A great trick for clearing the conscious mind for meditation

[Kuhnada29]

If you meditate, you may find the following tip very effective for clearing the conscious mind. This morning before getting out of bed, i lied there and tried to clear my head for meditation. Well....actually that IS meditation lol. This can be hard, but this is what i tried and it worked: I imagined that my field of view ( while eyes were closed ) was a blue sky. And that conscious thoughts were clouds. I then imagined that I used my hands and pushed the clouds to the side so that the sky was in clear view. This actually worked very well. As long as i had the clouds pinned up against the side with my hands, I had no conscious thoughts at all, until I let go. Complete awareness, and completely clear conscious mind. But while I did all this, after a little while I believe subconscious thoughts were subtly coming up. It became very interesting although I could not understand/hear the subconscious thoughts. I don't think I was deep enough into the meditation. It still amazes me how strong the power of belief is.

[angelofhex]

this reminds me of a part of I believe LaBerge's meditation style, I know I have head it elsewhere and it actually does work fairly well so I second the technique.

[MementoMori]

the technique i use is similar: I envision the sky from eye level (as if you were to be sitting on a cloud) and i see the clouds in the sky as thoughts. The cloud I am sitting on is small, a simple thought of meditation. I envision it being just before sunrise. I begin slowing my breathing, calming my body. Then once i can clearly hear my heartbeat, and it comes to a monotonous rhythm. I envision each of my breathes in as bringing the sun to rise, slowly climbing over the horizon. While i also envision my breathes out as a great wind, blowing the clouds away, across the horizon. Once the Sun has reached it's rise and sits on top of the horizon and the sky is clear, i know i'm ready for some serious meditation.

[Corello]

Whoa, those sky and sunrise ideas are seriously artistic, I liked them. All I do is pretty much the same thing but my space is simply a void of nothingness with blurry and recurring sounds and shapes passing by until I properly clean up the area. But really, those made me think. Thanks folks.

[angelofhex]

Another thing now that I think about it that helps me is to visualize a box and this box can be anything, a black hole, a chest with lock and key, a coffin with a heavy lid. Anything that once closed is not easily opened. I use a black hole and envision all of my cares or thoughts as the object not mearly a thought and put all of those into this black hole and tuck them away out of my mind. It works very well if you are not lost in the manifestation of the thought part. Just another idea if the clouds thing isnt working for you that I use whenever the clouds just wont move or there is way too much on my mind.

[nina]

Interesting! The best way that I have discovered to enter a deep meditative state can be described more like a constant and eternal "sigh". It is a a never ending release of tension, like an infinite maze of dominos falling over. Falling and falling. The constant, repetitive, motion...constant release of tension....constant sinking deeper...deeper...into the deepest levels of the mind. That's when I find myself inside of the no-space. The blackness. The space between space.

[SpecialInterests]

I often use something similar to this method, without the visualization of the sky and clouds. I find imagining that your pushing thoughts away with your hands works very well indeed. Another method I use is imagining I'm in a massive empty void. Next, I imagine that I can see myself from behind, and my head and skull become translucent, and there is nothing inside my head. I just concentrate on the nothingness inside my head aided my the visualization of it. I find it works well for me.