Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with meditation

Meditation

Garden — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:25:07 -0800

Does anyone have any experience with meditation or simply quieting your mind? I just got into a graduate program in counseling psychology and I am already an extremely anxious person, but I'm finding myself revved up all the time as of late. I do work out, I see a therapist, but I'm constantly bombarded by the constant chatter in my head. Some of my worries are legitimate and I take note of them, but I have an extremely hard time detaching from the barrage of endless chatter and as a result feel constantly drained. It leaves me feeling very drained most of the time as I'm using too much of my processing and focus on these thoughts. I use will power and medications to get me through this mainly, that's why I'm looking for some alternatives such as meditation to help out. My therapist is constantly telling me that we are what we think about most. If this is the case, then it's no wonder that I'm an easily startled, neurotic and highly anxious person. Any advice or recommended reading would be greatly appreciated.

Tell me your favorite books on meditation!

aka burlap — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:50:14 -0800

Recommendations for books about meditation? I'm looking for good books about meditation to give to a family member. He's in his 60s and is beginning to be interested in/curious about meditation. I think he'd be less interested in books with a heavy spiritual or historical slant, and more interested in books that deal with the practical benefits (especially the mental and physical health benefits). He's not opposed to the spiritual stuff, but if I go out and get him a classic Buddhist text from the 12th century, I don't think he'll stick with it. At the same time, I don't want to just go with "Meditation for Dummies" and call it a day.

Something about how meditation intersects with Western scientific understanding of the mind and body might be a good choice. I think he'd like a book/books that provided some practical "how-to" advice as well as some inspiring information about what meditation can be all about.

Thanks for your advice!

Seeking Observing Ego

77144 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:42:05 -0800

Reaching the observing ego has been elusive recently when months ago it wasn't. I'm not pushing for it, just waiting. Even after 45min sit, it is more common to find emptiness. Suggestions?

Seeking guided relaxation / meditation cd's / podcasts.

mola — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:52:48 -0800

Seeking guided relaxation / meditation cd's / podcasts. I've been suffering from anxiety and insomnia lately, and want to get back to normal. The cd's I've tried so far are The Mental Medicine Collection (Sacred Moment and Sleep Ease, both with Pakvilai Sudhaswin), The Calming Collection (Sleep Solutions, with Roberta Shapiro), and Living Meditation (with David Harshada Wagner).

The ones intended specifically for sleep seem best so far. I do not want any religious-specific cd's.

How to calm oneself after a severe emotional shock

flutable — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:27:28 -0800

What are some good centring/calming exercises for a massage therapist? I've had a huge shock and need to get myself together before Tuesday. I'm a student massage therapist, and every week my class has a clinic session, where we treat "real" clients. (who'd knock back a $20 massage?).

But this last week I've had an immense emotional shock, to do with an ex. It had nothing to do with clinic. The incident has riven my soul, and unsettled me very profoundly, to the point that I have vivid, almost panic attacks (mild histeria, perhaps?) that usually leave me in a blubbering mess.

I'm working through the underlying issues, which will take several months and much reflection. However my immediate concern is my performance at clinic on Tuesday night (27 October).

Does anyone know any "centring" exercises I can use to calm my mind before clinic? I could skip the clinic completely, but would have to catch up another time.

The reason for mentioning the massage aspect is that it's easy for a client to pick up if the therapist is unsettled. The treatments we give are primarily relaxation, and I'd hate for a client to end up as wound up as I feel!

I haven't done much meditation before, but have found that simply observing the breath as I breathe in and out a few times can help.

Any other suggestions would be great!

Help me meditate.

bondcliff — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:58:55 -0800

I’m interested in learning more about meditation. I also have ADD and find it impossible to shut off my brain and clear my mind. After discussing it with a friend, a friend whose constant calm manner I find inspiring, I think I’d like to give meditation a try. My main goal is to be a bit more calm. I’m generally easy going but I’m quick to lose my temper and raise my voice. I come from a family of screamers and I find myself falling into the same pattern when it comes to parenting. I gotta cut that shit out.

I’m looking for any advice, tips, resources, etc to get me started.

A couple of things:

As mentioned, I have ADD (officially diagnosed by a neuro-psychologist, not medicated because nothing seems to work.) Phrases like “clear your mind” are lost on me. I can’t clear it, it’s always going. My ADD has contributed to lifelong insomnia because I just can’t shut down at night. I’m not looking for a cure for ADD, I only mention it because I suspect it will be an obstacle. I’m especially interested in hearing from people who understand what ADD is like and have experience dealing with ADD and meditation.

