Meditation

Lol. Indeed.

  On 11/6/2013 at 7:22 PM, very honest said:

there are worse things to spend money on.

indeed there are, and what better way to spend money then on your well being.

  On 11/6/2013 at 7:36 PM, westhead said:

Mike Love from the Beach Boys is into TM, he's also a massive cunt by all accounts. It all sounds a bit like new age quackery to me, I like my practice bedded in common sense. I'm sure TM has benefits though.

Mmm - it seem's they really like to flaunt all the A-list creative celebs who do it...and to be honest, not that i'd ever be one to be swung by such an insignificant things, but! David Lynch, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Jerry Seinfeld...i do have quite alot of respect for these gentlemen, i'd like to think they're onto something...but who knows!

Does anyone wanna be my meditation teacher? I'll pay you in money + dinner.

In London

  On 11/6/2013 at 7:36 PM, westhead said:

Mike Love from the Beach Boys is into TM, he's also a massive cunt by all accounts. It all sounds a bit like new age quackery to me, I like my practice bedded in common sense. I'm sure TM has benefits though.

TM helped him deal with drug addicts and drunks like the Wilson brothers (brothers were very talented but a pain in the ass to deal with)

Mike love is a misunderstood man. (im not saying he isnt a cunt, im not a big fan of some of his action but ya know)

He is at fault for turning the beach boys into a nostalgia band.

my favorite mike love moment is when he grew a long as beard and wore robes all the time, the guy claimed he never done acid but he was doing something

Another great mike love moment is when his daughter married drumer dennis and beat the shit out of him, maybe you are right, lol

Hmm, I'm not convinced - for example here's Mike being a major dick at some awards ceremony, jealously slagging off the Beatles and the Rolling Stones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=oZSAQX2uuUY#t=280

Also:

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/mike-love-is-kind-of-an-asshole

But, having said that, I don't know him at all - he could be a lovely bloke :)

  On 11/6/2013 at 9:35 PM, TRiP said:

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 7:22 PM, very honest said:

there are worse things to spend money on.

indeed there are, and what better way to spend money then on your well being.

 

  On 11/6/2013 at 7:36 PM, westhead said:

Mike Love from the Beach Boys is into TM, he's also a massive cunt by all accounts. It all sounds a bit like new age quackery to me, I like my practice bedded in common sense. I'm sure TM has benefits though.

Mmm - it seem's they really like to flaunt all the A-list creative celebs who do it...and to be honest, not that i'd ever be one to be swung by such an insignificant things, but! David Lynch, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Jerry Seinfeld...i do have quite alot of respect for these gentlemen, i'd like to think they're onto something...but who knows!

 

Well, there you have it. Tying celebrities to something sells it, because of the tendency to belief that celebrities have unlocked certain aspects of life, which us mere mortals are barely capable of achieving (except if you buy the product of course - I believe it's something to do with the familiarity bias .. and the manic reliance on celebrities in our culture in general)

I tried mindfulness meditation - you just focus on your breathing - think verbally 'in' 'out' etc. - if you get a distraction, you focus on it and think to yourself for example 'sound' 'sound' 'sound' or 'i'm thinking about work' whatever it is and then go back to 'in' 'out' as you focus on your chest moving up and down as you breathe. After a while you go to sleep while still awake and I started having strange perceptual things - I felt like I was spinning right and left simultaneously at one point, at another it was like being submerged in some kind of dark warm feeling (my body going to sleep basically)

BUT it made me feel crazy (all fragmented and noisy in my head, endless half sentences) (when I was not meditating) - I was really worried for a bit - but later on I did learn to use the skill of being aware of my attention

A good kind of meditation is writing 3 pages of longhand every morning whatever comes in to your head - another separate thing you can then do is pick out all the thoughts like 'I'm not good enough', 'I'm careless' or whatever and then convert them into the opposite and write them ten times - 'I'm good enough', 'I'm careful'

That's from The Artists Way by Julia Cameron - there's a whole process in there, but that's one technique. The brain drain 3 page thing is very good, it has to be longhand btw

I don't do it every day but even if you do it several times and then stop, you start to become aware of repetitive thought patterns, and they become less able to keep repeating, and new ideas can pop into your head

Transcendental Meditation is a different one though I think, not sure how it works

I think just sitting quietly and doing nothing for half an hour every day might do some good too!

The affirmations thing is kind of self-helpy I know - I found the book through Maria Bamford - she's a total self-help nerd (she reads all kinds of self help stuff and it feeds into her comedy quite a bit)

I bought a japanese meditation cushion with buckwheat stuffing, plus a thick zabuton mat (kapok stuffing). It's stiff and pliable at the same time, like sitting in sand, really done wonders for my posture.

It's really not that difficult. Intrinsic awareness is continuous and effortless, there's no technique except to stop chasing after thoughts and let conditions be as they are. Awareness itself is objectless so there's nothing to meditate upon - no need to meditate. Just keep the mind free of judgment and open like the sky. At that point there's really no difference between sitting calmly or being at work, in traffic etc.

Been reflecting on this quote by Foyan, a 11th century zen monk:

  Quote

When you find peace and quiet in the midst of busyness and clamor, then towns and cities become mountain forests; afflictions are enlightenment, sentient beings realize true awakening.

so, i'm truly interested in meditating, but honestly i don't think i'm invested enough on it but anyway, some guided meditation videos have music, and i can also get some meditation music, but i find it extremely difficult to relax cause i start looking at the music in an ekt way, does this happen to any of you?

I prefer mantra centric meditation, wirks better for me. Even the simplest mantra / words combo (« one » on inhale « two » on exhale) works much better for me. Music (and speech) is too distracting for le as well.

I always do this (41:16):

  On 5/15/2020 at 10:48 PM, Tim_J said:

ome guided meditation videos have music, and i can also get some meditation music,

There is a great docu series on Netflix called Explained - Brain. Check their episode about meditation. It is really straight forward and covers the basics you really need to know in like 20 mins so you can decide which 'style' would suit you.

ooooh and then we can talk about yoga too 

  On 5/15/2020 at 11:35 PM, dingformung said:

I always do this (41:16):

 

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sounds like autechre

anyone ever heard of the 'headless way' from douglas harding? it's a book and also just an idea i guess.

its like a westernized version of buddhist non-duality. 

basically it's the fact that you (and i and everyone else) do not have a head....at least from your 1st person point of view. 

it's sort of hard to explain, but there are some exercises you can do to bring awareness to this simple fact that in your direct experience, you are a headless torso, and where your head should be is the world.

i guess it's supposed to trigger a sort of "selflessness" and to remind you that where you think "you" are (for most people, they feel like "they" are behind their eyes looking out at the world)...doesn't actually exist

simple exercise: try to locate your face in your direct experience...try to see it. it's nowhere to be found.

this can trigger a rather psychedelic feeling when you finally feel it