Hi

Meditation is something that has always interested me and I feel that at times I have developed my own way to achieve it. However, I am interested to learn and practice more but do not really know where to start...

I was wondering if anyone had any advice or knew of any good resources?

Thanks very much

I did meditation for years in my own way inspired by zen and other styles. But I really started to get into it after doing several Vipassana courses. I really can suggest that you look into Vipassana. I also can suggest that you get in touch with a local Zen group or something similar.
Don't read to many books without meditation in between. I got a reading overkill years ago not understanding that it is not about reading but about actually sitting and getting confronted.

Books I really love are the ones from or about Ajahn Chah. You can find most of them here as legal download: https://forestsangha.org...hn-chah?language=English

He is a monk of the forest tradition which belongs to the Theravada Buddhism.

There are many things you can do for meditation. Breathing helps greatly(in the nose and out the mouth), You need to be calm to meditate. Try being in a dark room, pure darkness is best. Your thoughts have to be cleared, that is usually the hardest part for people but that's just at the start. Try getting rid of some of your material things, they are acquired by our shadow in life keeping us back. Remember it's our ego that wants and needs, once it is gone(like feeling ego death), we don't want or need anything do we? Ego death can be done through within but that takes patience and many years brother. If you keep at it, all things will come to you.

You could read up on it and take courses on meditation but it truly comes from within so no matter what you read or research, it's truly up to you. The reward will be ten fold if you do it yourself. Think, what would make you feel better with yourself? Doing it on your own or the other way. Both work, but the strength you will be gifted from doing it on your own is unimaginable. Build your strength from within not from someone else's within experiences. One day you will see. Eventually you will see the whole truth.

Food can play a roll in it as well. The closer your diet is to the earth, the more it will work. Our body needs to be fed earth food. All things we consume can affect meditation. The worse you are to yourself, the harder it will be. Alcohol is poison, like cigarettes and such but no one wants to hear that(it's the shadow that don't like being told the truth)

Try asking your trueself, your spirit animal to help guide you. Ask the earth. It might sound weird but it will help.

The Mind Illuminated is what your looking for. You can buy the book or read it here: https://www.academia.edu...The_Mind_Illuminated.pdf

gone was faster than me.

TMI is definitly the best ressource on the topic available.
I wish I had that book 20 years ago when I had my first tries with meditation...

if you have any questions, i can guide you up till stage 5 ^^


i would stay away from so called "dry insight" practices, like goenka provides.
these are usually marketed as "the fastest ways to reach 'the goal'"... but that can
come with a price: you can get pretty lost when you have your first insight experience,
without the equanimous mindset that TMI develops simultaneously.

what does that mean? imagine you find out, that "you" are not real, that nobody around
you is real and that slips the carpet under your feet... and sends you directly into
a "dark night of the soul" meaning you can not find anything joyful anymore...

The DNOTS is like a passageway that *might* open up when you reach a certain point
in meditation. the only thing that helps through it is: more meditation. but in this
desperate state of mind an illusion could come up: nothing makes sense, why should
i even meditate??? and that is the last security mechanism of the trap, also a very
strong one (it is just an illusion like the rest of the charade of suffering.

always remember: you can do it, you are perfect as you are, you are loveable, you are
worthy, you have every reason to love and be gentle to yourself.

I first learn to meditate thanks to Harmala ; they guided me into this so wisely. For the first time, i was able to sit.

Then, the practice got consistent, implemented daily after i made my first vipassana course. This is simple, sober, no dogma and no useless blablabla. This is open for everyone. Check it out, it's everywhere in the world and can really help you.

Yes, it's relly dry technic, but i beleive it's one of the best base. Just don't fall in the stereotype of buddhism that occidental created - the stereotype of the monk with his really sober and focus life. It's missing elements to be complete, it's missing a bit of funkyness in my opinion!

I will check the TMI and the other things mentioned here, i need some new inspiration too =)

did meditation for several months at one point, back to back, every other day, though it's been a couple years since then

i never made a big stink out've it, never made it into some elaborate practice, imo following some elaborate schema on 'how to meditate' imo always seemed to detract from the essence of the thing

sit upright, be comfortable, preferably in a quiet enclosure, or possibly out in nature on a comfortable and quiet day

close the eyes, allow awareness of awareness, focus, any thoughts that come up as they will, let them be, let them pass

as the minutes pass while doing this, things appear to sink into themselves, deeper and deeper, things brighten, there's light

the load lightens, physically and mentally speaking, overall i become lighter, the ebb and flow continues, at its own pace

thoughts begin to lessen significantly, eventually to the point of there being no more thoughts

now there's just the awareness, unbounded by it's previous burdens

sometimes if i let this go long enough I begin to see snippets of places, people, forms, vistas, sounds, similar in scope to say a dream, like when you're on the border of falling asleep, but it's different, as im not falling asleep by any stretch, completely and brightly aware

typically though at this point i tend to fall out of it, i end up trying to interject my self back into it, i allow a thought to come back into awareness

poof, then it's all gone, and now i'm back where i started

First you should outline to us what the word meditation means to you and how you define it.

Second you should outline what it is that you hope to achieve with it; do you intend for a utilitarian approach where you gain some peace and stilling of the mind, or do you intend for a philosophical approach where you hope to answer questions about your existence?

