Meditation

[Phil]

@Someone here

Idk, but thanks! 

[Orb]

@Phil for someone starting a meditation practice daily, is it okay to drink coffee/tea before meditating in order to help stay awake and focused?

[Orb]

Here's a link with long term benefits of meditation:

 

https://www.meetreflect.com/blog/meditation-effect-brain/

[Phil]

1 hour ago, Orb said:

@Phil for someone starting a meditation practice daily, is it okay to drink coffee/tea before meditating in order to help stay awake and focused?

Imo someone starting can’t possibly get it wrong. They’re already getting so much right just by starting.

Hijackings which may have already transpired, of being awake and of focus, can be let go in meditation either way. 🙂

[Orb]

@Phil okay, I'm feeling inspired to go straight into 1 hour in the morning and night, I'll see how it goes. 

[Orb]

Today was day 1 of a new daily meditation routine, I decided to start at 20 minutes in the morning. I focused on sensation and when discord came up the emotion was acknowledged. 

[Blessed2]

I find it interesting how the true nature is (supposedly) always the same, never changing, always present.

 

Yet in meditation focus is often shifted from the object of meditation, like a mantra, breath or even being aware of being aware to thoughts and thought-stories. The meditation is forgotten and remembered again over and over. There's change, and therefore it cannot be the true nature.

 

Similarly, all understanding and knowing and everything you may learn in this life, even the psychedelic trips you've had, the "awakenings"... If you'd get sick of Alzheimer's for example, it would be forgotten. Therefore it cannot be the true nature.

 

What is it that doesn't change and is always present?

 

It's nuts because the answer to that question cannot be learned or realized. Cause if it was a realization, it would be... Something that first isn't and then is.

 

So that which doesn't change and never comes and goes, or the true nature, must be already as I am.

 

But that doesn't give anything. It doesn't end suffering. Kind of anticlimactic.

[Phil]

40 minutes ago, Blessed2 said:

It's nuts because the answer to that question cannot be learned or realized. Cause if it was a realization, it would be... Something that first isn't and then is.

Something is already assumed, which isn’t & never was. Realization denotes reality, not thoughts about. 

 

40 minutes ago, Blessed2 said:

But that doesn't give anything. It doesn't end suffering. Kind of anticlimactic.

This is like saying thoughts about ice cream, sunsets, fun, sex, mindfulness or consciously creating are anticlimactic.

The true nature doesn’t know what suffering is. 

[Joseph Maynor]

I meditate for 3 hours a day most days.  I was reading a new thread on Actualized ("Warning, Just because you sit and close your eyes does not mean you are Meditating") where they were making a big deal about technique in meditation.  I disagree with that.  You can make meditation more complicated, but it doesn't have to be.  The way I meditate is I lay down on my bed and close my eyes and I set a timer for 3 hours.  Sometimes I'll still the mind but only if I have severe mental disturbance which is rare.  All I do is close my eyes and do nothing.  That's it!  Now, you could make meditation more complicated but in my experience that's not necessary.  The most important thing is you do it and the length of time you do it.  With regard to sleep, yeah you don't want to sleep, but if you do that's fine too.  Sometimes you need a nap or sleep.   It kinda bugs me when people who don't meditate as much as I do or don't even respect meditation come up with all kinds of rules about it.  I can tell you from my own direct experience what worked or hasn't worked for me.  Meditation is the least complicated thing in the world, which I think is what bugs people who always have to make something complicated to get interested in it or make someone else interested in it.  It's weird when advice is wrong and you know it's wrong but you can't say anything about it.  People are getting bad advice about something you know well.  They're getting the opposite of true advice from your perspective.  That ain't self-help, that's the opposite of self-help -- and it's being given as authoritative advice to newbs.  You gotta be careful when you're a teacher that you're not harming in the guise of helping.  Meditating regularly IMO is the single most effective technique for practicing self-help.  You don't have to understand it, you just do it.  You do it and you get the results.  If you don't do it, you don't get the results.   Only people who do lots of meditation for years and still do it have the experience to say what works or not for them.   Otherwise, the mind gets involved to give required steps and levels and all that garbage which is what meditation is designed to get rid of -- that monkey mind.  The reason why people have so much monkey mind is they don't meditate!  They wouldn't know that though.  Be careful of taking advice about meditation from people who don't regularly do it or kind of pooh-pooh it.   Wrong advice bugs me when someone feels the need to speak with authority about something that they don't even practice or know about very much about, or they don't even like.  It's like woah, what?  That's wrong!  It's wrong from my perspective or point of view as someone who actually regularly practices what is being talked about bigtime.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Joseph Maynor

[Phil]

19 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I meditate for 3 hours a day most days. 

