What counts as meditation?

Meditation is the act of Awareness.

Being Aware of Peace
Being Aware of Focus
Being Aware of Spiritual Journey
Being Aware of Self
Being Aware of Healing
......Strength
...........Desire
.................Passion
.........................Breath

No matter what kind of Meditation you choose to engage in, it all starts with Awareness.

I see a lot of answers of freeing ones self from all distractions and things, and becoming more aware of every little thing. I like to personally see it a step further. If it can even be called a step further. There are various methods to reach meditation, whether it be through sound or music or just listening to the world around you, you make an effort to shut your brain up and just absorb life, sound, sights, and so on to clear your head out. But your just replacing the sound of your head with the sound of the environment in the end, something fresh, something new. I try and aim for not just being aware of things and flooding it full of stuff but to take it and kinda play with it a bit.

I actually got the idea from the fidget spinners and I'm experimenting with it, and it involves recording a few things into a video, like tough questions or choices in my life, but I tie it into my meditation music I listen to, so I get into a meditative state, and then while there while head is clean and emotions are out and world is in, then start asking myself the tough questions of what I should do, and just see what answers come to mind mid-meditation without me having to put effort into thinking about asking myself, cause that just defeats it, but if I do it with a recording no real effort is made at the time.

I haven't quite been fully successful with it enough I wanted to try and share it or see if anyone else would try something similar, but my goal is to be able to question my inner self without having to think about questioning my inner self, when I'm in a state of which emotions and other distracting thoughts and feelings aren't having an effect on me kinda thing.

I've just recently started to break out of a pretty rigid definition of meditation. It's helped me to use the word "mindfulness" as a synonym sometimes. That feels broader to me right now, allowing more creativity.

For example, I just had a meditation with my dog. She was lying quite still and relaxed as I pet her. I took advantage of the moment to create a meditation of feeling her warmth and the texture of her fur, and growing my love for her.

Tellahane wrote: I see a lot of answers of freeing ones self from all distractions and things, and becoming more aware of every little thing. I like to personally see it a step further. If it can even be called a step further. There are various methods to reach meditation, whether it be through sound or music or just listening to the world around you, you make an effort to shut your brain up and just absorb life, sound, sights, and so on to clear your head out. But your just replacing the sound of your head with the sound of the environment in the end, something fresh, something new. I try and aim for not just being aware of things and flooding it full of stuff but to take it and kinda play with it a bit.

I actually got the idea from the fidget spinners and I'm experimenting with it, and it involves recording a few things into a video, like tough questions or choices in my life, but I tie it into my meditation music I listen to, so I get into a meditative state, and then while there while head is clean and emotions are out and world is in, then start asking myself the tough questions of what I should do, and just see what answers come to mind mid-meditation without me having to put effort into thinking about asking myself, cause that just defeats it, but if I do it with a recording no real effort is made at the time.

I haven't quite been fully successful with it enough I wanted to try and share it or see if anyone else would try something similar, but my goal is to be able to question my inner self without having to think about questioning my inner self, when I'm in a state of which emotions and other distracting thoughts and feelings aren't having an effect on me kinda thing.

I do this kind of thing sometimes. I sort of clear my mind (as best I can) and then say, aloud or maybe just mentally, the subject or question I feel I need guidance on. I concentrate on that idea, while also picturing myself as an open vessel of some sort. I pay special attention to what feelings or images or gut reactions come to me as I imagine the vessel being filled with the answer and tools to my query. Often, when I feel done and come back to my day to day self, I have at least the beginning step of answer. For me, the tricky thing is to then trust and act on that answer.

Meditation is, for me, a mental state which can be achieved in a wide range of activities which require single- or non-focus. One of my favourite meditative practices is washing the dishes. Feeling the plates and cups, the heat of the water, the sound and scent of the bubbles, the chinking glasses and the metallic clang of the draining board. Being totally in the flow of my activity, totally aware, totally empty and hollow and transparent to all that comes my way.

That is, on those rare occasions I don't use the dishwasher.

Another is walking in the woods, although that goes beyond meditation for me and is more a communion with the holy. I'm a practitioner of shinrin-yoku, aka Forest Bathing. It's a tremendously meditative thing.

Meditation isn't just something you do by crossing your legs and trying really hard not to think about lunch. It's a state of mind, maaaaan.