..continued. Planning for up to 5 minutes.. ok, I stopped about 10 seconds short of 5 minutes. I feel I did ok. My thoughts first went toward fear stuff, like last time, but moved past that fairly quickly.. and I entered a somewhat odd mental state, a bit detached from emotions or higher level thinking, and more attached to rudimentary stuff, like breathing -- that is not a very good description -- this came with a mental image of being in the rear-top quarter of my head.. then my thoughts moved toward wondering what the difference is between meditation and hypnosis. The thing is, recently I made some progress becoming hypnotized (I think), and I have a fairly good feel for what that feels like, and how to enter that state, and I could enter that state while meditating, but I'm not sure that's the right state to enter.. anyway, as I was thinking about it, I kindof moved past that worry (and didn't enter a hypnotic state), and then I was left not really thinking about anything at all, and it was a bit boring, and I wasn't sure what to do, but I figured I should write the thoughts I had since they would prevent me from making too much more progress..
Showing posts with label meditation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meditation. Show all posts
7/18/12
7/17/12
meditation 11
..continued. Planing for less time this time. Only 5 minutes. That's what I feel like I can do naturally, without sortof forcing myself to just sit there, and I'm not going to worry about clearing my mind just to clear my mind, I'm going to try to clear my mind and see what is in the way, and deal with that stuff.. in some sense.. sortof.. maybe.. not sure.. here goes..
ok, I got about 2 minutes in, and then stopped with an unexpected "worry". The thing is, when I start to meditate, trying to clear my mind, I often see beautiful images and scenes that I would like to capture somehow. This time I saw an image of a woman and a tiger looking out a window. I couldn't see what was outside the window, all I could see was the light falling on the figures within. The room around them was dark. The window was the sort of window one would imagine in the movie Alladin, namely, it was shaped with a point at the top, and the walls were very thick. I say a woman and a tiger, though I'm not sure if that's right (and it wasn't Jasmine and Rajah.. and it wasn't cartoon-ish). The dominant colors were orange and blue. There was fine detail in the figures (though I'm not sure what they were), and in the wall. Eventually, the wall started to become puzzle pieces.
I'm not sure I could paint the scene as it was in my mind. I wish I could.
Anyway, then I thought "this is great, but I should be trying to clear my mind rather than being distracted by this," and then I thought, "well no, this is a real concern of my mind, wondering whether it's a good idea to just see a beautiful scene like this and then forget it in favor of clearing my mind." That is to say, I do want to clear my mind, but I think the best path toward that is to resolve this issue of what to do about beautiful scenes which enter my mind while I'm meditating. Here are some options:
1. Acknowledge it and continue clearing my mind. That is, don't attent to it.
2. See if it's good, and if it's really good, stop meditating and try to capture the image or idea somehow.
3. Admire the image while it's in my mind -- not try to capture it for painting later -- but just see it now, like admiring a beautiful sunset.
Pros of 1: I can meditate. Also, I'll probably see more images later, so no need to capture these ones.
Cons of 1: I might miss the opportunity to capture a good image.
Hm.. am I really worried about a missed opportunity to capture a good image? I mean, I can't paint it anyway. I guess I just feel like, if I wanted to be an artist, I should do whatever I'm doing and stop at the stage of seeing beautiful images and trying to capture them. On the other hand, maybe those images only arise because I'm not seeking them.. maybe they are like dream images that arise when my mind is absent during sleep.. perhaps that is why they have more detail.
I guess the question is not whether to paint them, or even record them.. i.e. option 2. isn't really viable.. the real question is whether to do 3. Should I attent to the image, and admire it, or let it vanish.
My gut tells me that the answer to this question is: I should not attend to it. I should acknowledge it, but let it pass as a dream, because I'm after bigger fish. Hm.. when I put it like that, I feel like I'm on some quest to some great mythical place, and I ignore the wonders along the way, and when I get there it's some guy sitting, and I ask the guy, "is this it?" and he's like "did you look around you as you came here?" ..Smelling the roses, and the journey is the best part, and all that.. hm..
