Scientific Non-religious Non-Yoga Meditation??

Hi!

I believe I really need to learn meditation. I have problems with anxiety, my stomach, sleeping etc. I live in China, and despite what people believe, almost no one meditates here and it's impossible to find a teacher. I have tried to search the internet for guides, but it seems you have to dig deep through the layers of BS to find something that really works. As soon as I see some meditation page and read something like "learn the cloud technique and change your life", or "learn the great secrets of Zen meditation" I just give up.

I would like to learn "pure" and scientific meditation that has nothing to do with yoga, mantras, love, happiness, god, mystical energies of the Universe and all that stuff. Just the techniques without all the "flower power". Simple meditation with an scientific approach. Something that explains how meditation works (scientifically), and teaches me how to meditate with out feeling like a hippie.

It's hard to find meditation forums online where there actually are people active, but I hope that someone here with a bit more knowledge can help pointing me in the right direction.

Thanks a million!

 

Meditation is spiritual. Of course it has to do with energies of the universe. Everything does. If you do a search on beginning meditation, it usually isn't focused on the spiritual aspect, though, so you might want to start with that.

 

I'm the kind of person who doesn't believe things until they have been scientifically proved. I wish that I could believe that there were energies in the universe that you could feel while meditating, but it's hard for me. Just because you feel something doesn't mean it's real.

I do however believe that there are genuine health benefits of doing meditation, and thats what I am looking for. I would like to know what happens in your body while meditating, without any talk of chakras and stuff.

I would also like to identify exactly what it is in the meditation exercises that brings those health benefits.

 

I'm pretty much of the same mindset as you daxia. I think its benefit is just to momentarily change your brain waves. Our minds as a rule are racing all the time trying to absorb information through your senses and constantly processing things subconsciously. Giving it a break is almost like a reset button and you start appreciating the little things when you get done with a good mind-clearing session. I'm not an expert by any means ... I'm not really sure one can exist on such a personal subject anyway though.

I occasionaly spend a good 5-15 minutes of meditation in a quiet room, lying down. I'd suggest starting by realizing how safe you are in your surroundings, there are no predators nearby that would cause you to need to be on your toes. Your next meal is only a few minutes away when you feel hungry. You can completely and totally relax. Lay on a comfortable bed, and realize how much tension is being kept in your muscles. Try and release every single bit of it, shake it out first if you like. Focus on making sure none of your muscles are contracting. Picture each muscle group head to foot and make sure it is loose and relaxed. Now slowly shut down your senses. Feel yourself sink down into your bed as gravity does its work.

Now forget about feeling, forget about gravity. Forget about everything, when a thought comes to the forefront of your mind take a moment to acknowledge it and then gently brush it away. The thoughts will keep coming but with practice they come slower and slower. You can almost picture yourself as an inanimate object and the blankness can be rather comforting. At some point your instincts will take over and you will reanimate I assure you, and everything will seem slightly brighter and clearer. Make sure you have a good deal of time as successful sessions are known to occasionally last quite a while. I hope some of that helped, good luck!

 

The absolutely best things in life cannot possibly be scientifically proven. Think about the things that we seem to be most stimulated by. Can you touch, see, feel (with your nerve endings), taste, or smell love? What about happiness, joy, bliss? Where's the scientific proof that these exist? Meditate on that. There is much scientific evidence that meditation works to relax and destress which leads to better health and better decision making. There is also proof that meditation can lead to a personal relationship with God or to a realization of one's interconnectedness with all that exists. That proof lies within each of us to discover for our self. No one else can do it for us, just as no one else can see through our eyes or smell with our nose or think with our brain.

I'm not trying to make you wrong, just passing along what I've learned after a little more than a year of meditation and study to figure out why I would want to meditate. This document helped me figure out whether there was any truth to the rumor of a life after death: http://www.openmindsite.com/dl/21days.pdf. From there it's a matter of learning from various sources how the whole thing works and how we make progress outside of the illusion of the material world.

 

Just keep criticizing yourself until you just can't take it anymore and there's nothing left to think about.

