TBnRB's Meditation POWWOW

[SheShe]

42 minutes ago, Adelaide✫*ﾟ said:

And you know what?  The more my host accepts her emotions, the more she looks at her past honestly and realizes sometimes she does draw incorrect conclusions, and the more she trusts us to listen to her and hear her out, the more loving and happy she becomes.  I think that's what's at the heart of unconditional love.  Acceptance.  Love isn't a feeling itself, though there are loving feelings.  It's more like an ongoing decision, the choice to accept and trust, over and over again.  And when you learn to do that for yourself, it becomes easier to understand how to do it for everyone else.

...

By helping them out, listening to them, or just by sitting quietly with them and offering their presence.

 

This is how we see it too. It's not always about fixing, sometimes it's about accepting that some things can't be fixed right now, if ever. Not in a self-defeating way, this is about unconditional love and tolerance. 

 

We've also found that genuinely accepting something for what it is, sometimes miraculously fixes it.

[TB]

2 hours ago, Adelaide✫*ﾟ said:

I think that's what's at the heart of unconditional love.  Acceptance.  Love isn't a feeling itself, though there are loving feelings.  It's more like an ongoing decision, the choice to accept and trust, over and over again.  And when you learn to do that for yourself, it becomes easier to understand how to do it for everyone else.

 

Maybe that's what lies at the heart of various meditative and mindful practices: an act in which one directs love at their own self, the way another might love them.  By helping them out, listening to them, or just by sitting quietly with them and offering their presence.

I think that's a very good point. Love is something that can be cultivated and meditation has helped me with that. I still have a long way to go but I'm far from the hate filled creature I once was.

 

Buddhism has the concept of Brahmaviharas, or the four immeasurables. It's about the cultivation of loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. These kinds of practices are very important to work on along side concentration, otherwise there's a chance meditation may make you into a kind of psychopath. Cultivating concentration usually leads to cultivation of these other things though, thankfully. 

[TB]

If there is anyone reading this that is a serious meditator, it may probably be important to talk about purifications more.

Once your meditation practice matures to a certain point and your mind is settled enough, deep unconscious material will start to bubble up to the surface. This usually takes the form of disturbing emotions and mental imagery. They are usually tied to some kind of trauma one has accrued throughout life, even if one doesn't remember what it is. Almost everyone will run into this to some degree, as I think pretty much no one has had a perfect life.

The intensity of these purifications can be light and barely noticeable, to full blown rage, terror, grief, shame, and/or other powerfully negative emotions. Despite the painfulness of it, they are actually a good thing as it is your unconscious mind trying to resolve and heal these deep seeded issues, and it results in a hugely positive changes in a person.

They can last as short as a week or so or as long as months/years. I'm one of the lucky ones in the latter category.

The key to getting through purifications is to just let is pass through you without resistance. Trying to block a purification is bad, and if you do the purification won't happen. Purifications are suffering x equanimity. By this fact, you can actually have purifications outside of meditation or during any sort of life event.

The most common and earliest form purifications may take is feelings of boredom and impatience that arise when trying to meditate. These count too, and you treat them the same way. Eventually they will burn up, and you will no longer feel boredom or impatience during meditaiton, which will make longer sits a lot easier.

For some people purifications may be too intense to handle, and if that's the case you should go get help from a professional. (as they are for me)

Another option for dealing with powerful purifications is to practice metta on the side. It makes it easier to handle.

As a last thing, don't be alarmed if in your meditation you make unexpected strange movements. They are called Kriyas and are the result of Sankaras (conditioning) being burned up. They can sometimes be intense like twitching very hard, grimacing, sobbing, or making strange noises. They go away eventually.

Good luck, hope I didn't forget anything

Edited December 26, 2023 by TB

[Guest]

3 hours ago, TB said:

The intensity of these purifications can be light and barely noticeable, to full blown rage, terror, grief, shame, and/or other powerfully negative emotions. Despite the painfulness of it, they are actually a good thing as it is your unconscious mind trying to resolve and heal these deep seeded issues, and it results in a hugely positive changes in a person.

 

This feels like what the spiritualists call 'opening the third eye'. A lot of people think it's about seeing phenomenon, and it can be, but more appropriately it's about seeing who you are for what you are. It's often stressful and painful and can be accompanied by any number of feelings and manifestations which I believe all mirror your true self. If you actually get visions of beauty, a part of you is beautiful. If you feel anguish or pain, part of you is in pain and anguish... I mean other than the actual pain- you know.

 

My most memorable experience was in dealing with negative behaviors and habbits I had. Not really habbits, more like habitual behavior that I thought were reactive, but were actually self-causing in that I would sabotage the situation that caused the issues that I then played the victim for recieving. Lol, that's quite a complex web.

 

I was a bull in a china shop complaining about all the shards of porcelain that were cutting up my hooves, and the realization that I was in whole, not in part, causing the destruction was like "waaaaaaaaaat??"