I think maybe I should spend a little time admiring the images, and try to understand them in the context of trying to meditate.. and see how that goes.. maybe I'll try meditating again now..
ok, I think I went.. well.. over 2 minutes that time. I was doing ok, but I had a thought, and I decided that I'd better write down the thoughts because they would just be there preventing me from going further down.. that sortof is the thought in a sense. The thought is: I need to excavate all this stuff in my mind and get it "out" so that I can go further down. I need to acknowledge fears, and be finely attuned to what's really going on in my head, and this is the path down -- rather than trying to "force" my way down by artificially clearly my mind by just ignoring what's in it. Anyway, this feels right. Incidentally, the sequence of images that came up was less pleasant this time. The first image was of a dark stone passage lit with monocrome light. The stone reminded me of a stone stature I saw recently outside a winery (I didn't actually go to the winery, I just saw the statue, but the statue is of an animal, except it doesn't really have a head..
..yeah, that's it (from this blog post). It's from the Robert Mondavi Winery. Anyway, the passage was eerie and made of stone the same way that statue is eerie and made of stone. The passage evolved and morphed a bit in my mind. Then I thought the thought "I'm trying to meditate, and my mind knows what it's doing, and it's getting there, and I just need to play along.." and I saw the scene with the passage move down as if it was at the base of a marble table, and I was beginning to see the top of the table, but when I was looking at the rim of the table I saw a face, which looked like a face carved in stone, like something I might have seen in the Louvre. Then some strange and frightening things happened with the eyes of the face, and the face morphed and changed for the worse in terms of scariness, but this didn't disturb me too much, I thought "yes, I need to overcome fear.. and this is deeply personal and would be hard to explain.." and.. well I'm not going to try to explain it -- I'm not sure I know the explanation, at least not consciously, but I feel like my subconscious knows what's up, and it seemed like it was making positive progress despite the frighteningness of the imagery. Then the scene changed to a stone slab being pushed aside to reveal a pool of what may have been blood, and there were separators in it, like the separators in a swimming pool to keep the swimmers in their lane. And flat paper-thin figures started to emerge from the pool. This was also a bit disturbing, but strangely enough is not why I stopped meditating at this moment, but rather because the ideas accompanying these images -- namely the ones about excavating my mind and facing fears as a path toward meditation seemed worth writing down, and I figured I wouldn't be able to progress more if I was thinking "oh, I should write that down."
So.. one more time? hm.. I suppose..
ok, over 3 minutes. Nice. Hm.. this time began with the image of a Chinese pot. Then, it got darker.. The overall gist of it was still "face your fears", except this time there was some real fear associated with the experience. The faded a bit when I stopped, but again, the reason I stopped was to write some of the fears I had. Though, some are too personal to put here.. if you can believe it, I have a more personal blog than this. At some point, I want to open up completely, but.. I guess I fear that too..
ok, I got about 2 minutes in, and then stopped with an unexpected "worry". The thing is, when I start to meditate, trying to clear my mind, I often see beautiful images and scenes that I would like to capture somehow. This time I saw an image of a woman and a tiger looking out a window. I couldn't see what was outside the window, all I could see was the light falling on the figures within. The room around them was dark. The window was the sort of window one would imagine in the movie Alladin, namely, it was shaped with a point at the top, and the walls were very thick. I say a woman and a tiger, though I'm not sure if that's right (and it wasn't Jasmine and Rajah.. and it wasn't cartoon-ish). The dominant colors were orange and blue. There was fine detail in the figures (though I'm not sure what they were), and in the wall. Eventually, the wall started to become puzzle pieces.
I'm not sure I could paint the scene as it was in my mind. I wish I could.
Anyway, then I thought "this is great, but I should be trying to clear my mind rather than being distracted by this," and then I thought, "well no, this is a real concern of my mind, wondering whether it's a good idea to just see a beautiful scene like this and then forget it in favor of clearing my mind." That is to say, I do want to clear my mind, but I think the best path toward that is to resolve this issue of what to do about beautiful scenes which enter my mind while I'm meditating. Here are some options:
1. Acknowledge it and continue clearing my mind. That is, don't attent to it.
2. See if it's good, and if it's really good, stop meditating and try to capture the image or idea somehow.
3. Admire the image while it's in my mind -- not try to capture it for painting later -- but just see it now, like admiring a beautiful sunset.