My take on this: The two big schools are Zen and Vipassana. Zen is somewhat minimalist, Vipassana can be very elaborate. But in the end, they want to teach you similar things, so generally speaking, they're both good.
It depends though - some teachers are better than others, and some teachers and methods correspond better with certain people. I agree with that it will help greatly to practice in person with a good teacher / group. So if this is an option for you, that would be my take: see what's availabe in your region and check it out. Of course, as a beginner, it is difficult to say if the teacher is good or not. Trust your instincts, see how the vibe in the group is.

If you want to read something, I'd recommend "Mindfulness in Plain English" from B.G. Gunaratana. It is a very good introduction into Vipassana basics, and entirely compatible with TMI (which basically adds much, much more details).

DMT Nexus: Meditation and Psychdelics

In the end, it's good to find a balance. You will want to try out some stuff, but since there is so much out there, it can be confusing. The sooner you find something you can stick with for a while, the better. It depends on various factors what will be the best approach for you.

Good luck on your journey! Almost everyone who embarked on it found it extremely rewarding.

I can't agree more, "The mind illuminated" is by far the best book I read about meditation, ever. Clear instructions, clear modelling of your mind so that you can understand what happen during the process.

If your serious about this interest I agree with Quetzal, you may also considering doing a meditative retreat. I did a few meditative retreats with the Goenka Vipassana approach. It is rough and you have to be ready for the experience, but i found it extremely useful for learning how to meditate. You're basically launched into the pool. Maybe a little brutal first (certain person don't like this approach at all), but you can learn fast how to swim, and the huge progress and benefits you will feel will launch you perfectly, will put the process into perspective, and create huge motivation based on your proper experience of the benefits.

Theses retreats basically put me off a nasty addiction to codeine and other drugs, so I can attest these are indeed powerful tools.

Oh man time for me to start reading again. Trying to find what works for me still, almost there. These reads have me glued so thanks for sharing them!

https://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/index.htm
There are numerous texts here that deal with meditation traditions.

meditation
Etymology
Edit
From Old French meditacion, from Latin meditatio, from meditatus, the past participle of meditārī (“to meditate, to think over, consider”), itself from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure, limit, consider, advise”).

I suggest also the 10 bulls. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Bulls

Meditation should be intrinsic and natural and it can come from a place of hyper-focus or hyper-unfocus. It is fraught with dualities within a continuum. Enlightenment is not the goal of meditation. When pursued as a goal enlightenment will forever be unobtainable. Sometimes unobtainable goals are the only goals that exist(matter), by nature, enlightenment cannot be a goal. If a goal for meditation were to exist it would likely be balance, healing and growth, but mostly on the side of balance. The techniques and applications of meditation are as vast as our woes. One of my favorite applications is for the practice of lucid dreaming.

It is important to point out that meditation can be used in unhealthy ways. This often manifests as anxiety and many of us are not very aware of the process. Or, in cases similar to mine one can sleep 13+ hours a day and live more in the LD world than in the more agreed upon shared reality that you are experiencing as you read this post. In other words, one should tend to label the practice as unhealthy when it is used as an unnecessary and intrusive (causes harm to your principles and responsibilities) escape.

I would like to present an example of one persons use of both hyper-focus and hyper-unfocus meditation.

Let me introduce Albert Einstein.

We have all heard the story of Einstein working at the patent office. No? Okay, the monotonous task of keeping file records was about as difficult for Einstein as walking in a straight line is for many of us. This allowed his brain to wonder and dance unimpeded and unguided within its greatest fantasy acting as a form of brain storming (hint: many forms of brain storming are also forms of meditation).

This is an example of unfocused meditation

Another piece of information we should all be familiar with is Einsteins famous "Thought Experiments." A thought experiment is the process of using purely mental space to fully actualize a hypothesis. That is to say, as fully as that mental space can provide. In the case of Einstein this was vast space. For many of us? Maybe not so much, but that does not diminish anything. Ex: Why is the sky blue? Is climate change real? How would time travel work? Does that cute person at work like me? Universal theory of space and time? So on and so on.

This is a form of focus meditation

There are many cases of these abstract forms of meditation.

The quite popular and famous Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh is almost universally known in the Buddhist community for his popularization of walking meditation and dish washing meditation. Which is something he uses as a vehicle for us to realize the grand scope of meditation. Meditation beyond the lotus position and folded hands.

Galileo Galilei is said to have light a candle near the foot of his bed to stare into it for hours. This is a unique form of meditation because the flame has a captivate nature that allows for an externally driven meditation instead of one that is internally driven by discipline. This flame is also unofficially linked to some of the major evolutionary advancements of the human brain. Though, not usually do to meditative reasons. Usually it is more linked to having extra light for a period of time and the ability to preserve calories through cooked meat(foods). (Personal Opinion: A thought experiment and/or meditation do not differentiate between day and night and I doubt early Sapiens needed the light to draw or work out calculations. Meat has its potential but has now become wasteful)

There are many more examples and I hope that others will healthily debate this approach to meditation and contribute more thoughts and examples.

As a lasting note, no matter what the form, the most useful meditation is found through self-discipline.