 

you should also work on your preconcieved notions about meditation, soon you'll realize that the scientific and spiritual and really intensely interconnected, they are basically the same with different vocabularies.

I recomend zen meditation, called zazen, it has nothing to do with science, nor spiritual concepts, its just simple being, any words that refer to buddha or science given by zen teachers are simply words, metaphors.

Ultimately though zen is beyond the metaphor, zen is the sound of the statement, lose you're idea of who you are, stop grasping at meaning and bewilderment this is the first step

either scientific or spiritual talk, ultimately 'you' will realize 'we' know nothing

just sit legs crossed, with a straight back, and hand in hand in your lap with your thumbs slightly touching, and see what happens

see, its an expirement!

 

I recommend reading this guy's ideas.

http://www.lorinroche.com/page70/page70.html

 

It will be difficult because quite frankly meditation comes from within religious paradigms.

You can learn a simple, straightforward meditation from within a tradition, the Zen Soto schools could perhaps be an ideal place to investigate, you really don't have to take on any philosophical baggage, or at least you shouldn't have too, though in any case you might run into the same problem of not being able to find somebody qualified to teach in the first place.

One avenue you might like to look into is the work of Shinzen Young. Normally I wouldn't go in for this, but he really seems to be doing great work developing a path for people in your position, who wish to move away from dogma towards something more scientific. He is very well trained in the ancient practices but is developing a media based program for people unable to access teachers in person. You can check him out on youtube or buddistgeeks alongside his own pages.

If I might suggest, health problems may be better addressed by qigong than meditation alone, and you may find more luck in this direction in China?

 

Hi,
If you want physical proof that meditation relaxes the body, there are plenty of scientific references. I'm not going to provide the specific references, because if you can't even find those scientific references, you probably lack the resolve to gain anything from meditation.

However, meditation works because mind and body are nearly one thing. If the mind is disturbed, so is the body.

Meditation works by providing a chosen reference point (a thought, idea, concept) from which to judge oneself. Its like an anchor point. Until you develop focus on that specific anchor point which appears not to move, you have no reference of where you are. (I say "appears," because in Reality, thoughts are not there, so even a continuous, singular thought is only a relative continuity).

As your thought still to a single thought, the body also stills. It's like calming the ocean to one calm ocean- there are no more waves protruding as turbulence.

So, pick something (a repeated mantra or your breath- I feel that the breath is your way- and place attention on it. When your attention wanders to something else, bring it back to the anchor, that is your breath. Just observe it.

 

so what i'm feeling right now isn't real? that's what you said earlier...

don't listen to the last poster, sounds discouraging to me...

how the hell would he/she know about you from reading some posts on the internet?


i'm fairly tired...

but in meditation, focus on "everything".
not mantra, everything.
but all your awareness, energies, thoughts ... anything
and everything.

 

The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche seems like the perfect book for you.
Pretty much Science + Buddhism. I know you said non-religious but...

 

Have you tried falun gong?

 

Sitting meditation known as shamatha is most common meditation type in world and uses no technique other than aligning body in close to lotus posture. If your physical body is brought into balanced open state then breath also flows in open state and mind calms naturally thus this is first technique even of all Buddhists, and many Hindu sects. If you cannot find patience to sit still without focus for about a half an hour at a time maybe once a day then try it with a simple focus such as a paper with a favorable icon which you feel clarity with. Readjust physical body to realign if you start shrinking, or sometimes shake out then sit again. If too much mental agitation occurs then lie down for at least ten minutes. Best to lie down for ten minutes after half hour session anyway to return to basic physical mental setting.

If all this is too much then simple chanting of a favored deity can be a successful path itself to liberation. Maybe find your deity - many teachers can help you, or do the first one that seems fun in theory to you and stick with it for a couple years and keep a journal of your thoughts, one sentence to describe yourself each day.

This allows for you to look back and recognize the changes. Otherwise you may never see any physical changes due to meditation and doubt any sort of value from it. But there is value. Deep value for realigning ones core sense of basic quality of life, which people who do not know yoga and meditation can never do. If all else fails there is Tai Chi, Hatha Yoga and other physical first teachings which cannot be too far from you.