Pros of 1: I can meditate. Also, I'll probably see more images later, so no need to capture these ones.
Cons of 1: I might miss the opportunity to capture a good image.
Hm.. am I really worried about a missed opportunity to capture a good image? I mean, I can't paint it anyway. I guess I just feel like, if I wanted to be an artist, I should do whatever I'm doing and stop at the stage of seeing beautiful images and trying to capture them. On the other hand, maybe those images only arise because I'm not seeking them.. maybe they are like dream images that arise when my mind is absent during sleep.. perhaps that is why they have more detail.
I guess the question is not whether to paint them, or even record them.. i.e. option 2. isn't really viable.. the real question is whether to do 3. Should I attent to the image, and admire it, or let it vanish.
My gut tells me that the answer to this question is: I should not attend to it. I should acknowledge it, but let it pass as a dream, because I'm after bigger fish. Hm.. when I put it like that, I feel like I'm on some quest to some great mythical place, and I ignore the wonders along the way, and when I get there it's some guy sitting, and I ask the guy, "is this it?" and he's like "did you look around you as you came here?" ..Smelling the roses, and the journey is the best part, and all that.. hm..
I think maybe I should spend a little time admiring the images, and try to understand them in the context of trying to meditate.. and see how that goes.. maybe I'll try meditating again now..
ok, I think I went.. well.. over 2 minutes that time. I was doing ok, but I had a thought, and I decided that I'd better write down the thoughts because they would just be there preventing me from going further down.. that sortof is the thought in a sense. The thought is: I need to excavate all this stuff in my mind and get it "out" so that I can go further down. I need to acknowledge fears, and be finely attuned to what's really going on in my head, and this is the path down -- rather than trying to "force" my way down by artificially clearly my mind by just ignoring what's in it. Anyway, this feels right. Incidentally, the sequence of images that came up was less pleasant this time. The first image was of a dark stone passage lit with monocrome light. The stone reminded me of a stone stature I saw recently outside a winery (I didn't actually go to the winery, I just saw the statue, but the statue is of an animal, except it doesn't really have a head..
..yeah, that's it (from this blog post). It's from the Robert Mondavi Winery. Anyway, the passage was eerie and made of stone the same way that statue is eerie and made of stone. The passage evolved and morphed a bit in my mind. Then I thought the thought "I'm trying to meditate, and my mind knows what it's doing, and it's getting there, and I just need to play along.." and I saw the scene with the passage move down as if it was at the base of a marble table, and I was beginning to see the top of the table, but when I was looking at the rim of the table I saw a face, which looked like a face carved in stone, like something I might have seen in the Louvre. Then some strange and frightening things happened with the eyes of the face, and the face morphed and changed for the worse in terms of scariness, but this didn't disturb me too much, I thought "yes, I need to overcome fear.. and this is deeply personal and would be hard to explain.." and.. well I'm not going to try to explain it -- I'm not sure I know the explanation, at least not consciously, but I feel like my subconscious knows what's up, and it seemed like it was making positive progress despite the frighteningness of the imagery. Then the scene changed to a stone slab being pushed aside to reveal a pool of what may have been blood, and there were separators in it, like the separators in a swimming pool to keep the swimmers in their lane. And flat paper-thin figures started to emerge from the pool. This was also a bit disturbing, but strangely enough is not why I stopped meditating at this moment, but rather because the ideas accompanying these images -- namely the ones about excavating my mind and facing fears as a path toward meditation seemed worth writing down, and I figured I wouldn't be able to progress more if I was thinking "oh, I should write that down."
So.. one more time? hm.. I suppose..
ok, over 3 minutes. Nice. Hm.. this time began with the image of a Chinese pot. Then, it got darker.. The overall gist of it was still "face your fears", except this time there was some real fear associated with the experience. The faded a bit when I stopped, but again, the reason I stopped was to write some of the fears I had. Though, some are too personal to put here.. if you can believe it, I have a more personal blog than this. At some point, I want to open up completely, but.. I guess I fear that too..
leading myself
When trying to lead someone in dance, there's this notion of a connection. If your partner's arm is limp, and you push it, then the arm will probably move, but not their body. You want to feel a bit of resistance from their hand, to know that the arm is engaged, and that pressing on it will be felt by your partner.
