Zen. Buddhism is basically Hinduism without the religion. So read about Zen. Some people do bring crazy religious crap in to it, but just ignore it, it's just extra crap tagged on by other people. |
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I was wondering if anyone had advice for or discussion on non-religious meditation or other self-induced altered mental states. I would like to benefit from the supposed effects of meditation such as stress relief and improved concentration, but cannot seem to find any techniques that do not have basis in religion or spirituality. |
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Zen. Buddhism is basically Hinduism without the religion. So read about Zen. Some people do bring crazy religious crap in to it, but just ignore it, it's just extra crap tagged on by other people. |
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I haven't opened that link so I don't know if I'm talking about the same thing but sometimes I like to close my eyes and describe everything I see into a tape recorder because the images become more and more vivid until I'm standing in a day-dream. |
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Everything works out in the end, sometimes even badly.
You could always invent your own way of doing it. Try a few methods and see which one benefits you the most. There's no need to attach religious or even spiritual baggage to the practice. It's very calming and can help with your awareness, and with analyzing your thoughts or just slowing them down. |
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I think most teachers of meditation have a highly spiritual side. I always thought it was kind of weird, bordering on hypocritical in some cases. They teach you to live in the moment, and experience the flow of each moment as-is, not adding and not removing anything... but then, they take a subjective experience (which is fine as it is), and label it with "ah, that was a spiritual experience" just after they finished talking about how you should experience pure experience, without attaching labels and meaning to them. |
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I watched the first half of Life in a Material World documentary recently, and there was something about a form of meditation using mantras. It sounded extremely similar to the WILD technique; it basically involves stopping the stream of thought in your brain. |
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Yes, assuming I'm thinking of the same thing, that is what OM is. Or focusing on breathing or playing a gong for example are also types of mantras. Just to focus on one thing and stop thinking. |
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Are there any good, concise, preferably rational resources about meditation, by the way? I tried a while ago to find out information about the field in general but Google disappointed me. |
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Here's a really good book about Mindfulness Meditation in PDF form that a lot of people in here have highly recommended and I found extremely good: http://www.mindfulvalley.org/files/b...in_english.pdf |
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Xei, it's pretty simple, practice being vigilant in being aware of as much as you can: preferably the immediate experience of your senses, the feeling of your whole body, and your thoughts/emotions while trying let them give way to the powerful and nonjudgmental awareness of immediate experience. The attempted state may seem a bit contradictory, kind of like a peaceful intensity. You want to have an exited state of intense, vigilant curiosity of what's going on and how you feel, but at the same time have a peaceful, objective watchfulness that welcomes everything non-judgmentally. |
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Last edited by Wayfaerer; 11-19-2011 at 02:39 AM.
You can try to find "Alan Watts teaches meditation" mp3. Probably the best explanation I've heard. I think there's a couple of different talks. You'll probably find eventually that any explanation doesn't really help. You just sit there and let every thought and sensory input flow in and out of you. You don't even have to sit. |
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That reminded me of something I heard of a while ago. I can't remember the name of it, but it was some sort of effect whereby if you filled the visual field with light of a uniform colour (white noise optional), after a short time visual hallucinations would begin. Recommendation I saw was to cut a ping-pong ball in half such that it would fit over your eyes. |
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