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Sidarthurspupil
United Kingdom
2 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 12 2012 : 3:19:40 PM
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Hi everyone,
I started AYP at the start of this year and have become sure that I've found my spiritual home here. I'm up to Yoni Mudra and have some inner silence and a few flashes of ecstatic conductivity.
I started on the spiritual path reading books like, The Miracle of Mindfulness, and have found mindfulness practice very life enhancing. I have also done a lot of mindfulness-developing meditation. Here in Northampton we are lucky enough to have a Zen group.
I know the AYP lessons don't recommend mixing in other practices but I'm wondering if that applies to something as simple as mindfulness. Is it a question of increasing inner silence automatically produces greater awareness ( mindfulness ) and therefore no mindfulness practice is necessary? |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2012 : 4:57:12 PM
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Personally - I find AYP and mindfulness complimentary.
Self-pace and watch for overload in the form of negative emotions, energy symptoms, discomfort etc
That's my two cents. |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Apr 13 2012 : 05:39:22 AM
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Mindfulness is totally ok and recommended between practices - just not during practices.
Sounds like you are going forward pretty fast, so I would add to the caution given by mr_anderson - Self-pacing is important and sometimes overload is not immediately noticed, so do take due care.
Sey |
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Sidarthurspupil
United Kingdom
2 Posts |
Posted - Apr 13 2012 : 3:22:44 PM
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Thanks very much for your help. I do tend to be impetuous and so need to be particularly careful not to do too much too soon. Initially I thought I could race ahead due to all the Zen that I'd done but have recently revised that view out of fear of it all going pear-shaped.
I haven't had any adverse reactions so far but have noticed that I'm having vivid dreams every night whereas before starting AYP I rarely dreamt at all. This isn't troubling me ( they're not nightmares but more or less playbacks of emotionally difficult situations from my past ) just making me more aware of how powerful the AYP practices are and therefore the need to be more like the tortoise than the hare.
I'm glad there's no problem with continuing the mindfulness practice alongside AYP. That's what my intuition was telling me and it was good to have it confirmed. AYP and mindfulness seem like the dream-team to me. |
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lostandfound
USA
4 Posts |
Posted - Sep 02 2013 : 10:03:09 PM
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This might be a very complex (or silly) question, but can someone tell me how "mindfulness" meditation and DM differ?
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ak33
Canada
229 Posts |
Posted - Sep 02 2013 : 11:10:11 PM
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| Mindfulness is a more vedantic/advaita/zen concept and consists of trying to be 100% present in whatever activity you do. No matter how menial it is. The theory is that you become so involved in the activity that the "doer" ceases to exist. DM is a mantra-based meditation where you use "i am" (in this case) to drown out any other thoughts and purify your nervous system. Mindfulness can probably be done most of the day (as long as you don't overload), while DM should be limited to 20 mins twice a day. |
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lostandfound
USA
4 Posts |
Posted - Sep 03 2013 : 05:49:34 AM
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Thank you for that, ak33.
I've been reading articles about the benefits of mindfulness meditation recently. I wasn't clear on the differences between the two.
Although, I suspect that there might be some overlap as far as benefits go -- ie better concentration, lower cortisol levels, etc. |
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jonesboy
USA
594 Posts |
Posted - Sep 03 2013 : 10:33:57 AM
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| Two books I would recommend is The Presense Process and Insight Dialouge. While the Presense Process may be a 10 week course, it is really a 10 week course in Mindfulness. It is an amazing book that fits right in with the more Buddha method of Mindful Meditation in Insight Dialouge. |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Sep 03 2013 : 11:15:40 PM
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I wouldn't recommend mindfulness all the time and AYP meditation twice a day. I think it's too potent and you'll drive yourself crazy. Use some moderation, and be sure and read Yogani's advice on self pacing.
Other people can chime in here, but with me, the sign of overload is anything happening too much that is uncomfortable. It can be too much anger, too much sadness, too much "light headedness", too much desire to isolate myself, too much feeling that I am not connected to the real world, volatile emotions, etc. |
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maheswari
Lebanon
2520 Posts |
Posted - Sep 04 2013 : 04:28:52 AM
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| Totally agree with Etherfish |
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ak33
Canada
229 Posts |
Posted - Sep 04 2013 : 09:38:47 AM
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| Agree with Etherfish. We sometimes do not realize the power of AYP DM due to its simplicity. I have tried combining AYP with self-inquiry, mindfulness, and other breathing exercises outside the system. The results always been overload. Each persons capacity varies though, I advise caution. |
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tonightsthenight
846 Posts |
Posted - Feb 25 2014 : 11:53:39 PM
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Great take on overload etherfish.
I also practice mindfulness throughout the day. Vipasyana is very important. Its said that one can become liberated through shamatha alone, however, in my case I think I benefit from practicing self inquiry and mindfulness. |
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mikkiji
USA
219 Posts |
Posted - Feb 27 2014 : 8:41:16 PM
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Mindfulness is a very specific, conscious method for taking the silence we begin to experience during DM and bringing it out into our daily activities. This will, of course, happen in any case, but in a much less conscious or "mindful" way--that's why we call it Mindfulness! It's a way of having one's meditation effects continue IN action. There many many forms of Mindfulness Meditation, but the ones I've found most helpful usually involve specific, designed exercises during only a few easy, generally unconscious tasks. For example, when I am walking alone, I do so in silence, and pay attention to the pressure of my feet on the ground with each step and the air moving past my skin. In the car, I turn off the radio and simply let my awareness be more on my driving, sort of watching myself drive rather than just plain driving. Hard to explain, easy to do. End result is to stabilize the inner silence and turn it outward.
Michael |
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SwamiX
USA
35 Posts |
Posted - Feb 27 2014 : 8:58:28 PM
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Wow, perhaps I am missing something here, but if you started AYP at the beginning of the year, that means you have started with DM and added spinal breathing, mulabandha, sambhavi mudra, and siddhasana all with in the course of less than two months. I cannot imagine that this will not lead to overload. I have been practicing for five years and I still at the stage of DM and spinal breathing. And if I press too hard with the SB it leads to overload.
If the two month time frame does not lead to overload, there must be tremendous variation in what people can tolerate. |
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karmic
India
19 Posts |
Posted - Feb 28 2014 : 05:57:22 AM
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Dear SwamiX,
The above posting was done in April 2012 :) |
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SwamiX
USA
35 Posts |
Posted - Feb 28 2014 : 10:18:45 AM
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| Oops - now I see.:)That's still moving at a pretty brisk pace |
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Topic |
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Mindfulness Practice?