Now, I've been trying to meditate and also trying self-hypnosis. Both of these activities seem to require relaxation, which is a bit challenging for me. My strategy so far seems to be "just relax". I think this may be like pushing against a limp arm.. or something like that. The analogy may not be great. But I feel like I'm trying to get my brain to relax when my brain is still worried about stuff, and so my brain sortof covers up the stuff with an blanket and tries not to look there, but part of my brain still secretly knows what's under the blanket, and is worried about it.
I think to really make progress relaxing, I need to tackle the causes of my stress directly, rather than trying to relax in spite of them. I think some people can just relax and forget their cares, but I don't seem to be good at that. Or rather, I guess I'm not truly convinced that forgetting my cares is a safe idea.
Now, I've been trying to meditate and also trying self-hypnosis. Both of these activities seem to require relaxation, which is a bit challenging for me. My strategy so far seems to be "just relax". I think this may be like pushing against a limp arm.. or something like that. The analogy may not be great. But I feel like I'm trying to get my brain to relax when my brain is still worried about stuff, and so my brain sortof covers up the stuff with an blanket and tries not to look there, but part of my brain still secretly knows what's under the blanket, and is worried about it.
I think to really make progress relaxing, I need to tackle the causes of my stress directly, rather than trying to relax in spite of them. I think some people can just relax and forget their cares, but I don't seem to be good at that. Or rather, I guess I'm not truly convinced that forgetting my cares is a safe idea.
7/8/12
meditation 10
..continued. The plan is 15 minutes in the lotus position. I was just thinking about maybe doing it sitting in my chair, but I think the lotus position puts my mind into the mode of "I'm trying to meditate now". My focus will be trying to clear my mind of thought, and trying not to get too frustrated about how bad I am at that, but just trying..
done.. notes:
- I feel like I need to remove my ego. I often get a bit annoyed reading or hearing people talk about meditation, or related stuff, because I have my own deep opinions about it, and I feel like this is my "strong suit" in some sense, and I guess I feel jealous or arrogant when other people tell me things about it.. but I feel like I need to lose that ego. I feel like I need to lose "myself".
- I worried about a logistical matter that will happen this Friday, and I was debating whether I should stop meditating to write down the thought. The thought in favor of doing so was "this matter involves other people, and it would be selfish of me to forget about dealing with it in favor of meditating", and the thought against it was "I'll remember later, and really meditation is more important for me, and I may really just be worried about what other people will think of me rather than genuinely worried about hurting them.. maybe.." Anyway, I decided to keep meditating. I think this is probably the right tact in the future. I don't meditate that long, and hopefully I'll remember the important things later, but this is time I feel is important to give to myself.
update: I meditated again for 15 minutes. Good practice. I feel like I may need to practice many times before I get the hang of this, but I feel like I'm headed in the right direction.
done.. notes:
- I feel like I need to remove my ego. I often get a bit annoyed reading or hearing people talk about meditation, or related stuff, because I have my own deep opinions about it, and I feel like this is my "strong suit" in some sense, and I guess I feel jealous or arrogant when other people tell me things about it.. but I feel like I need to lose that ego. I feel like I need to lose "myself".
- I worried about a logistical matter that will happen this Friday, and I was debating whether I should stop meditating to write down the thought. The thought in favor of doing so was "this matter involves other people, and it would be selfish of me to forget about dealing with it in favor of meditating", and the thought against it was "I'll remember later, and really meditation is more important for me, and I may really just be worried about what other people will think of me rather than genuinely worried about hurting them.. maybe.." Anyway, I decided to keep meditating. I think this is probably the right tact in the future. I don't meditate that long, and hopefully I'll remember the important things later, but this is time I feel is important to give to myself.
update: I meditated again for 15 minutes. Good practice. I feel like I may need to practice many times before I get the hang of this, but I feel like I'm headed in the right direction.
7/7/12
meditation 9
..continued. Ok, this time the plan is for 14 minutes, but lying down. Usually I do this in the lotus position (or my version of that, which is probably wrong) and I find that I spend a fair amount of time correcting my posture. I think that might be fine, but I wonder what the experience is like not worrying about physical posture. So, here goes..