No you don’t. That’s ‘bending the spoon’. It’s impossible. 

[Joseph Maynor]

6 minutes ago, Phil said:

No you don’t. 

Ok.  You can keep that one Phil.  What would be helpful is if you can say why you felt the need to respond with this.   I'm not going to take your bait.  Let's be constructive on here.  Arguments that aren't about details are useless unless I automatically assume you're the authority which I do not.  I'm interested in what others have to say though.  People on my community see that I meditate 3 hours per day because I log it daily.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Joseph Maynor

[Phil]

5 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

You can keep that one Phil.

What does that mean? 

[Joseph Maynor]

16 minutes ago, Phil said:

What does that mean? 

It means I don't even let it in.  It's not a reasonable response IMO.  More would be needed needed for me to respond.  This would like you say "I'm hungry" and someone says, "no you're not".    You would respond okaaay, you can keep that one.   Come on.  I'll let you guys argue about this, I shared what I wanted to say and have no need to argue with you.  I know what works for me thank you very much.  The question for you is what works for you.  Phil is trying to answer for both him and me, and I don't know why he thinks he can do that with someone very experienced in the topic at hand.   It's weird to me.  It's like I can't be me on my own, I have to think like Phil to be me.  As a teacher I try not to ask people to substitute their mind with my own.  I look at it like, I'm a helper not someone who's gonna tell you what's what.  That may be where we differ as teachers though.  Everyone is different but we can also choose what to take and leave from other perspectives as well, that's called being grown.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Joseph Maynor

[Phil]

2 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

It means I don't even let it in.  It's not a reasonable response IMO.  More would be needed needed for me to respond.

Let what in?

[Devin]

33 minutes ago, Phil said:

Let what in?

The concept/belief

[Phil]

Just now, Devin said:

The concept/belief

What concept / belief?

[Devin]

1 minute ago, Phil said:

What concept / belief?

This one

52 minutes ago, Phil said:

No you don’t. That’s ‘bending the spoon’. It’s impossible. 

 

[Phil]

@Devin

How is that a concept / belief?

[Devin]

15 minutes ago, Phil said:

@Devin

How is that a concept / belief?

 

"A concept is defined as an abstract idea. It is understood to be a fundamental building block underlying principles, thoughts and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition"

 

"Abstract idea- These words describe things that exist as ideas, feelings, or qualities, rather than material objects."

 

"belief in American English · 1. the state of believing; conviction or acceptance that certain things are true  "

 

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I meditate for 3 hours a day most days.

 

1 hour ago, Phil said:

No you don’t. That’s ‘bending the spoon’. It’s impossible. 

 

The you you're referring to is awareness, the I he's referring to is Joseph maynor, the common use of the term I. The concept or belief is that I means awareness.

 

He says he does this, he means this is what happens on the movie screen, you say that's impossible, he implied it was possible, which is consistent with the common use of the term "possible"; meaning what happens on the screen. The concept or belief is that possible means something happens behind the screen.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Devin

[Phil]

55 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

This would like you say "I'm hungry" and someone says, "no you're not". 

It would be like someone saying “I’m hungry for 3 hours a day most days”, and someone pointing out hunger is or isn’t experienced now. 

 

2 minutes ago, Devin said:

 

"A concept is defined as an abstract idea. It is understood to be a fundamental building block underlying principles, thoughts and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition"

 

"Abstract idea- These words describe things that exist as ideas, feelings, or qualities, rather than material objects."

 

"belief in American English · 1. the state of believing; conviction or acceptance that certain things are true or "

 

 

 

The you you're referring to is awareness, the I he's referring to is Joseph maynor, the common use of the term I. The concept or belief is that I means awareness.

 

He says he does this, he means this is what happens on the movie screen, you say that's impossible, he implied it was possible, which is consistent with the common use of the term "possible"; meaning what happens on the screen. The concept or belief is that possible means something happens behind the screen.

Meditate for 3 hours a day most days… now. 

See if it’s possible. 

Contemplate why it isn’t.