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jigjnasu
France
28 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 30 2018 : 2:55:43 PM
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Hello,
I am trying to understand better what is meditation. Could you please enlighten me little 
Here the questions (please feel free to add any) and the answer that I think I have for now (there is one  ).
What is meditation ?
Meditation is a method to make use of process(es?) to go into stillness/silence.
Practice of meditation is to make stillness/silence a state of being.
What is the difference between active meditation and passive one ?
Is stillness and silence the same thing ?
What process(es?) meditation use to quiet the mind ?
Is making the mind quiet is directly stillness/silence or is there additional layers ?
How a meditation method can be limited, somewhere in the lessons its told that some meditation doesn't allow to go deep or make it difficult ?
What are habits ?
How meditation can help managing suffering ?
How being still/silent help in managing suffering ?
Why being still/silent is blissful ?
What is a good meditation ?
What are the pitfalls to avoid when meditating ?
With love,
Maxime, |
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Stille
Germany
76 Posts |
Posted - Jul 31 2018 : 04:42:25 AM
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Hello jigjnasu,
for me, meditation is beeing aware. You are aware of whatever you choose to be aware and you come back to it as soon as your mind wanders off. For example in AYP we put our awareness on our mantra.
You can be aware of multiple things at the same time of course. The more you meditate, the more you can be aware of multiple things - if that is the case, prioritise the mantra.
In the long run, beeing aware causes your thought activity to recede. The result of receding thought activity is inner stillness/silence. Your awareness becomes free to notice other things going on inside you and around you as well, as it no longer is occupied all the time by listening to your inner gibberish.
Meditation can therefore be a method to cultivate inner stillness. At least for me there are many layers of thoughts. As you practice they will all come to a stop eventually.
quote:
What are habits ?
A routine of things that you do regularly, often subconcsiously. In regard to meditation: finding a consistent routine in your life to practice meditation. If you drink tea every morning for example, you just brew up your cup of tea because you do it every morning. You don't have to put active thinking into it anymore. The goal here is to sit down and start meditating because this is what you do every morning.
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How meditation can help managing suffering ?
Beeing aware is the first step to change anything. By becomeing aware of the problems in your life and accepting that you are currently in this state you set yourself up to stop spending energy on emotional suffering and instead use this energy to change the course of your life.
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What is a good meditation ?
There is just meditation. It neither is good nor is it bad. You meditate for the sake of meditating - for the sake of beeing aware of the present.
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What are the pitfalls to avoid when meditating ?
I feel like trying to analyse meditation thoroughly by using the mind alone is a pitfall itself. Not that we shouldn't think about this, but the mind cannot answer questions whose answer lies beyond it. Answers usually come from alone when meditating regularly.
As for the rest of your questions - I have no clear opinion of those, maybe someone else can help me out here. And please correct me, if you think I said something which is untrue.
much love,
Stille |
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yo_gi
Germany
47 Posts |
Posted - Jul 31 2018 : 06:26:36 AM
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Yippee a quiz ...
What is meditation ?
Meditation is a method to make use of process(es?) to go into stillness/silence.
-yes I would say so-
Practice of meditation is to make stillness/silence a state of being.
-I would say this differently since stillness/silence is always a state of being - meditation rather enables us to experience this 24/7.-
What is the difference between active meditation and passive one ?
-I assume what you are pointing to here is the difference between meditation which is "actively" favoring an object, letting it refine and then transcending with it into stillness... while "passive" awareness i.m.o is more of a self-inquiry-method where everything that is experiential in that moment gets equal amount of attention-
Is stillness and silence the same thing ?
-yes it's all That, there is nothing else than that even the different labels of the mind are that, it's all made of the same stuff, moving and unmoving-
What process(es?) meditation use to quiet the mind ?
-I would say the ability of the mind to sustain an object while at the same time letting go of the sustaining, then the edge of letting go shifts toward absolute stillness-
Is making the mind quiet is directly stillness/silence or is there additional layers ?
- I'm not sure if I get this one right, but I would say we transcend a continuum, but stillness itself is beyond structure and the idea of a continuum or layers... the idea of structure/continuum/layers is duality...the merging of duality and non-duality is the paradoxical experience of both at the same time...layers within oneness...but this is already the case - if we experience it or not...so yes making the mind quiet is directly in stillness... everything happens/is in stillness even the continuum that is transcended...from here to here as AYP sees it -
How a meditation method can be limited, somewhere in the lessons its told that some meditation doesn't allow to go deep or make it difficult ?
-the difference between meditation-styles is the choice of the object... some have "advantages" compared to others...or better suit different needs more or less... for example is the mantra always available...also when the breath suspends, but when breath was the meditation object and it suspends you cannot go deeper because it's not available any more-
What are habits ?
