How do you meditate?

[Jesslet]

Hey guys I'm fairly new to meditation but I've really enjoyed what I've experienced so far. I'm just curious as to how exactly you guys meditate, what your techniques are, etc. I began by listening to guided meditations on youtube, TheHonestGuys have some really amazing ones and there are other good ones out there. They really help me to visualize and focus on relaxing, however I recently have begun just laying in bed and focusing on my breathing for a while. This technique is nice and very relaxing, but it just feels like I'm missing something. I certainly feel calmer and more relaxed after but it just feels like I should be doing some kind of peaceful visualization or focusing on something rather than purely my breathing to achieve inner calmess, and it's hard for me to do that without the aid of the audios from the guided meditations and I'd like to learn to do this on my own. Thanks for sharing your experiences and feel free to share how meditation has changed you or your lifestyle in any way, I'm very intrigued by this concept

[Eonnn]

I like to listen to binaural beats or hemi/holo-sync because it's easier to reach a deep meditative state. Sometimes I practice without it though. I usually focus on stilling my mind, calming the thoughts and trying to get into a state of no thinking just experiencing inner silence. I try to lower my own brainwaves into a delta state, after using audio tracks which do this I know what it feels like to enter deeper brainwave states so I just recreate this sensation. Once in a deep delta brainwave state I just focus on the stillness, the inner calm and peace. The aim for me is to always get into the deepest state possible.

[yaya]

Eonnn! I have been practicing regular meditation for 1 year. and every day i practice 1 hour on noticing the breathing (previously i meditated but it was not regular like this 1 year) i can say that i am 100% a different person but i still can't reach the inner silence. so my questions are: 1-how long you have been practicing meditation? 2- how many hours you practice every day? 3- how much time you can focus your mind before a thought disturb it? (for example, i can clear my mind for 1 minute, then a thought takes me away toward itself....then i am distracted for seconds then i can refocus it...) staying in delta state in too hard and i have heard only zen masters can do it...so you must be very professional in meditation! thanks

[Eonnn]

Hey Yaya, I've been practicing for 10 years although not every single day, I usually do it just before I sleep for like an hour I find this is the best time for me. It's got to a point now where I can silence my innervoice instantly any time I like and keep it that way for several minutes at a time. I taught myself how to do this and there are a number of ways you can learn. One way is to actively listen with your ears to the sound of silence, when you take a moment to listen and pay attention to what your ears are hearing it interrupts your innervoice for a moment. Send all your focus on your ears and just listen to the silence. When you become good at interrupting your innervoice, you learn control over it, you learn how to pause it at will. Another way is to focus on your breathing and replace your innervoice with the sound of your breathing, try to make your innervoice mimmick the sound your breath makes and focus only on the sound of your breath. Considering you are already using breathing as a way to meditate this might be a better option for you. Another way is to observe your own thoughts from the perspective of a passive observer. Imagine you have a second consciousness that is watching your consciousness. It is watching your thoughts and not judging them just passively observing. Eventually the thoughts know they are being watched and begin to quiet down and stop altogether. This technique usually increases your awareness and takes you into higher brainwave states like alpha and beta so I tend not to use it often but it does have an amazing effect and expands your conscious awareness. You should try downloading some delta binaural beats or get your hands on some holo-sync. The advert for holo-sync is literally "learn to meditate deeper than a zen monk" it's really powerful stuff, I managed to find a torrent for it though as it costs lots of money. This is their website: Home - Holosync® Meditation Technology: Brain Wave Training for Relaxation, Prosperity, Love, Health & Success I really enjoy the delta state because when your that deep you don't need to worry about thoughts disturbing you it's like your hanging on to awareness with no thoughts at all.

[dolphin]

I close my eyes, direct my eyes straight forward and try to keep it that way.

[yaya]

thank you Eonnn! your points really helped me to know how to meditate properly.... i will also buy the holosync meditation. as it said, we can meditate even better than a zen monk? WOW... so, are you able to enter to your dreams easily from wakefulness? maybe that's why you have 1000+ LDs! i only meditate to be able to enter my dreams easily without any technique....so i think you are my future version!! and knowing you may lead to know myself in my future version.

