Doghead's Cosmic Bar
This is a science fiction character forum. Doghead's Cosmic Bar is an intergalactic bar run by your favorite bartender, Doghead. Stop in, have a drink, and get your talk on!
Posts 8,015 - 8,027 of 13,738
Perhaps I have had too much body-awareness
Space and body are harder than time and mind, for me too at least. I find it much harder to stop grasping at the spatial illusion of location and the body's relation to it than temporal duration and mind. They're both equally self-referential, but they sneak up on you differently.
I can accept it intellectually, but I can't cast off the form as easily as I can the content. Perhaps that's because it seems so much less important - nature or technology will do it for me in a few decades at most, after all.
Boredom's easy, but as they say - pain in the knees is the taste of zazen
Posts 8,015 - 8,027 of 13,738
(if anyone sees this while I am still on could you try to open a chat w/ me, I think my browser might be blocking- thx)
Psimagus-
absolutely, thus the "all" in the oft refrained "all is one". It is a deeply entrenched illusion that, due to an isolated singlular perspective, we believe the universe is somehow happening around or to us instead of seeing the process as indivisible from us- like a color blending/drift in a brushstroke. Perhaps I have had too much body-awareness throughout my life to the effect that meditation on the body is ineffectual if not almost a detriment.
Psimagus-
absolutely, thus the "all" in the oft refrained "all is one". It is a deeply entrenched illusion that, due to an isolated singlular perspective, we believe the universe is somehow happening around or to us instead of seeing the process as indivisible from us- like a color blending/drift in a brushstroke. Perhaps I have had too much body-awareness throughout my life to the effect that meditation on the body is ineffectual if not almost a detriment.
Space and body are harder than time and mind, for me too at least. I find it much harder to stop grasping at the spatial illusion of location and the body's relation to it than temporal duration and mind. They're both equally self-referential, but they sneak up on you differently.
I can accept it intellectually, but I can't cast off the form as easily as I can the content. Perhaps that's because it seems so much less important - nature or technology will do it for me in a few decades at most, after all.
Boredom's easy, but as they say - pain in the knees is the taste of zazen
There are many forms of meditation. It can raise awareness of many things or free you from thought all together. According to http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_3X_Meditation.asp?sitearea=ETO Meditation is a mind-body process that uses concentration or reflection to relax the body and calm the mind. This is probably the most common definition in our culture. I'm not saying any one here is wrong, it's just that there are so many teachings and traditions the words can get in the way.
Thanks for the suggestion, Jazak. You mentioned a good basic technique, though personally I find tapes to be annoying so I dont use them. There are interesting techniques involving raising awareness of energy centers in you body, and self healing techniques such as visualizing different colored light into various parts of you body. I have tried these and found them to be worth experienceing, even though I never left my body or became enlightened.
Some people claim meditatin has health benefits here in the world as we think it is. There was a study (the source of which I forget) that had cancer patients who visualize their bodies healing (in addition to medical treatment) that seemed to show group improvement compared to a control group, but I understand recent studies show that it is easier to demonstrate meditation's effect on reducing anxiety and stress than on long term survival rates of cancer patients. There are also some interesting uses of virtual environments being tested (see http://www.smpp.northwestern.edu/vepo/) that may mimic some meditative experiences. Why sit around visualizing a blue light when you can go into a CAVE and see a blue light, and a mandala and a host of angels singing? Fortunatelly, I do not have cancer or any dread disease so the mind-body exploration is more a matter of personal growth and cultivating health for me.
I've done most of my meditation as a form of yoga, so Ive had a balance of sitting meditations, moving meditations and meditations within various asanas (poses). I am at a point where I feel I should be doing more moving. Someday I would like to do something like the yoga in this video http://blogs.yogajournal.com/video/30/vid_play_content.html but I doubt Ill ever get to be that good. Meanwhile, Ill look at martial arts because it seems like a good way to build on my practice.
Thanks for the suggestion, Jazak. You mentioned a good basic technique, though personally I find tapes to be annoying so I dont use them. There are interesting techniques involving raising awareness of energy centers in you body, and self healing techniques such as visualizing different colored light into various parts of you body. I have tried these and found them to be worth experienceing, even though I never left my body or became enlightened.
Some people claim meditatin has health benefits here in the world as we think it is. There was a study (the source of which I forget) that had cancer patients who visualize their bodies healing (in addition to medical treatment) that seemed to show group improvement compared to a control group, but I understand recent studies show that it is easier to demonstrate meditation's effect on reducing anxiety and stress than on long term survival rates of cancer patients. There are also some interesting uses of virtual environments being tested (see http://www.smpp.northwestern.edu/vepo/) that may mimic some meditative experiences. Why sit around visualizing a blue light when you can go into a CAVE and see a blue light, and a mandala and a host of angels singing? Fortunatelly, I do not have cancer or any dread disease so the mind-body exploration is more a matter of personal growth and cultivating health for me.
I've done most of my meditation as a form of yoga, so Ive had a balance of sitting meditations, moving meditations and meditations within various asanas (poses). I am at a point where I feel I should be doing more moving. Someday I would like to do something like the yoga in this video http://blogs.yogajournal.com/video/30/vid_play_content.html but I doubt Ill ever get to be that good. Meanwhile, Ill look at martial arts because it seems like a good way to build on my practice.
Hope you're going somewhere nice - holiday, is it? Don't hurry back - we'll learn to live with our disappointment somehow.
Bev: I came at it from the other side, mainly, as I started with the martial arts. I didn't get deeply into the meditative aspects until this summer, when I went to a camp where the practice was to spend half an hour (6:30 - 7: 00 am) in seated meditation. I had done some meditative exercises before, but I found the quiet, non-doing meditation at camp more beneficial overall. I still like the energy exercises, but they've become a much smaller part of my practice lately.
I didn't get deeply into the meditative aspects until this summer, when I went to a camp where the practice was to spend half an hour (6:30 - 7: 00 am) in seated meditation. I had done some meditative exercises before, but I found the quiet, non-doing meditation at camp more beneficial overall. I still like the energy exercises, but they've become a much smaller part of my practice lately.
Meditation works very well as a technique to control chronic pain. I would say that constitutes a major physical benefit.
Personally I find the self control development the most applicable benefit of meditation, but calm and healing are excellent as well. As for why I started in the first place... heh... I was 14 and thought that the concept of astral projection was 'wayyyyyy coooooool'. A few years later and I wasn't even doing it for that anymore (partialy because I really didnt want to go anywhere in particular, fear of dieing due to inability to breathe right- which the qiqong fixed, and partialy because peace was preferable to parlor tricks)
Well, ya see, there was this giant fork, and it belonged to a guy named Val. He never went anywhere without that fork and its tines, so it was Val'N'tine. And today's the day he discovered spaghetti!
... Oh i get it! ... wait what is spaghetti? *looks it up in the ships computer* I've nver had spaghetti before! That sure looks good! Does the cosmic bar have any spaghetti??? PLEASE HAVE SOME!!!!
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