Hm.. one disadvantage to that approach is that it makes me very tired. I want to sleep now. Other than that, I think it's pretty similar.
notes:
- my mind is very noisy. I keep attending to things. It is very difficult to just not think at all. I'm sortof thinking that "not thinking" is not an end in itself, but it a tool for something, and I certainly don't have that tool yet. I like to think that I'm pretty good at doing mental things, but this particular thing seems like it will simply require a lot of practice.
Hm.. one disadvantage to that approach is that it makes me very tired. I want to sleep now. Other than that, I think it's pretty similar.
notes:
- my mind is very noisy. I keep attending to things. It is very difficult to just not think at all. I'm sortof thinking that "not thinking" is not an end in itself, but it a tool for something, and I certainly don't have that tool yet. I like to think that I'm pretty good at doing mental things, but this particular thing seems like it will simply require a lot of practice.
meditation 8
..continued. This time, the plan is for 13 minutes. I'm feeling a bit antsy. Hopefully the meditation will help with that. We'll see. OK, just about did it. 11 seconds short. Right at the end, I had the though "oh no, I turned my sound off at the movie, I wonder if it is even going to ring.." I opened my eyes and checked the time. 11 seconds left. I waited them out, and it did ring, so that's good to know for future reference, both during meditation, and in the theatre.
notes:
- the thought came to mind that "self control" is a big part of this
- I was antsy at times, but I felt like I could acknowledge / accept / let-go of it
- I wonder if I should really be in a lotus position. It is physically strenuous. I wonder if that is purposeful, along the lines of self-control -- and it seems like yoga is an even more extreme example of that.. hm..
notes:
- the thought came to mind that "self control" is a big part of this
- I was antsy at times, but I felt like I could acknowledge / accept / let-go of it
- I wonder if I should really be in a lotus position. It is physically strenuous. I wonder if that is purposeful, along the lines of self-control -- and it seems like yoga is an even more extreme example of that.. hm..
7/5/12
meditation 7
..continued. I'm going to meditate for 12 minutes this time.. ok, done, notes:
- got bored once, but pretty quickly resumed patience
- idea: maybe the idea of clearing the mind is that when the mind is clear, it is simple, and it is easier for a meta-mind to understand it, and sortof "see above it"
- attention often diverted to keep upright
- my ear was a bit plugged, and I kept hearing my breath loudly in my ear (my ear has been plugged all day, and I think it got more plugged after dancing.. something to do with sweat I think)
- I also heard the fan of my computer -- I feel like noises are not good for meditation. I think ultimately I should be able to focus in their presence, but it seems easier without them
- near the beginning, there were some images, even some pretty vivid images. Many of these images were sortof stoic, which I identify with meditation, but I decided that I shouldn't entertain or be distracted by even these images, but rather completely rid my mind of thoughts (these thoughts seem a bit illusionary in that.. it's sortof like imaging that I'm an olympic athlete, rather than actually exercising)
- near the end, I decided to focus on accepting thoughts.. acknowledging and accepting thoughts as they passed by, without letting them take my attention.. I feel like this is in the right direction
- I felt like I was doing well, and that maybe I just need more practice
- I've recently been feeling a feeling of sortof.. being above myself, and giving myself commands, though I'm not sure how real this feeling is.. in any case, I went back and forth a bit on meditating by sortof giving my "lower" self the command to meditate, but I feel like this strategy might be wrong, since this supposed "upper" self is still thinking.. so I'm still focussed on trying to rid my mind of all thought. I'm hoping these mental phenomena become more clear as I continue on.
