Silent Meditation or Other?

Namaste, Pilgrims.

I am new to meditation, and am learning through books & videos. A teacher would be preferred, but finances being what they are I have to scavenge for the time being. I've been using a 'guided meditation' from Jon Kabat-Zinn, and am reading 'Meditation for Dummies' (don't laugh - it's got a lot of good info for the new meditator

My question: the guided meditation that I've been listening to is roughly 20 mins in length and in several points JKZ interjects and reminds you to ref-focus your thoughts on your breathing, etc. I find this to be slightly distracting rather than helpful. Last night I meditated while playing a track from 'The Awakened Mind 2.0' system in the background and found it to be very relaxing & found the background track useful as it truly allowed me to return my focus to it when my mind wandered during practice. For more experienced meditators: is there any drawback to this approach? (using the background track / ambient music or white noise track when meditating)

It seems that silent versus other meditation tends to spark an almost religious debate in most forums. I am interested in learning about the benefits on both sides.

Thank you all.

Peace.

- Savage

 

Hello NbleSavage. So you know Yoga for dummies is not a joke. I too got inspired by that book, but only the cheap lil one you can find at a Safeway. As an answer to your question I would say do what feels right, other people will always have advice and reasons why one is better than the other but with practice all the answers you need will come from within and you will be able to trust your self.

I will pray you find a way to reach your goals.


Adios.

 

Thank you i0-techno. We are sharing the same book then (the small, grocery store check-out line 'Meditation for Dummies' text ).

I appreciate your guidance too on silent versus other meditation. I will continue to experiment with different techniques until I find one that is most comfortable for me personally.

Peace.

- Savage

 

Well, the wonderful thing is if you do a ''silent'' meditation, you realise that silence is never complete, there is ALWAYS sound that you can pay attention to.

 

^^^^
Truth. In a way, I find the need to refocus myself when I am initially distracted by ambient noises & sounds to be a challenge, however I think I'll need a bit more experience in my practice before I am ready to be 'challenged'

Peace.

- Savage

 

I think the benefits of silent or non-silent meditation only depends on how you perceive your own reaction to noise.

If there is noise you might not be distracted. You might be distracted for a second and return to whatever you were meditating on, only because it is more interesting to you.

However, this new noise might completely distract you, so that you forget the initial meditation. That is not negative in itself.

From there you can choose to blame yourself for letting yourself be distracted by some stupid 76!(h8?$fd noise... OR you can just accept the fact that your brain naturally, spontaneously, pays attention to this noise, and explore the noise.

And realise that this (random noise) can be yet another gateway to meditation. Only if you want it to, of course.

 

Related question - so then when you are meditating, what do you focus your mind on? For me, the background track is helpful - gives me something easy to 'return to' when my mind wanders off to something else.

Again, thank you for the insight! I'm learning

Peace.

- Savage

 

When I meditate I do not ''focus'' in the same way that you would focus at work, that would be redundant since we focus all day long. In meditation, I learn to allow EVERY stimulus to penetrate my body.

When I meditate I always start by giving my body full permission to do whatever it needs to do. Healing process. This is very close to letting your mind wander HOWEVER there is a subtle but important difference, you pay attention to WHERE your attention is. Just by greeting whatever your attention rested on.

The advantage of this is that you develop your attentive reflexe. Every second becomes a rich experience because you allow everything to penetrate your attention.

I used to meditate using a more ''focused'' approach. (Like, okay let's do 200 breaths, etc.) But it gave me very poor results because by restricting my attention to one stimuli (breath) I would automatically filter out everything else and ignore it. This did not allow my attention to EXPLORE the infinity of the body, the sore areas, the joyful areas, etc.

With the help of an excellent meditation teacher, I realised how important it is to allow everything into meditation. When your mind ''wanders off to something else'', it is not a pure coincidence, it is not because it is a bad stimulus, and it is certainly not because your are not able to meditate! Your brain made an estimation and thought that you need to check it out. There is something else to pay attention to. Just greet it, accept it, integrate it.

At times, it may be 0,1 second, at others 10 minutes... usually it's very short, but I'm not the one who decides! Just let it be.

I personnaly find that it gives me so much relaxation, so much pleasure, to be able to accept thoughts, emotions and stimuli as they fly by! I voice it here, even if I know that it is not a very popular and widespread approach to meditation.

Althought it worked so far, this is only based on my experience that is very limited in time, I look foward to learn more and more of others, of myself and of the world.

 

ACYL - your description of your approach to meditation is one of the best I've read. 'Acknowledge and Allow' is what I took away. I will give it a shot

Thanks again for sharing the benefit of your experience.

Peace.

- Savage

 

according to the indian philosophy of meditation, I believe they say 10 units of concentration = 1 unit of meditation , and 10 units of meditation = 1 unit of samadhi. So accordingly in order to be truly meditating one must be developing concentration. Listening to music can be calming and relaxing but it is not quite the same and is somewhat distracting.

 

PsychicExplorer - thank you for this input. Do you meditate silently? How long do you meditate? Do you focus your thoughts on anything in particular when you meditate?

 

Yes, I tend to meditate silently. For me I have found that keeping my awareness on my breath is what I focus or concentrate on. I try to maintain relaxed awareness but at the same time try not to relax so much that I am just relaxing. In other words I try to stay attentively balanced and alert. Concentrating on the navel is also a meditation I do. As far as how long I meditate I would say I usually don't go over 30 min and I tend to meditate several times a day as time permits but I always go for at least 10 min. When I first began I did not enjoy sitting for very long but after a while I have noticed the practice become subtly blissful.

 

thanks PE - great explanation & the practical advice helps me a lot. I struggle sometimes with that 'balance' between focusing on...something...while meditating and just 'relaxing'. Your post helps me to clarify that effort a bit.

Peace.

- Savage