I’m an atheist and a total skeptic. Any spiritual, new-agey, or religious components will be a turn off. I need to approach this from a purely practical point of view. I’m all for clutter clearing and arranging furniture but any talk of Feng-Shui makes me want to throw things. I’m not looking to find enlightenment and/or Jesus. I’m open minded though, so if meditation leads to these things I won’t reject them.

I’d also be interested in learning of any beginner classes in my area (metro Boston) as long as they’re not scammey, new-agey or spiritual. Why do all these places need to have a Buddha out front?

So far my only experience with anything of this sort was from a sleep doctor who, among other things, gave me a relaxation CD. It involved progressively relaxing my muscles, starting from my toes, and clearing my thoughts as I worked my way up. By the time I got to my shins I was thinking about Princess Leia’s gold slave outfit and then I moved on to my favorite ice cream flavors. Next thing I knew I was supposed to be relaxing my forehead but I had a boner and wanted a hot fudge sundae. Yes, I tried it a bunch of times.

So yeah, I suspect this won’t be easy. But I’m ready to try.

How can I deal with my acute feelings of shame?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:45:14 -0800

I feel intense, acute, brief episodes of shame every day, several times a day. What can I do about them? The frequency varies, but the few times I attempted to count, I got an average of about 5-10 such episodes per day. These are unbidden, intrusive thoughts, and very, very intense: say, 8/10. I've been diagnosed with GAD and social anxiety disorder, and these episodes almost always center around real or imagined social and/or moral transgressions. Some of them are staggeringly minor, when compared to the amount of distress they cause me. They are minor social gaffes that I committed years ago, things that I'm positive no one but me remembers: For example, introducing two people who happened to already know each other. Thinking about my more severe regrets and mistakes also triggers this shame reaction, though. It only occurred to me in the past few years that this might be unusual - it's been happening to me for as long as I can remember.

I am in therapy, and I have brought this up to my doctor, who suggested briefly that such repetitive, intrusive thoughts may be symptomatic of OCD. We have not talked about it at length, mostly because I find the idea of recounting these episodes that cause my feelings of shame to be ... shameful. I have no behavioral compulsions (hand-washing, turning off the stove, etc), except for a habit of repeatedly checking to make sure I haven't lost anything, even when I just already checked, when I'm outside my house. It doesn't really interfere with my life, though: I still go out, and it doesn't cause me much distress.

What can I do about this? I've flirted with vipassana meditation, but I generally found it made my anxiety worse. My usual reaction to these episodes is to try to push them out of my mind, but I've seen some recent research on thought suppression that suggests that's actually quite counter-productive. I don't know how to overcome that strong "stop thinking about this now" reaction when confronted with such intense, negative feelings. Is there something else I can try? Have you experienced this?

Am I meditating or is this something else?

reticulatedspline — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:24:31 -0800

Am I meditating or is this something else? So I have this... thought exercise? technique? ...not sure what to call it... this thing I do. I usually it when I'm in bed to help me fall asleep faster, though I have done it other places: during yoga, on the subway, etc.

Basically I close my eyes, and allow images to form in my mind's eye. It's sort of an actively passive exercise, since consciously thinking about what I'm seeing- or thinking about anything for that matter- or trying to control what images form, breaks it. It's definitely something I consciously decide to do, and am aware that I am doing, but once I've started doing it, any actual thought breaks it.

It's always very random stuff. People, faces, objects, behaviors, and sometimes just various shapes. They start off sort of grey, blurry and indistinct, more the suggestions of the shapes and objects, than anything. If I'm good about just going with the flow, not thinking about anything, they gradually become more distinct and more visible (hard to verbally describe what you see in your mind's eye, but its sort of like the difference between seeing something through a pane frosted glass and then having the glass gradually become more transparent) and if I can hold the right mental state for long enough they lose the grey tones and start to be in vivid distinct colors. They also tend to start off taking up a small portion of the space in my mind's eye, but towards the end can grow to be fill the entire space. And when I get to this point it really feels like seeing the thing for real, rather than just imagining it. By the time I get to this point, I feel incredibly relaxed.

If I'm in bed, I usually fall asleep very shortly after I get to the stage where I'm experiencing this level of realism. This is why I find it particularly effective as a bedtime exercise. I've gotten to this point a few times while elsewhere too, most usually in Yoga during the final shavasana, but since external stimulus tends to break it up I generally don't have much luck getting beyond semi-distinct shapes when I'm in a public place.

I've been doing this for years, as I said, mostly to help me fall asleep. I mentioned this to a friend the other day and she said it sounds a lot like meditation, what with the need for me to cease all conscious thought for it to effectively work.