- got bored once, but pretty quickly resumed patience
- idea: maybe the idea of clearing the mind is that when the mind is clear, it is simple, and it is easier for a meta-mind to understand it, and sortof "see above it"
- attention often diverted to keep upright
- my ear was a bit plugged, and I kept hearing my breath loudly in my ear (my ear has been plugged all day, and I think it got more plugged after dancing.. something to do with sweat I think)
- I also heard the fan of my computer -- I feel like noises are not good for meditation. I think ultimately I should be able to focus in their presence, but it seems easier without them
- near the beginning, there were some images, even some pretty vivid images. Many of these images were sortof stoic, which I identify with meditation, but I decided that I shouldn't entertain or be distracted by even these images, but rather completely rid my mind of thoughts (these thoughts seem a bit illusionary in that.. it's sortof like imaging that I'm an olympic athlete, rather than actually exercising)
- near the end, I decided to focus on accepting thoughts.. acknowledging and accepting thoughts as they passed by, without letting them take my attention.. I feel like this is in the right direction
- I felt like I was doing well, and that maybe I just need more practice
- I've recently been feeling a feeling of sortof.. being above myself, and giving myself commands, though I'm not sure how real this feeling is.. in any case, I went back and forth a bit on meditating by sortof giving my "lower" self the command to meditate, but I feel like this strategy might be wrong, since this supposed "upper" self is still thinking.. so I'm still focussed on trying to rid my mind of all thought. I'm hoping these mental phenomena become more clear as I continue on.
7/4/12
meditation 6
The saga continues. I said before that "Maybe it is time to read something about meditation before my next attempt." So I did. I looked up "meditation" on Wikipedia. In the section "Meditation, religion, and drugs" I saw a reference to The Master Game, by Robert S de Ropp : "the 'door to full consciousness' can be glimpsed with the aid of substances, but to 'pass beyond the door' requires yoga and meditation." I then tried to find The Master Game online, which I did here: http://selfdefinition.org/psychology/Robert-S-De-Ropp-The-Master-Game.pdf. I read maybe a third of it, skimming a bit.. I stopped at the section talking about "The Silent World", where it seems to talk about some early stage goals of meditation, where one main goal is stopping thoughts.
Now, I had said before that my impression of meditation was to "clear the mind", and I had been heading in that direction, but upon reflection, I think my issue was that I didn't understand why I would want to clear my mind. It seemed like the greatest hope of this would be to essentially relax, and I guess I'm just not that interested in relaxing in a really hard and boring way.
But, the author of The Master Game seems to suggest that a higher state of consciousness lies beyond the normal thoughts that occupy our minds on a day to day basis. That is to say, the point of meditation is not to clear the mind, but rather, clearing the mind is a tool for arriving at a higher state of consciousness, and that does seem more interesting.
So this time I meditated for 10 minutes. I upped the time because I felt I could go longer, now that I had a good reason to quite my mind. I remember at first being concerned about the loudness of a fan that was on, and I almost decided to turn it off, but then thought "I feel like I should be able to stop attending to the fan as I stop attending to other thoughts." And I did, I had forgotten about the fan by the end.
I feel like the experience is going to have fewer and fewer things to say as I continue. First, because thinking of things to say goes contrary to "quieting the mind". And second, because I've been led to believe that a higher state of consciousness is indescribable. Though, I'm never convinced of statements like that. I think the true nature of an experience is indescribable, but I think it's always possible to say something about it. After all, The Master Game itself is a description of such things. So, we'll see.
..after writing all that, I meditated again for 10 minutes. I read it is good to do this often. It is difficult to really truly let go of my thoughts. I feel like I need to really not be attached to the cares of the world, and I feel like one challenge I need to overcome is getting sidetracked by ideas and insights that come to mind while meditating. I feel like they are really just a tool my brain uses to trick me into caring about stuff again. I guess I have a deep-seeded hope that eventually, following this path will shed some insight that I can explain and that will be valuable to "conventional reality", but I'm not sure.
I'm not sure that the higher state of consciousness accessible through meditation has very much to do with humanness. I feel like consciousness itself transcends humans. I feel like humans are a fluke, if you will. Humans are the size and shape of organisms that happened to evolve here on Earth, at this time, which is a very small place and time in this universe. Humans happen to be conscious, but I feel like consciousness itself is more fundamental and interesting in its own right, separate from humanness.
Now, I had said before that my impression of meditation was to "clear the mind", and I had been heading in that direction, but upon reflection, I think my issue was that I didn't understand why I would want to clear my mind. It seemed like the greatest hope of this would be to essentially relax, and I guess I'm just not that interested in relaxing in a really hard and boring way.
