

/shrug

Depends on what you want to accomplish I guess.

They are all the same you're just using different words. same dance different tune. Start anyway you desire the destination is the same. Just get started.