Meditating

[asrai-d.livejournal.com]

I tired to meditate the other night. I had a clear mind for about 5 seconds. But y'know the drill right just push them out.

Then OTHER PEOPLE ARE CHIMING IN. "you're not doing it right. you're supposed to not think of anything".

How do i do that people when you are all telling me that i'm doing it wrong and filling my head with thoughts?

Any multiples out there meditate successfully?

Comments

[qilora.livejournal.com]

yup. we find meditation very calming and we like to think we do it "successfully"...

whoever is meditating, will sit and do their meditations, and that does not mean that the rest of us must suddenly be silent... we just go about our business...

the one who is meditating will hear the noise, but they focus their mind on the body, and do their visualizations, etc.... and it is a very calming experience for all of us, system-wide...

i think that something that is helpful to keep in mind, is that the goal is not to forcibly stop yourself from experiencing distractions, rather, to let the thoughts/words/images arise in your head and simply let them go... don't hold onto them.. just aim for a state of passive observance, and focus on your mantras (if you use them)....

don't try to be perfect... just *be*...

Julia & Eve.

[kiya]

The "don't think of anything" is a specific style of meditation, and actually one of the more difficult ones.

For an easier sort of meditation, find an activity that you can sink yourself into and become the activity. If you are particularly drawn to a particular art, that will often do, if you can get into the zone and paint/dance/whatever. Household chores also work well. Martial arts.

If you want to do a sitting meditation, try doing one with a focus. I prefer to use flames, because I find them very calming and centering. I've also gotten good results from table fountains (sound-based meditation, mostly) and lava lamps. Pools of water, stones (crystals with light refraction patterns), ceiling fans -- anything that you can put the consciousness of your mind into and let the rhythms or appearances help you flow with.

Do you have any sort of inner world? We don't have an 'inner world' in the way I understand other systems sometimes do, but we do have an internal symbolic space that we developed a long time ago. Did a guided meditation down there once (led by someone else) and found someone we'd misplaced. (Whoops.)

[azraile.livejournal.com]

I have a sune.... and a baby lunar dragon in here..... and a feral tiger..... and I have ADD.... and the sune and dragon have ADHD......

um..............

No.... only have ever been able to meditate once, and that lead to a OBO

o.o

So ya.... after that i tried a lot.... and never have been able to..... i'm going to try more often when it's rainning though.. thats how i was able to last time

[asrai-d.livejournal.com]

we have to find our discman and the good rain cd and listen to that and maybe it will calm things down. we just long for quiet ... any type of quiet.

The DD often makes life hectic and everyone is ... ack ... anyway ...

[azraile.livejournal.com]

*pouts... needs a rain sounds cd or something..........*

[ex-khailitha846.livejournal.com]

There is a meditative practice that doesn't focus on trying to quiet inner noise, but rather let it be and watch it from a place of non-judgement. This works well for Us... We'll lie down and focus on the breathing, not about breathing in any particular way, but just to notice and pay attention. If there are thoughts, or conversations, or voices going on, those who are meditating just take notice of them and grant them permission to be without trying to control, shift, or judge whatever is happening. It is kind of odd to listen to the voices saying, "You are doing this wrong!" and just incorporate that into the process... accepting their judgement without fighting it or judging in return, but after a while, it gets easier.

This has been a very powerful experience for Us, and usually ends in a feeling of peace and connection.

Sending light!

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Not us. We have never been able to meditate at all.

[effeteifrit.livejournal.com]

I had some practice in breathing meditation in aikido, where you just try to sit really still with eyes closed and focus on sensory experience and deep, slow breathing. I think that practice is taken from Soto Zen Buddhism.

I've also tried successfully to focus on thoughtforms represented by crystals or other charged objects (like a personal possession that represents something to you, a Zuni fetish, etc), even though this seems to go against *some* Buddhist teachings about nonattachment to physical objects (because they are temporary, and attachment to temporary things is a root of suffering) and paradoxically espouses full attention to the present.

But I find--or I think--that focusing on an object is like focusing on a mantra [though I haven't used mantras so much (like "Om" or "Om Mani Padme Hum")] in that they represent a deeper level of thought that can't really be summed up in words. I just try to clear out everything from my mind that isn't the thing I'm concentrating on; though my mind also wanders, and that's very normal. Even when my mind wanders, though, I still come out of it feeling refreshed, like I slept or something, except it's better, because I'm not tired.

I think the only way to get past the mind wandering is to practice a lot and practice keeping focus even when other thoughts come up. Trying to stifle them will probably only distract you more. I have however been scared recently to meditate because of the whole issue of coming closer to things that aren't me that seem to work through my mind. I've never been attacked or anything, but I'm still wary.

Waw, I write a lot. ;)

[kuponutmalt.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of a lurker here, but I'd thought I'd chime in. >_> I'm one of the only front-runners, so I'll use "I."

I've found that the kinds of meditations that require inner silence don't work at all. What I have found to work really well for focusing are guided meditations or simple books on tape. When I was a kid I would always listen to a recording of a story about a little toy sail boat called "Paddle to the Sea." Things like that may help you focus, especially if you have ADHD or related attention problems.

[forever-alone.livejournal.com]

Our old frontrunner used to meditate and it worked quite well for her. Most of the time the others would leave her alone when she meditated. But she's gone now and none of us actively meditate anymore. I would imagine it would be difficult now since we communicate with each other a lot more than we did back then.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

As lilairen already mentioned, the "think of nothing" stereotypical Zen-style meditation is far from the only kind, and we have a hard time with it also. Some things which have worked for us are:

-Focusing on our body and our breathing, and on muscle relaxation
-"Creating a rose"-- that is, taking a fairly simple object and trying to envision it in as much detail as possible (doesn't necessarily have to be a rose; I've just heard other people call it that)
-Making alphabetical lists of things in our head
-Trying to remember every detail you can about a room you were in a long time ago (or not such a long time)
and further things along those lines... As silly as some of those may sound, they really do something as far as into an inward-focused, totally nonverbal trancelike state is concerned. We find that visualizing, no matter what it is, works the best for us. You don't have to visualize any of those stereotypical things like "light filling your body" or anything else you might have been told-- that one never worked for us, and neither did mantras.

[kao-no-san.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. i've had a bit of difficulty from time to time at first, then i learned to filter the noise.. just to let it flow through like so much static.

meditation

[fireincarnation.livejournal.com]

I aggree with lilairen that concentrating your energy on a flame can really help. Is there somewhere you can go in your mind to be alone? Perhaps a quiet corner, or you could make a place specifically designed for you to meditate in. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to meditate. Meditation is all about finding your inner peace by looking inside you. Silent, non-judgemental observation can work, but it is not the only way. It is common in buddhist meditation to allow your spirit to observe your mind and it's thoughts. As a multiple, all this means is that you have more minds and more thoughts to observe. The big thing is that nomatter how you meditate, you aren't doing anything wrong. Meditation is a lot like sex: everyone does it differently, and everyone finds that differant things work for them. If you aren't getting what you want out of meditation, try something differant and give it some time.

[iamshadow.livejournal.com]

we have got quite a bit out of a few different techniques

imagining we are a tree...sitting crosslegged and imagining roots unfurling from the base of our spine, recieving earth energy to revive us, transferring negative energy back to the soil to be reprocessed by the earth.

seeing ourselves take flight from our body, usually lying down, leaving it behind and roaming beyond, outside.

Amariyah in particular is more inclined to front after one of these sessions.