-ingrained structures (more or less deeply) in the subtle realms of the body/mind based on the past actions and inclinations-
How meditation can help managing suffering ?
-by transcending the identification with the experience...when awareness is not identified with the experience, suffering ends while the mechanisms of perception remain intact (including the providing of the "unpleasant" experience...but the label "unpleasant" is not affecting any more, it is all just experienced...
How being still/silent help in managing suffering ?
-the witnessing of objects can dissolve them in the gaze of infinity (see lesson 15)... letting go of objects in silence(samyama)is also a letting go of the attachment bit by bit-
Why being still/silent is blissful ?
- I don't know -
What is a good meditation ?
-"good" is a label of the mind related to (coming out of) it's own structure (like the resonance of an instrument when set in vibration...see the question on habits)... as long as one stays in line with the principles of meditation and applies the methods correct, any meditation is good... no matter if the experience during the meditation is labeled good or bad or this or that by the mind... the experience during the day on the other hand can for example indicate if there is too much meditation-
What are the pitfalls to avoid when meditating ?
-clinging to the object, to the pronunciation of the mantra, to a certain rhythm of repetition, engaging in/ trying to keep thoughts out (see lesson 366 on that)-
this is just this minds comprehension of things at that moment... just resonances of the mind here
but that was fun |
Edited by - yo_gi on Jul 31 2018 10:11:46 AM |
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jigjnasu
France
28 Posts |
Posted - Jul 31 2018 : 3:46:07 PM
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Indeed yo_gi I should have said that its an exercice of the mind. After all if all is connected it shouldn't be bad to try to understand it from any levels. As Stille said a pitfall is to use the mind analytical capacities during the practice. My point is how do you explain meditation to someone who identify heavily with the mind without understanding it from that point too. How do you grasp a subject if you neglect part of it, after all I am not capable to express myself from a non-dualistic (obviously ) point of view nor be able to live it at will, is it event possible to express it from unity  . How do you transmit to someone if you communicate from a point that he is not able to listen to.
Thats why I am particularly interested to lift the veil on a practice that can be mysterious. In my mind, mind body and the subtle have their processes to transport awareness to unity and understand them a little more can't be bad.
The body still
The mind still
The breath still
From you inputs I would like to modify some of the expressions of it.
quote:
What is meditation ?
Meditation is a method to make use of process(es?) to make stillness/silence available for identification.
The process can be (is ?) to choose an object on which we place our attention intentionally and effortlessly until the mind quiet done enough to let our attention transcend the object. After transcendence of the attention on the object choosing to place it again on the object allow to give less importance to the chatters of the usual identification of the self and identify with a more subtle state.
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What is the difference between active meditation and passive one ?
Still don't understand
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Is stillness and silence the same thing ?
Will make a try here, Yes ?
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What process(es?) meditation use to quiet the mind ?
Stillness is a possible process, do you feel its possible ? After all being still allow to make more space and allow to move more easily.
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Is making the mind quiet is directly stillness/silence or is there additional layers ?
Can mind body and subtle body be considered as layers in that context, is there more if so ?
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How being still/silent help in managing suffering ?
Identifying with a subtle state allow to be more conscious of the different way that suffering is perceived and unfold itself, preventing at times to nourish it.
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What are habits ?
Ingrained pattern allowing it to be used with less strain/effort.
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What are the pitfalls to avoid when meditating ?
Creating strain/resistance by constricting the mind or others impede the process of transcendence of the object by splitting our attention and by using energy.
More inputs on the subject will be most than welcome, still pretty unclear (for my mind ) also from differents layers (body for example).
