egoplant Wrote:You should probably just create a new thread.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

s0apgun Wrote:I hope I answered what you were asking, unless you meant a specific field of meditation like Vipassana or Soto Zen because that I don't have an answer for... I just practice basic meditation techniques as psychotherapy for my personal well being.

Thanks for that. I was mainly just interested what others were doing. Sounds like you have a really great, thoughtful practice. My own practice is pretty straightforward, focusing on the intake and outtake of breath during a 30 minute meditation session. I do some prayers as part of my daily ritual - mainly liturgy from the American Soto Zen tradition, such as this Westernized version of the Metta Sutta (http://www.seattlesotozen.org/resources-1/metta-sutta). Also a few things from other Buddhist traditions, such as works by Pema Chodron and the Dalai Lama. (Ani Pema's NO TIME TO LOSE is one of my favorite Western Buddhist books.)

I'm starting to try and read some メールマガ and Web sites regarding Buddhism in Japanese, so that I can shift my interest over to my target language. I haven't finished it, but so far this seems like a good overall description of core Buddhist doctrine that hits the high points and exposes you to most of the technical terms: http://hachisu-net.com/issei/kiso.html

Anyway, don't mean to hijack this thread. But if others are interested in reading about Buddhism in Japanese, or talking about your practice, ping me.

s0apgun Wrote:I'd love to start another thread on the subject but I'll give you a basic rundown of what I have done.

I will do a 30 minute guided meditation doing a body scan or a 30 minute sitting meditation daily. Depends on how I'm feeling that day.

I use this site for the guided meditation. I prefer Dr. Locke's body scan because he has white noise in the background to cancel out other sounds in the room.

http://keltymentalhealth.ca/mindfulness-recordings

My sitting meditation varies but always I will sit on a cushion and put on a white noise recording. During the meditation I will do a body scan, breathing, or mindfulness meditation. Breathing meditation is usually just watching your breath or counting with the in and out breaths. Mindfulness meditation is where I focus more on acknowledging where my mind is wandering to in neither a positive or negative light and returning my attention to the meditation practice. I would really recommend the guided meditation for a while though, its gotten me back into it when I haven't done a sit for a while because its easier.

I took a mindfulness / meditation class this fall and it was a really great experience. I had some practice with meditation before this but it was nice to converse with others about our meditation experiences. We all took psychological examinations in the beginning and end of the course. 9/10 people including me and some close friends improved their scores in anxiety, depression, and stress levels which I think was a huge success for a 10 week class. I recommend everyone to give it a shot, its helped me immensely with anxiety and stress issues making them nearly disappear.

I think the biggest thing I took from the class was mindfulness practice throughout the day.

The book Power of the Now by Elkhart Tolle and Mindfulness in Plain English are often recommended to beginners of mindfulness. The Power of the Now as a nice audio book and the plain english pdf can be found easily online.

I enjoy this blog for daily zen inspirations.

http://lazyyogi.org/

I hope I answered what you were asking, unless you meant a specific field of meditation like Vipassana or Soto Zen because that I don't have an answer for... I just practice basic meditation techniques as psychotherapy for my personal well being.

Here's a nice video from an alan watts lecture that sums up the reason I practice.

tashippy Wrote:I have been doing some meditation using the app 'binaural beats' on android. It plays sounds to emulate the neural wave patterns for certain states of mind and plays white noise which is adjustable. There are three different settings for meditation, two are 20 minutes and one is an hour. It also has a 20 minutes 'power nap' and a 2 hour 'studying and learning' setting which are very useful and not just placebo effect I don't think.

Other than that, I read a book called 'The Art of Happiness' by Howard Cutler, who is very close to the Dalai Lama. He talks a lot about compassion, which is why I mentioned it, I've caught myself in certain moments interacting with other people where I could have chosen compassion and everyone would be happier as a result. Recently I've seen a lot about brain scans of people who meditate that is reassuring to a skeptic such as I.

I've found that my allergies calm down a little bit when I mediate, so that sort of self-hypnosis is important for me because I can't get anything done when I'm having allergies. Also if I have a lot to do I am able to focus on one thing at a time if I've done a little meditation, rather than repeating to myself all the things and never starting any of them, so I guess that's the anxiety s0apgun mentioned.

I'll be checking out those links that s0apgun provided when I get home for sure.

s0apgun Wrote:I would love to do one of those Vipassana retreats. I've heard nothing but really good things from people who have done them... although they are quite the challenge. Something like a 7 day retreat and a lot of folks end up leaving the second day because its too much for them physically and mentally.