[Eonnn]

Glad I could help Yaya. I've only done WILD a few times, I usually have difficulty getting to sleep so I don't practice it much. Most of my LD's have been DILD's. Reason I have over a 1000 LD's is because I'm a natural LD'er, I discovered LD'ing at age 4 and been LD'ing ever since.

[InnerVision]

Yaya, I've just been reading into meditation for the past couple of weeks and I've tried some basic stuff like Sivason's dream yoga. You say that you are 100% a different person after meditating for a year. This sounds amazing but I can't really imagine what you mean. I've never been a spiritual person (open-minded but still rather scientific) and I can't grasp how you change your personality by sitting still for an hour everyday. A small explanation would be really nice

[b12]

You should check out this book, "Mindfulness in plain english": Mindfulness In Plain English It answers all your questions, and explains everything you need to know in an easy way. The first few chapters are a bit dry, but after you hit the mark you'll be fascinated. I haven't practiced for a while, but I meditated every day for about a year and a half when I was actively doing it. It became another part of me at around 6 months, but I knew I had barely scratched the surface. It changes your personality by changing the way your mind works. You become more aware of everything around you, and can see the reality of situations and things for what they truly are, though of course you are never perfect. Though you are essentially, "thinking of nothing," truly inside you are continually reflecting, and unlocking parts of yourself. So it's not really thinking of nothing, but moreso not concentrating on the things you think and feel - letting them pass by you, as though they were logs floating down a stream. This has many effects on your body, mentally and physically. After a year of practicing every day, I realized I was directly in tune with my very being. The moment I realized this, midway through my daily meditation, well the only way I can describe the feeling is if it was as though God had transported me to heaven and the angels were all singing my name. This was the highlight, as the next six months were more difficult. I began to delve into my psyche... Well, moreso my meditations led me towards those thought patterns. I understood why I did things, I mean really why. I could understand why other people did things, and what they meant. Past memories I had forgotten began to surface, and I could see the things that were previously hidden from me. I understood my situations, I understood people... I uncovered both truths and lies. I stopped meditating when I couldn't go any further, when the pain outweighed the peace. I haven't gone back to it because that is the hurdle I must overcome, and the weight I must bear, and don't feel ready to continue... until now. Good luck.

[MasterMind]

There is no right way, there is only YOUR way. To summarize meditation with one sentence: Enjoy the moment as it is. I usually sit down, close my eyes, slow down my breathing, think about stuff that I appreciate and are grateful for in my life, smile. Then I just sit without trying to do anything. It's sort of like asking, how do you enjoy a beautiful view? Well you just do it. nature-landscapes_other_beautiful-view_18614.jpg So I can do whatever "technique" I want but this is the mindset behind each of them.

[InnerVision]

You should check out this book, "Mindfulness in plain english": Mindfulness In Plain English It answers all your questions, and explains everything you need to know in an easy way. The first few chapters are a bit dry, but after you hit the mark you'll be fascinated. I haven't practiced for a while, but I meditated every day for about a year and a half when I was actively doing it. It became another part of me at around 6 months, but I knew I had barely scratched the surface. It changes your personality by changing the way your mind works. You become more aware of everything around you, and can see the reality of situations and things for what they truly are, though of course you are never perfect. Though you are essentially, "thinking of nothing," truly inside you are continually reflecting, and unlocking parts of yourself. So it's not really thinking of nothing, but moreso not concentrating on the things you think and feel - letting them pass by you, as though they were logs floating down a stream. This has many effects on your body, mentally and physically. After a year of practicing every day, I realized I was directly in tune with my very being. The moment I realized this, midway through my daily meditation, well the only way I can describe the feeling is if it was as though God had transported me to heaven and the angels were all singing my name. This was the highlight, as the next six months were more difficult. I began to delve into my psyche... Well, moreso my meditations led me towards those thought patterns. I understood why I did things, I mean really why. I could understand why other people did things, and what they meant. Past memories I had forgotten began to surface, and I could see the things that were previously hidden from me. I understood my situations, I understood people... I uncovered both truths and lies. I stopped meditating when I couldn't go any further, when the pain outweighed the peace. I haven't gone back to it because that is the hurdle I must overcome, and the weight I must bear, and don't feel ready to continue... until now. Good luck. Thanks for the effort and I'll be sure to take a look at that book. At this point I have plenty of time to meditate an hour every day (or at least 6 days a week) so I feel inclined to start practicing. EDIT: I have just started reading and I'm now around page 8 (Chapter 1) and I need to thank you infinitely. He speaks about the ongoing lack of satisfaction we all have, and although we distract ourselves from it, there are moments of despair in which we feel it. Somehow it describes exactly how I feel very often at this point in my life and I feel like this is going to help me to at least overcome this tough period. I will continue reading and start practicing this afternoon.