I do understand that that exercice has its limit, after all how large if the unfoldment from the practice meditation, is it perceivable from the mind ? I doubt it
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Edited by - jigjnasu on Jul 31 2018 5:00:45 PM |
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yo_gi
Germany
47 Posts |
Posted - Aug 01 2018 : 07:35:21 AM
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Maybe this little metaphor helps your mind to have something…
Imagine an aquarium full of water. The water represents the ability to experience (the comparison is already limping here, since this ability actually doesn’t require substance – it is virtually non-existent… it rather experiences that which is…. But for the sake of comprehension and a vivid/picturesque representation it’s of good use). ..Now we put objects in the water… simply stuff like planets with plants and stones and so on.… one of these objects is of a special kind… it’s the body-mind-complex… let’s say this object is an open box.. once we drop it in the water the water flows into the box… then we close the box with a lit…the water inside the box, is now just experiencing what happens inside the box… let’s say we have a screen inside the box, too …let’s even hook this screen to a camera which is attached on the outside of the box, showing on the screen what’s in the lenses focus…let’s do the same with a microphone and so on… so the water is experiencing all the stuff inside the box like passing thoughts, rising emotions and memories and it also has some connection to the outside via the senses (camera, microphone and so on)…
all that… the thoughts, memories, sensual input, emotions are shown to the water...so we have a lot of stuff going on… a big pool of endless patterning objects…then there is also a mechanism at work which is called the “I” or “I am”… this mechanism serves the purpose to separate… it creates diversity where is oneness… it does so by saying “I am this (object from the pool)” and “I am this (object from the pool)” also leaving some objects out (like sensual perception of external objects - which in turn appear as internal pool-objects in form images on the screen for example)… so we have a continuously changing pool of objects which are partly “used” by the mechanism of “I am” to create an evolving concept of identity which the water (this omnipresent unchanging eternal pure power of experiencing) identifies with…when the box meditates, it tries to still the patterning by the use of certain methods…the amount of available objects in the pool decrease and the “I am”-mechanism has less to grasp until there is only stillness available that serves as an object for identity…within this process, silence is cultivated more and more and the perspective of the "I-sense" seems to reside naturally more and more in this increasingly abiding inner silence also during daily activity... (then later on…ultimately even the “I am” is transcended altogether)…but the yoga drill can even do more… it can drill holes in the box’s wall so the water can re-merge with the water on the outside of the box…
furthermore…..the box and all the other stuff (planets, plants, thoughts, emotions, stones, ideas, molecules, quarks …ALL that is) is made of ice (that’s frozen water  )…
So it’s water in it’s un-manifested (liquid) form experiencing itself in manifested (frozen) form (this again is a rather limping comparison since the term *frozen* is easily associated with *static* but manifestation is actually very dynamic).. so truly all is one…another thing that should be taken into consideration is that the aquarium has limits…the truth is there are no limits (maybe only the dream of limits)…imagine you have a dream.. where does the dream-cosmos end?... beyond the fuzzy edge of the dream, there is that which contains the dream – the consciousness of the dreamer which is limitless…
So when the body-mind-box wants to know something through comprehending, all it can do (or all that happens) is to let the question “bounce against the inside wall of the box” to set the structure in vibration and receive the resonance… the content of the resonance is based on the individual structure in that moment… the vibrational outcome is the precise result of the underlying structure which is set in motion by the question (or anything else)… if an outside dynamic (for example a sensual perception of the outer situation) or an inside dynamic (for example a thought in form of a question) is making the structure move – the result is a resonance of any kind… like an instrument that is constantly swinging/vibrating creating all sorts of tones…this metaphor is just like that…just an idea…a resonance of this mind here…an idea of something is not the thing itself…by transcending the mind (meditation)…slipping through the fabric of thoughts…we get in touch with our unbounded essence and experience the truth instead of creating images of it…that’s the real thing… it may even not be comprehensible by the mind but we can surrender to the experience of unknowing and just be…
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Edited by - yo_gi on Aug 05 2018 1:05:05 PM |
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yo_gi
Germany
47 Posts |
Posted - Aug 01 2018 : 07:42:03 AM
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| Regarding your question on layers... in hinduism these sheats are called koshas...there are 5 from gross (flesh...) to subtle (bliss)... but I don't know much about those things... I wait for the experience to come |
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Aug 02 2018 : 9:53:43 PM
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| I don't really know what meditation is. Never even thought about it. Your guess is as good as mine. |
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jigjnasu
France
28 Posts |
Posted - Aug 16 2018 : 10:15:29 AM
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Thanks yo_gi, indeed I think () I got something from your metaphor.
Probably it will be better to wait to be able to make a direct experience of it because for now I got to the limit of my mind without introducing new elements.
I got a little how to explain. Anyhow this is not useful to the practice. |
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smileforme
USA
29 Posts |
Posted - Aug 20 2018 : 10:36:25 AM
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| It is a journey for realisation of your true identity. All the virtue you wish to have where mediation will take you there. So, simply meditation is your car that takes your from A to B. chose wisely where you wanna go. |
Edited by - smileforme on Aug 20 2018 10:56:11 AM |
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yo_gi
Germany
47 Posts |
Posted - Aug 22 2018 : 06:24:01 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by jigjnasu
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Probably it will be better to wait to be able to make a direct experience of it because for now I got to the limit of my mind without introducing new elements.
Yes... instead of watching a documentary we can switch off the mind-tv and see ourselfes reflected on the screen as we are sitting on the couch |
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John006
Canada
1 Posts |
Posted - Jan 09 2019 : 04:55:49 AM
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| Meditation is where an individual uses a method –, for example, mindfulness, or concentrating their mind on a specific thing, thought or action – to train awareness and mindfulness, and accomplish a mentally clear and candidly quiet state. |
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What is meditation ?