I've never actually tried to meditate, so I wouldn't know. However as I understand it, meditation generally doesn't involve falling asleep, and that seems to be the eventual destination of this thing I do if I can keep it up long enough. I also have never heard meditation described as an intensely visual experience, which this most certainly is. In fact, it's pretty much all visual and nothing else.

Any gurus/yogis/whatever out there who can tell me if what I've been doing counts as meditation or if it's something else?

Name of an older movie, few details

faintly macabre — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:42:17 -0800

Wondering the title of a movie --- it's been bothering me for years, but I never had the resources to find it.. I'm hoping my fellow mefites can assist me in figuring out the name of this movie. Here's what I recall--- Young Asian kid travels from his home to the U.S. He convinces the lady he's staying with to go on a hunger strike protesting her house/land being taken away. I remember a scene in the movie where the kid meditates at the bottom of the pool at his school, and the teacher thinks he drowned. I don't remember any actors from the movie, or when it came out. All I know is it came out prior to 2000 and after 1980.

I know these are horrible details. I'm sorry.

Thinking about nothing in particular...

acidic — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 08:30:23 -0800

I´m a week into a monthlong solo walk, and I´m consequently spending a lot of time thinking. I´m looking for some interesting ways to structure this thinking... meditation, thought problems, etc. Any suggestions? I´m open to anything, the only constraint being that I don´t have a lot of time to spend on the internet researching mantras or things like that! Im trying to push myself mentally and spiritually and having a difficult time doing that... I seem to dwell on really everyday topics for hours at a time. Thank you!

Schools of Meditation

Picklegnome — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:51:44 -0800

What are the differences between Zen and Vipassana meditation? I'm interested mostly in the practices, foci, goals, etc., rather than the history or cultural background.

Will this help me jump-start my creativity?

wholebroad — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:21:42 -0800

Have you done a workshop with Julia Cameron and/or have you spent time at Kripalu in Western Mass? I'm thinking about signing up for Julia Cameron's Artist's Way Workshop at Kripalu next week, but money is tight and I want to make sure this will be worth the $500. I'm totally stuck in my creative work and need something to sort of help me get myself jump-started. I read Cameron's book years ago, and liked it, but never managed to get myself to stick with the morning pages.

I was thinking about doing a yoga/meditation retreat to clear my head and saw that Kripalu is offering this program, which seems pretty serendipitous. But I'm currently unemployed and would be paying for this with my tax refund. I set aside $500 to "do something nice for myself." So it's not like this money would otherwise be going towards food or rent. However, I want to have some assurance I won't be completely wasting this money.

Also, any other retreat suggestions in the New England area are welcome.

Looking for a meditation class in San Francisco

waylaid — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:30:09 -0800

I'm in San Francisco temporarily for work, and looking to take a meditation class or two. I'm looking for something free/cheap, basic, and located in the city. I'm not looking for anything trendy or overly hippie. Just something low-key where I can learn the basics - I don't really know anything about it.

I know - obviously - that there's plenty of places to go for meditation, since we're in San Francisco. However, there's so many that I don't know which one I should go with, given my limited time!
If anyone has good experiences or suggestions, I would appreciate them greatly.

What's a fair rate to charge for booking events for Yoga/Meditation training?

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:43:28 -0800

What's a fair rate to charge for booking events for Yoga/Meditation training? My friend has begun booking events for several nationally known meditation teachers and Kirtan performers. She does this mostly because she knows them and has great contacts nationwide, but she isn't certain whether she's pricing herself appropriately. Based on a typical literary agent fee of 12%, she's in the ballpark, but is that really relevant for this work?

An interesting way to grab people's attention

cusr0002 — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:26:37 -0800

What instrument is this? When I was a senior in high school, my humanities teacher invited a guest speaker to our class. To start off the speech, he banged two small cymbals together and was able to control the pitch of the ring by moving each cymbal up and down. I thought that it was sooooo cool and having this instrument nowadays could be a great way to start off meetings and grab attention. What is this instrument?

My memory could be fading. The cymbals could have been bells or metal sticks. I think it may have something to do with meditation.

My google/youtube search has led me to believe that they may have been tingsha cymbals. Can anyone verify this? I could not find any confirmation that moving the cymbals up and down could control the pitch.

Ohmmmmmmmm

dcrocha — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:08:35 -0800

Will meditation help significantly reduce my general level of anxiety? If so, how do I learn how to meditate?

meditation classes?

hapticactionnetwork — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 12:29:14 -0800

Should I take a meditation class? I'm interested in starting a meditation practice, and I'm not sure how to begin. I looked at some old questions and there's a lot of great advice and books and things, but I'm wondering specifically if I should look into meditation classes.

I know there's a Shambhala center near me, so if anyone has any thoughts about them specifically, that would be great! More generally though, what should I look for in a meditation class? Is there anything I should steer away from?