 

Knowing and accepting that allowed me to stop it without feeling animosity toward the perceived perpetrators and holy heck, when I stopped, then no one else had any problems. I was indeed causing the problems. 

 

"Wherever I go, drama follows me." Uh, yeah, do you think that just maybe you are the drama?

 

Granted, you need others to resonate with your drama to perpetuate drama, but without a pluck, those strings don't vibrate.

 

Anyway, yes, definitely been there.

 

I use this sort of technique as part of my shadow work. You really have to have all your ducks in a row mentally or ego will just deny everything and that third eye won't open, it's always that you're a victim of circumstances.

 

But you can't blame yourself either, I don't blame myself, because these are conditioned actions that stem fron waaaay back. Finding and healing these shadows are notoriously hard to do.

[TB]

14 minutes ago, Bear said:

Anyway, yes, definitely been there.

 

I use this sort of technique as part of my shadow work. You really have to have all your ducks in a row mentally or ego will just deny everything and that third eye won't open, it's always that you're a victim of circumstances.

 

But you can't blame yourself either, I don't blame myself, because these are conditioned actions that stem fron waaaay back. Finding and healing these shadows are notoriously hard to do.

 

Yeah, it's been really hard. I'm glad you managed to get a lot of it done.

 

I've felt like a victim of circumstance lately due to my medicine issue derailing my entire life, among other things, but I guess I have to get over it somehow. Not really easy to know how to do though. I'm 100% convinced I was basically fed poison by doctors and I almost feel bad telling someone to see a professional if they have to, seeing as how much "professionals" did for me. But I guess it is supposed to be the responsible thing to say and I'm sure they help some people. Also a meditation master trained in dealing with purifications counts, though I don't have access to any and don't know how to get access to one.

 

I don't know much about third eye stuff so I can't really confirm or deny if there is an actual relation to it, but whatever information you have still seems to have benefited you so I'm glad.

[TB]

Last post in 2020, nice

 

Since it seems relevant, here is a little manual from a retreat I believe on how to enter the first Jhana. I hope it is useful to someone

 

https://culadasa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/instructions-for-entering-jhana-leigh-brasington.pdf

 

Quote

Well, I did a quick sit and this weird feeling of euphoria just shot up my spine every time I exhaled. Like I could feel it flowing up like my back as if my spine were a hose

Oh by the way sometimes beginners get high level experiences at random and they are hard to replicate, so don't feel bad if it doesn't happen again for a while. I don't want to script you into not being able to get it back though, see where you can go with it. Examine what you did to have it happen

Edited May 1, 2023 by TB

[ringgggg]

2 hours ago, TB said:

Oh by the way sometimes beginners get high level experiences at random and they are hard to replicate, so don't feel bad if it doesn't happen again for a while.

Alright, thanks for the clarification. I don't wanna expect that experience to be the norm of every session, that would be terrible for progress.

 

2 hours ago, TB said:

Examine what you did to have it happen

The book told me to retain my peripheral awareness, so I visualized I was at the center of a giant circle that represented the ambiance of the room I was in, with a red dot at the center that represented my breathing. I tried my best to maintain attention to both the circle and the dot the best I could (though the latter was obviously more prevalent than the former).

 

I did this for around 8 minutes or so (wasn't really counting, so think of that as you will), and the feeling just came out of nowhere. I wasn't aiming for anything big, just maintaining my attention.

[TB]

11 minutes ago, ringgggg said:

The book told me to retain my peripheral awareness, so I visualized I was at the center of a giant circle that represented the ambiance of the room I was in, with a red dot at the center that represented my breathing. I tried my best to maintain attention to both the circle and the dot the best I could (though the latter was obviously more prevalent than the former).

 

I did this for around 8 minutes or so (wasn't really counting, so think of that as you will), and the feeling just came out of nowhere. I wasn't aiming for anything big, just maintaining my attention.

 

Thank you for detailing your experience. This is helpful to me, too

[Ranger]

7 hours ago, ringgggg said:

Should we move all the meditation stuff to a separate lounge thread? I feel like that'd be the way to go.

 

Hopefully this link to the beginning of the meditation discussion in LOTPW is good enough :)

https://community.tulpa.info/topic/7356-game-last-one-to-post-wins/?do=findComment&comment=395375

[ringgggg]

Meditation update, since I haven’t been on about it for a while.
 

Recently, I’ve been starting to feel the usual fatigue that comes with sustaining a habit. Now that the initial motivation for the practice has come and gone, it’s all up to the power of diligence to save this operation.

 

My poor habit-building skills are probably the only internal hardship that’s throwing a wrench in progress. Other than that, it’s just the usual having to snap myself out of mind wandering and return my focus on the breath kind of deal, which will obviously take care of itself in due time.

 

I have no idea who came up with “We are who we repeatedly do,” but it’s probably the most applicable quote for this context.

 

Still meditating at the 25-minute mark, but at least my ability to focus is getting better. The trances are starting to get more vivid.

Edited May 10, 2023 by ringgggg