The benefits of meditation.

I wish I could answer you question but I hope you don't mind if I piggy back on your thread to see if anyone could provide a thoughtful piece of advice regarding the hows of meditation. Particularly meditation from Zen Buddhism.

Had taken a history of Buddhism class, the my last year of college, last year. The professor promised to answer questions regarding the further pursuit of the whole Zen scene. Depressingly enough, he never answered the handfuls of emails I sent to him and well I stopped trying so I wouldn't sound like a stalker.

I bought the book Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-zinn and the companion cds for guided meditations. I read through the first half of the book and liked it but wasn't committed enough to actually do the practice - which begins in the second half of the book. It's highly recommended and reviewed. You can check out some of the reviews at the bottom of this page.

I meditatate every morning while having my cup of tea and 2 jelly doughnuts.

Yeah, meditating on the whichness of where.

Sensei? Do they have to be jelly doughnuts?!

Would it be bad karma if I had one chocolate glazed doughnut and one blueberry glazed doughnut?

very bad karma, much like late model karman ghias. i will probably suffer tomorrow as this morning (being out of jelly doughnuts) I ate a cinnamon roll.

Dys, I hear that cinnamon is good for the pancreas.
Tzarstepan, I think zazen (zen meditation) is something one should just do, not something to think about, or to treat as a means to some end.

PQ, I began zazen in 1961, with great enthusiasm and expectations. Virtually nothing happened--at least I cannot identify changes that cannot be attributed to just growing old and having a fortunate life and marriages. Nevertheless I would never give it up; can't say why.

dear john ( love typing that "dear john"), anyway this coming week the lady Diane and meself plan to fix a pot of frijoles with shredded pork, onions and green chiles we can eat with hot corn tortillas slathered with butter and a pinch of salt. we both consider this be be necessary manna for proper meditation.

i became more placid

I've been meditating for a while and I would say the greatest benefits comes from breathing steadily, as it opens up passages in your brain as well as your lungs. It also subtley shifts your pereception of the world. Meditation, above all, seems to correct those perceptions (many of mine are incorrect). I have never been strict about the process, especially the part where they say "if your mind wanders", I just sit there and let it happen.

Meditation sounds more exotic that it actually is, in my opinion.

It is often peddled as some trancendent state of existence where you experience indescribable things and come out a more fulfilled person.

But it is really just an excercise in concentration. With perfect concentration you are capable of acting perfectly. By this I mean that you are able to immerse yourself into whatever you are doing so fully that you do not percieve boundaries between yourself, your acts and what you are working with. You become the process.
And when the process in question is breathing, something we all do effortlessly to begin with, it becomes really easy to see how concious thoughts actually come in the way of perfect action.

As to the benefits... Imagine what you can accomplish if you are able to try without lending some of your energy to your own doubts on wether or not you will succeed. Imagine what you can learn if you are able to absorb knowledge without the fear that you might not understand.

What is the phrase JL uses... "Thou art that", I think it is... Says it all

Thanks Cyracuz.

Yeah, I agree. The concept of enlightenment is often portrayed as a mystical divine stance, rather than someone who has worked to train/liberate their own mind.

I don't understand why meditation is coupled with happiness. I understand well being, but not happiness, surely it should just be 'neutrality'.

I do want to learn some form of meditation. But from what I gather about the concentration aspect, for me it would probably be a similar mindset as when i'm playing the piano.

And means 'you are what you're doing', yes?

The quote roughly means that you are what you percieve, or what you interact with. It is an attempt at describing a wholistic consciousness, as I understand it. JL can probably tell you more about it than I can.

And yes, I do think that you can achieve a meditative state when playing the piano, or any other musical instrument. If the concentration is perfect you're not thinking of it as you sitting by the piano, you will not consider your fingers moving or which note comes next. There will just be an unfolding, and, at least in my own experience, to describe this experience as anything more detailed than "existence" is to miss the mark, so to speak. You understand, of course, that you were sitting by the piano and playing music with your fingers, but for the duration of the experience all these dualistic concepts aren't really needed, and therefore temporarily discarded.

man is a thinking reed but his great works are done when he is not calculating and thinking. "Childlikeness" has to be restored after long years of training in the art of self-forgetfulness. When this is attained man thinks yet he does not think. He thinks like the showers coming down from the sky; he thinks like the waves rolling on the ocean; he thinks like the stars illuminating the nightly heavens; he thinks like the green foliage shooting forth in the relaxing spring breeze. Indeed he is the showers, the oceans, the stars, the foliage.

I like it, dys.

I've played with meditation on and off for many years. Mostly, as in most recently, I was looking for ways to enable ongoing self initiated 'self development' (would be todays catchphrase) - ie. growth, in the direction of my choice.

That lead to interest in the subconscious mind, and then seeking a way to train my subconscious mind.

Which lead to looking at many things, including : Meditation, Self Hypnosis, Neuro Linguistic Programming, Creative Visualisation, and a bit into lucid dreaming and other stuff.

What I found is this - they all attack what I was looking for from a different angle.

Meditation in and of itself almost always involves breathing exercises (whether you know it or not), and a degree of self hypnosis (the main difference between the two is, Self Hypnosis is done for a specific purpose, while technically, meditation is done for 'no purpose').

Self Hypnosis, done the western way, involves overloading a persons conscious brain until the subconscious has to 'take over', while meditation involves unloading the concscious brain until the sub conscious is left.

If you are familiar with the Bell Curve (a mathematical curve used in statistics - google it to see the shape)...it explains why 5% are very wealthy, 5% are very poor, and the majority are in between....as well as many other statistical distributions...and when you relate it to this field, you'll understand that some people are more naturally adept at certain things, while some people have almost no feel for it (this concept is used by stage hypnotists, who gather multiple people on stage to see who is particularly susceptable to hypnosis). This is why some people have great success with Hypnotherapy while others don't (I'm using hypnosis and hypnotherapy as an example because people know something about it - and it & the bell curve also helps show that meditation works naturally better for some than for others).

At best during meditation I thought I could detect connections to everything else on earth. At worst I couldn't concentrate until I performed breathing exercises (just focusing on what my breathing was doing)...eventually I learnt to do an amalgamation of all of them, and perform mind tricks (though only moderately successfully).

Eventually I thought to ask 'is there a location in my brain I can access that allows me to train my subconscious without going to the meditation/self hypnosis exercises...and was surprised that the answer was 'yes'....and it works. But that part I doubt I can explain to you...you'll need to be interested enough to look for yourself I think. <edit> just realised, that location by the way, is pretty much exactly where Eastern Mysticism draws the 'third eye'...but I've never actually even looked into what that is...I'll google it sometime :>

As a note that interested me - after doing this, you can see focus in peoples eyes (well you always could, but you become more aware of exactly what it is you are seeing), and you can see in sports stars eyes how good they are going to play, and understand what's going on when they endure a losing streak to the self doubt that encroaches....the ebb and flow of self belief is fascinating to watch.

...it also lead me to understand that we make our lives...and in putting that into motion, found that the most conscious 'creating' involves the greatest awareness, and being 'in the moment', and...gives you a new perspective of relationships...and great people...and...many, many things. I'm not saying I'm good at that yet, or maybe won't ever be. I don't know...but I found some things I treasure.

Personally, if you are looking into meditation, there is something you want. Find out what that is, and seek it out - and don't close your mind to the multiple ways there are to achieve it, because the best way for you may just be an amalgamation of all of them.

Hope it helps.

Good thoughts folks.