I've never meditated before.

[QuickTwist]

I have never meditated before and I would like to.

I am looking for tips and tricks to do this along with what the procedure entails. I know there are many people who do meditate and some people on this site do it quite regularly. I would like to know the proper way to do it. I know there will be others, lurkers or not, who would also like this information. It would also be cool if I could get a little bit of a history lesson of how this practice started, link or no.

Thanks,

QT

 

[Black Rose]

Always be aware of what and how you think and move. Be in the present moment and observe your center with stillness. Look into Taoism.

 

[QuickTwist]

What do you mean by "observe your center with stillness"? That seems to be the key concept.

 

[Black Rose]

The mind is always moving, to stabilize both hemispheres of the brain must balance. You must not resist anything inside you and flow effortlessly. You may sit in a quiet room in the dark eyes closed. Or listen to music eyes closed and realize the 3Dness of the sounds with headphones. At the center of your head feel its emptiness as calm silence.

 

[QuickTwist]

"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."

Thank you @Animekitty, I have leaned something.

I have noticed through various test, most notably the DISC, that I have a personality that already somewhat aligns with Taoism as seen through my high C. In the DISC results I received, the one thing that I see that has a potential to deter my sense of Taoism is that when I get stressed I tend to want more dominance or at least I become more driven as seen in the attachment. @Animekitty, what do the results in the attachment say about my potential to embody Taoism?

I would like to know then if what is told is not the eternal Tao how then do we learn the eternal Tao?

 

[Black Rose]

The Tao or way is always present because the universe is always in motion. You must align with it to be at peace. If you feel powerless then you must detach your way of thinking for a new way of thinking. Every situation must be what it is so you face it with openness to any outcome good or bad. To gain confidence one must take small steps to make a big impact by seeing every event as a small victory. Any accomplishment that you make no matter how small reinforces your path to the Tao.

 

[Cherry Cola]

You can google popular meditation techniques, still you learn by doing :P

 

[TheManBeyond]

First you have to get yourself a buddiest monk suit to really get into the full experience. Funnily today i'm wearing one my father bought me on a trip to south korea. I'll upload pics later if i'm really bored. I hope i don't get too much attention when i go out.

 

[TBerg]

Zen is the use of Buddhist techniques to put Daoist insights into practice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Chán

It is thereby a syncretic practice.

It is also important to realize that there is simply no way of avoiding the thoughts that arise in your conscious experience. Paradoxically, the more you try to focus on your thoughts in an intentional manner, the less power they have over you. It is like the observation of them leads to their deconstruction. It is this intentionality that allows you to sometimes move past the thought and put those thoughts into your prior experience instead of the present experience that continues to impact you. You might discover that this ability to use intentionality allows you to intentionally focus on the here and now of your environment and your interior physio-psychical experience. As you step down into the bare bottom of your consciousness, you begin to see nothing with your nothing. But shadows begin to intrude, and noise from above beckons. These both seem familiar, but they have a disturbing quality once you are descended so far into nothingness. You realize the phantasmagorical element to these shadows and noises, and understand your part in their creation. Thus you learn to treat them as pets rather than prey.

 

[Lot]

What you'll need:
A dark room
Open mind
The ability to breath

1. Find a time when your body is relaxed. Yoga, getting a massage, and/or cannabis, are great tool to relax.
2. Enter your dark room.
3. Sit or lay in a comfortable way. Remain as completely still as you can, but don't tense up.
4. Close your eyes. This helps to pull you out of the world around you.
5. Exhale. As you exhale, imagine that you are breathing out black negative smoke. Then inhale through your nostrils deep into your lungs. Imagine you are inhaling a bright gold cloud of euphoria. Hold it for 30 seconds. Exhale and hold for a couple seconds. Then repeat the process.
(Focusing on your breathing is a good way to clear your mind)
6. Feel yourself slip deeper into mind.

Strange stuff might happen while meditating. It can become very distracting, but you start to get used to those things. The first time I felt the chi flowing through my body was pretty powerful. Then the first time it happened while I was stoned. OMG, it shot me out of bed.

Don't expect to start having 3 hour sessions right off the bat. Start with 5 mins a day your first week. Then gradually increase as needed.

The longer you spend in that state of mind the easier it gets to access it. Also, doing drugs can teach you different mind states. After awhile you can begin to access those during meditation. But without the drugs, you might end up finding those head spaces on your own.

I might have some non-traditional reasons for meditating, though. A lot of the practice seems to be about simply clearing the mind. But, I clear my mind to go into hypnagogic states. I can then have clear conversations with myself, visions, and my prayer experiences can be pretty overwhelming.

My current goal is to learn how to disassociate with my body and try to astral project. Which very much might end up to be a crock of shit. But even if it's just an intense lucid dream, I'm sure it'll at least be fun.


You can also try a sensory deprivation tank. I hear they are life changing. I really want to try one.

 

[StevenM]

For me, I didn't focus too much on "body energies" and alignment of the universe and such. Meditation was just an approach to help clear the mind. I find it plausible that the mind when active full of different worries, thoughts and problems leads to anxiousness and stress. I may not mind my physical room being cluttered and messy, but I do prefer my inner mind to be clean and organized, and I find meditation a good way of achieving it.

From reading and researching, I've learned that meditation utilizes the plasticity of the brain. Just like if you juggle from your elbows long enough, the length of time of practice could make you a pro, and this is because the brain learns from repeated exercise.

So I guess the important part is finding something to focus on. I like focusing on my breathing, the inhale, and then the exhale. And then, trying to practice on just being attentive on that for as long as I can. Of course, even in a very quiet room, the mind is going to come up with a thought. I have taken the advice of just merely acknowledging that I had a thought (or train of thoughts), and then gently reminding myself to focus back on the breathing. Don't be upset that you had the thought, it is all in part of practicing meditation. Just slowly and gently going back to the breathing.

I guess the idea is that you continue this cycle - having a thought, then acknowledging that it's there, then letting it go as you go back to focusing on breathing as long as you can before the next thought. Eventually, in time, you can keep the focus on your breathing for a long period of time. And with this better practice, you may feel a lot more uncluttered, and calm in living daily life. The ability to let things go becomes easier, and problem solving can be quicker.

As you get better, eventually, the mind is clean and uncluttered, and you may feel you have more energy and more at peace.