I can't do it... I light incense, candles, and I sit in my room in quiet surroundings, but I ALWAYS have something on my mind. Can anyone give me tips on how to be more relaxed and have a clear mind? Also, when is the best time of the day to meditate, and for how long should I do it? Much love.
You don't need to have a blank mind to meditate. Why don't you try to focus on your breathing? Count each breathe "1" on in the inhale, "2" on the exhale, etc. See if this method helps you out. It's helped me before and I wish you the best of luck. Peace and love
Focus on the good air entering and the rise of your belly; ignore the fall of your belly and the bad air leaving.
Oh ok thanks. One more question! Do I always have to be in the lotus position? Can't I just do it lying down? I find it easier to clear my mind and focus on my breathing when I'm lying down.
I think the lotus position is meant to keep you from falling asleep. If you can mediate lying down without falling asleep, I don't see why not.
Laying down is easier I find. Sitting down will straighten your back which is good until it almost feels as good as laying down. To keep your mind away from thoughts , you might want to use a voice mantra. Try this. Take a deep breath from your nose and exhale by saying ohhhhhhhhhhh half your lungs, and mmmmm other half. Feel the mmmm in your nose. And lowest pitch as you can. You might start feeling like thoughts are coming from the exterior they are like pirhanas waiting for you to look at them in the eyes. You dont have to entertain the thoughts, its a choice. Sometimes its almost a physical fight against them. But this fight is a good one , total will always win. The morning is a good time, because you dont have much on your mind. Also will make the day better. There will always be something on your mind though....It is knowing , but not thinking.
Here's a couple of cool videos to help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRWqbOZhllI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWIrr_Q7uD8
i look at the thoughts like clouds; i acknowledge them but don't dwell on them and let them float by or you can label them such as hacing a thought about paying the rent and then let it go. By labeling them they tend to die down after awhile. It does take some time; it won't happen over night. Breath couting helped me a lot. (( peace))
a lot of people dissaggree with me, and i don't claim to very well know buddhism, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt. but what i've always found, is if you can't force something; stop trying to force it. at the very least you won't be inflicting on yourself totaly unneccessary stress. and just maybe, you might find yourself where you were trying to go. there's no guarantee of the last of course. but it does happen. some things. when they can't be forced to happen. have to be kind of tricked into being ALLOWED to happen. so called "magic" works exactly the same way. most of us "always have something on" our "minds". that's why to pick something simple to focus on. preferably something simple easily conjured under even the most difficult and contrary of circumstances in our own mind. like a simple flat disk of unembellished polished metal floating in a total emptyness. or something shaped like an orange. or an orange itself. of course this isn't the only way to meditate or the only thing that meditation is. i'm sure there are many many many definicians out there of what it is and how to go about it, or even why. all of those i think, are really completely up to ourselves. that is unless we choose instead to put ourselves completely in the hands of someone else as a teacher. then it becomes more or less completely up to them. so a lot of the "should" questions have no one best answer. but if you insist on there having to be one, fine, then just pick one. of course if you pick one you are just beating your head against, well then this is just creating its own problem. anyway the whole idea of a focus, is a way of clearinging and relaxing your mind. again of course, as i ever so imperfectly understand such things. =^^= .../\...
This site has alot of free audio lessons: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=subject:%22Tibetan%20Buddhism%22
when working with others to hone their meditative skills, this is the most common problem that the beginner (and some adepts) experience - the inability to clear the mind and think of nothing if you break down the word "nothing", it becomes "no thing", which could be interpreted as "no ONE thing" - try allowing all thoughts to flood your mind....if you try and think of everything at once, you'll often find you're thinking of nothing at all as someone stated earlier, you can also pick an image or symbol to focus on and begin your mental trip from there
Thank you soooo much guys, that really helps a lot. I tried the techniques you told me about, and they really do work! It actually feels like I'm meditating now Respek.
psychadelic goddess had some really good points. heres a similar technique ive had somme success with; anytime you think about something, just immediately think of something else, and before that thought takes hold jump to a new thought, and continue to jump a rapidly as possible to new thoughts, this takes some concentration but after a while this rapid thought jumping will begin to move on its own and develop a life of its own. I'm not especially skilled with this yet, but have had some fascinating results and am excited as to where it might lead. On a different note, it sounds like you don't have a great deal of background on the art, based on the question about lotus position which is actually NOT recommended unless you are very skilled at yoga since otherwise it will cut of circulation and be extremely stressful on your joints which don't really naturally bend that way. Anyways I would STRONGLY recommending doing some reasearch on Hinduism and Buddhism before attempting meditating. At least read some scriptures about meditation, but I would really recommend learning more about the religions as a whole. Meditation is a wonderful tool, but so many people do it without actually understanding the purpose or background of what they're doing. In pretty much all religions its' attributed to, it's not recommended to begin meditating without months or years of preparation first. I originally jumped right into it as well, and then upon further research, I stopped, deciding that I wasn't ready yet and needed more spiritual preparation. For the record I refuse to ascribe to any religion and often question the existance of some kind of god, but I do believe meditation requires a certain level of purity of heart, mind, and soul. Of course that's just one mans opinion. Sorry if I'm coming off as pretentious about this, I don't mean to, but meditation is just too powerful of a tool to be taken lightly. Comparable to hallucinogens it has been known to help users find great insights into life, on the other hand there have also been plenty of reports of meditation causing serious mental problems and spurring on the manifestation of mental illness in people who were inexeperienced and underprepared for the true depths of the human mind. I suspect those who have had positive experiences with very high doses of hallicinogens are probably safe, but this is merely a theory of my I won, I've never read anything to support it and I certainly wouldn't be willing to risk someone's mental health on it. So yeah, pick up a copy of the Baghavad Gita, or a copy of any number of various Tantras(buddhist or hindu), or Buddhist scriptures (or all of the above! The Tao Te Ching is great too although for info on the Taoist view of meditation you'll have to pick up some other resources. Wow. Didn't mean for that to be so long-winded. Above all don't get discouraged, while it takes many years to become truly skilled at meditation, it can still be highly beneficial upon the first attempts. And while it can take some time and effort to prepare oneself, the results are WELL worth the effort. BLAH! Peace