If you don't think meditation classes are the best way to get started, what is?

Thanks everybody

How do I meditate regularly?

wastelands — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:31:02 -0800

How do I establish a regular meditation routine? Back when I was in college, I had a lot more time and energy on my hands. I was able to get deep into meditation and see tremendous benefits in terms of mood, concentration, confidence, etc. At some point I lapsed and fell out of practice, though.

Now, several years later, I'm working full time, and I can't get into a regular routine. I've tried:

* In the morning, shortly after waking, but I'm too groggy to have the alertness necessary.
* At night before I go to bed, but then I'm too tired to focus.
* During my lunch break. I've had the most success with this time period. But it can be difficult on a work day to find a quiet spot and to have enough time. I'm lucky enough to work close to home, but I only get about 10 minutes if I go home to meditate after lunch.

Anybody else struggle with this problem? What did you do to fix it?

I should note that I have no interest in going to a religious group to meditate. I want to do it on my own.

Thanks.

Do you have any recommendations on youth meditation groups in the Bay Area?

ebness86 — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:44:36 -0800

Do you have any recommendations on youth meditation groups in the Bay Area? I'm moving up to the Bay Area from Los Angeles, and I'm looking to replicate the experience I had meditating at Against the Stream.

I'm not opposed to traditional meditation centers, but there was something about that particular group that really spoke to my specific life stage... I'm 22 and still seeking externally when I should be looking within.

(They also seemed structured for us 9-to-5-ers by offering night and weekend sessions, which was nice.)

Please list anywhere I should check into - thanks for your time!

Meditation Classes in San Francisco?

garethspor — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:19:18 -0800

I'm looking for some sort of meditation class in San Francisco. I've been getting sick a lot recently and am pretty sure a major contributor to that is my proclivity to be stressed out extremely frequently. My mind never seems to be able to slow down or chill out which is helpful at times but also annoying. I feel that some sort of guided meditation classes might be a really helpful activity to help me chill out a bit more. To be specific I'm not looking for a spiritual practice, per se, but I'm not sure if they are as separable as I'd like.

Zafu shopping in Toronto

mendel — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:56:47 -0800

I'd like to get a zafu and zabuton^[?] for meditation, but I'd like to actually sit on a couple to find out what I find comfortable. Where can I try out and buy a zafu and zabuton, in person, in or near Toronto?

zen and the art of hiding my fat butt

Kellydamnit — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:35:51 -0800

What should I wear to meditation? So, here's my dilemma. I have very few articles of clothing suited to meditate in. (in a formal group setting. I wear PJs at home). I'm almost always in skirts or dresses (hard to kill the inner goth), and own like three pairs of pants. I tend to feel grotesquely uncomfortable in pants as it is, mostly because I'm overweight and I feel like they draw a lot of attention to my worst areas. But, I want to be unable to sit or do the prostrations without, you know, flashing people.

So would it be oddball to wear, say, fitted yoga pants and make a knee-length skirt of similar material over it? I figure that way I won't spend my hour sitting there thinking about how uncomfortable I am and how fat my thighs are. But I don't want to look like I just got off the bus from crazytown, either.

It isn't about wanting to look cute or whatever. Most of the people in the group are a good chunk older than me, and it's not all perfect yoga bodies. I just want to be able to sit down in a half lotus without my own body issues messing with me.

Any other suggestions for what a chubby hourglass shaped gal can wear to meditate?

Do I really need a meditation cushion to meditate properly?

Tha-Flash — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:57:11 -0800

I'm really interested in yoga and meditation. I'm quite new to it all but do I really need to buy a meditation cushion? Can I not just use normal pillows or my bed? What's so special about these meditation cushions?

Recommendations for meditation classes in Los Angeles?

wannaknow — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:42:46 -0800

Can anyone recommend meditation classes in Los Angeles? I was really interested in Transcendental Meditation but the proper classes cost about $3000. I'm intrigued by all forms of meditation, and have never taken a class. Any recommendations would be appreciated. I live in the Hollywood area.

Are these meditation CDs any good?

jbickers — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:40:24 -0800

Anyone here used Dr. Jeffrey Thompson's meditation/"mind system" CDs? I see these products in the CD bin and I'm drawn to them - he does a bunch of different topics, sleep aid, meditation, mental clarity, etc. But I am a little bit paranoid about turning my subconscious over to a total stranger (one amazon review says "CD makes me feel as though someone stuck their finger in my brain and stirred it around .. I can't pinpoint what exactly feels different.")

I realize I'm probably being a little bit tinfoil-hat, but still ... has anybody here used them, and can offer up a yea or nay as to whether they're worth the time/money?