[yaya]

B12, i can't emphasize enough how correct you are in every of your sentences! Yaya, I've just been reading into meditation for the past couple of weeks and I've tried some basic stuff like Sivason's dream yoga. You say that you are 100% a different person after meditating for a year. This sounds amazing but I can't really imagine what you mean. I've never been a spiritual person (open-minded but still rather scientific) and I can't grasp how you change your personality by sitting still for an hour everyday. A small explanation would be really nice for beginners, meditation is not about staying still but trying to be still (which looks impossible for beginners) and is accompanied with deep heavy mental process on every aspect of you. if i want to summertime my opinion about meditation and how it has worked for me, i can only say this sentences: If you have never been raped in your life, you will be badly RAPED by your thoughts in meditation, up until you have nothing to be RAPED. (by YOU, i don't mean real you, but your EGO).

[Eonnn]

I converted this youtube vid to an MP3 and meditated to it last night before falling asleep. The meditation was awesome I felt like I could feel my spirit in the other realm, it also helped me to have a lucid dream Theta is the same state your in whilst in REM stage so definitely going to try this some more.

[Ctharlhie]

@Eonn, great posts, I notice your LD count is quite immense, could you talk about how meditation influences your ld induction?

[Eonnn]

Hi Ctharlhie, most of my LD's are DILD's and occur naturally. When I meditate I don't always have a LD that night but sometimes I do. Whether or not this is attributed to the meditation I can't be 100% sure because I have LD's so frequently anyway. The reason I meditate is because I enjoy it, I like getting into altered states of consciousness and there are benefits to meditating. I don't meditate specifically for inducing LD's although there are scientific studies that show a direct link between meditating and lucid dreaming.

[bemistaken]

Another way is to observe your own thoughts from the perspective of a passive observer. Imagine you have a second consciousness that is watching your consciousness. It is watching your thoughts and not judging them just passively observing. Eventually the thoughts know they are being watched and begin to quiet down and stop altogether. This technique usually increases your awareness and takes you into higher brainwave states like alpha and beta so I tend not to use it often but it does have an amazing effect and expands your conscious awareness. This technique (being and an observer) is me all day long. If I focus on my breathing or anything else, I pay way too much attention to it. For some reason I have to let my mind just 'be.' If I see something, I don't pay attention to it, I just watch (without really watching if you can understand what i'm talking about). Soon, my scenes began to change without me thinking about it and then I just do my watch/not watching thing. I found if I listen to anything (a fan, my breathing, the ringing in my ears) I will just pay way too much attention to it and I keep myself awake. But if I don't pay any attention to the things that may happen (dreamlets, random people's faces, body jerking, etc.) then soon I will fine myself inside a dream. My goal is to WILD, so I just keep myself on the edge of free falling into the dream. Before long I know two things will happen...my lucidity will kick in or I will fall asleep.

[JustASimpleGuy]

I practice in a pretty vanilla and straightforward way. The best way I can explain it is I am the now (acknowledgement to Eckhart Tolle). All stimuli (thoughts, emotions, sensations, sounds, smells, etc...) arise and then subside in that space. I am aware without attaching. They are as puffy clouds passing into then out of experience, or perhaps ripples from a stone tossed into a pond. Sometimes there's nothing but awareness. Awareness of nothing but awareness is expansive and very serene. That's mostly when I'm attending awareness but sometimes when I'm attending breath. My main takeaway is all stimuli are transient and constantly changing. The only constant is the space of now (awareness) where it all plays out. The method I use is mindfulness. It's fruits are Samatha (calm abiding) and Vipassana (insight).

[JPdreamlord]

Having a teacher is best for some. Look up "Headspace" on your smart phones appstore