Hatha yoga teachers do not teach philosophy or religion to my rememberance.

As one or two posters said, scientific and so forth are really synchronistic with spiritual so maybe your expectations of a non-spiritual paradigm teaching meditations is slightly far fetched. But for that there are so called brain wave synchronizers which use stereo to supposedly entrain the brainwaves to harness alpha and other altered states. Research in that field may yield something someday. Until then simple discipline of half hour sitting is basic number one easy nothing to do at all technique. How to know when it is working? Then mind becomes smooth flowing and supple, one feels lighter. Do not let your self ever float away.

Without a support group you always face merely your own 'morphagenic' field and the dangers of taking rope for snake are greater. Wisdom is needed, and should be the result of meditation.

 

Vipassana meditation is a very pure form of meditation. It focuses on the breath and body awareness. Through this intense awareness one learns to control one's reaction to life events, thus changing one's relationship with suffering and happiness. It is one of, if not the, oldest form of meditation that was taught by Buddha when he was alive. The funny thing about Buddhism is that Buddha himself never intended to create a religion around himself. The meditation technique he taught juxtaposed with his philosophical teachings helped so many people that, consequently, the people chose to worship him and create Buddhism. There is nothing religious about this meditation technique, it is merely a modality through which one can create balance and positive change within one's personal life.

 

Just get a basic meditation style and do your own thing. I cant possibly buy into all of the mystical, spiritual universal energy stuff, but the point is to silence that incessant stream of consciousness of yours for a little while and emerge with a blank slate. All throughout the day my stream of consciousness is constant, rapid and sometimes a bit neurotic and when I can block everything out and just -be- I come out of the experience more mentally focused, more calm and more harmonious with, not the universal mystical energies blah blah blah, but with myself and my life. Improved state of mind, body and spirit (spirit being emotions and feelings).

 

meditation is not in any way on its own related to religion or yoga.

its about spirituality, finding yourself. hears some tips from me to you


clear your mind ~completely~, so all you hear is your heart beat and your breathing and things around you, but try to keep all noises around you to a min when your first starting.

just do this as long as you can, itll calm you down, itll make you feel good, itll clear your mind.

i often do this sitting in the shower, hearing the water fall on me, embraced in warmth...i think water is my element, maybe find what suits you best

 

If you go to the link below, it directs you to a yoga site. Sit with it though, the meditation center it's connected with offers teachings online and I'll think you'll find that it's pretty down to earth, pragmatic stuff. If you specifically look for the basic anapanasatti meditations I think you can take what you want from it and leave the rest.

(Also, I resisted the yoga thing for a really long time, but it actually helps my meditaion practice A LOT! Like you I'm not into all of the fluff and fancy, but it comes down to breathing and getting to know your mind through your body. Looking at it like that helped me anyway!)

Good Luck!

Yoga Thailand

 

I have posted elsewhere on this forum the details of Patanjalis yoga sutras which suggests that working in one area influences other aspects. Meditation may be considered as mind games; just like muscles the mind needs a work-out to keep healthy. Sometimes it needs a rest.

Meditation is a physical discipline that effects mind, body and spirit. Religion and spirit are something individual to you and you can learn various methods without resorting to spiritual beliefs.

There are plenty of online lessons available just use judgement in deciding which ones to follow.

A very simple start to meditation is to follow the breath in and out with retention sitting in spinal alignment. Pranayama square: Imagine a square (or window). Mentally allow your eyes to traverse this square. Up one edge, breath in-across top, hold breath-down one edge-breath out-across bottom, hold. You can extend the retention, and slowing of the breath by making the square a rectangle.

Since the mind is active this is the easiest method to start with. This works on concentration. When one is able to concentrate on one aspect and exclude others one may then move on to removing the useless mental chatter of the mind by different methods.

 

Although it looks as though daxia is long gone, I thought I would offer Autogenic Training as meditative process that may fit the bill.

I learned it many years ago and found it quite helpful.