But, the author of The Master Game seems to suggest that a higher state of consciousness lies beyond the normal thoughts that occupy our minds on a day to day basis. That is to say, the point of meditation is not to clear the mind, but rather, clearing the mind is a tool for arriving at a higher state of consciousness, and that does seem more interesting.
So this time I meditated for 10 minutes. I upped the time because I felt I could go longer, now that I had a good reason to quite my mind. I remember at first being concerned about the loudness of a fan that was on, and I almost decided to turn it off, but then thought "I feel like I should be able to stop attending to the fan as I stop attending to other thoughts." And I did, I had forgotten about the fan by the end.
I feel like the experience is going to have fewer and fewer things to say as I continue. First, because thinking of things to say goes contrary to "quieting the mind". And second, because I've been led to believe that a higher state of consciousness is indescribable. Though, I'm never convinced of statements like that. I think the true nature of an experience is indescribable, but I think it's always possible to say something about it. After all, The Master Game itself is a description of such things. So, we'll see.
..after writing all that, I meditated again for 10 minutes. I read it is good to do this often. It is difficult to really truly let go of my thoughts. I feel like I need to really not be attached to the cares of the world, and I feel like one challenge I need to overcome is getting sidetracked by ideas and insights that come to mind while meditating. I feel like they are really just a tool my brain uses to trick me into caring about stuff again. I guess I have a deep-seeded hope that eventually, following this path will shed some insight that I can explain and that will be valuable to "conventional reality", but I'm not sure.
I'm not sure that the higher state of consciousness accessible through meditation has very much to do with humanness. I feel like consciousness itself transcends humans. I feel like humans are a fluke, if you will. Humans are the size and shape of organisms that happened to evolve here on Earth, at this time, which is a very small place and time in this universe. Humans happen to be conscious, but I feel like consciousness itself is more fundamental and interesting in its own right, separate from humanness.
6/30/12
meditation 5
...continued. Seven minutes again. This time I tried to focus more on my breathing, and not on relaxing. My main thoughts while meditating this time:
- What should I do during the gap between breathing out, and breathing in again? (This thought is a recurring theme.)
- I keep thinking about my body, trying to keep it straight, as if I'm in a yoga pose of some sort, which is distracting.
- This is boring.
6/26/12
meditation 4
Continuing the saga, I tried meditating again today, this time for 7 minutes. Man, 7 minutes is a long time to meditate. I was on the verge of checking my stopwatch near the end to make sure I had actually started it.
This time seemed half-good and half-bad. I kept concentrating on my breathing the whole time, more or less, but my mind never really settled. There were videos playing in my mind the whole time. (For that matter, my eyes are playing tricks on me even now, and I see colorful images in the white areas of my computer monitor. I think this may be from playing Bastion, which has very colorful and vibrant scenery.)
I had a couple thoughts while meditating. One thought was about these scenes not going away, and uncertainty about why that was happening, and thinking about writing that thought here. The other thought was the meta-thought that I shouldn't be thinking about stuff to write here while meditating, coupled with the thought that it is probably still a good idea to log my meditation session in my blog, since it does seem to keep me doing it, and I think it helps me track my progress.
Anyway, I'm not sure what to do next time. I feel like this time was worse in terms of clearing my mind. I did have a moment where I felt like ideas and thought were falling away, and they did literally fall away in the sense that my mind conjured an image of them dropping out of view, but that same sense of my mind conjuring a view at all seemed to be the core problem.
Maybe this isn't a problem? Maybe I should just ignore it and keep concentrating on my breathing? I'm sure I should just keep concentrating on my breathing, I guess I'm more wondering if this is a sign that "I'm do'in it wrong" -- meaning that maybe I'm not concentrating on my breathing "correctly". For instance, maybe I should be "focussed" on my breathing, directing all my attention there. Currently I'm.. hm.. I'm concentrating on my breathing, but also trying to relax I guess. Maybe I shouldn't be trying to relax, but just focussed on my breathing? Hm.. this may be something to try next time.
This time seemed half-good and half-bad. I kept concentrating on my breathing the whole time, more or less, but my mind never really settled. There were videos playing in my mind the whole time. (For that matter, my eyes are playing tricks on me even now, and I see colorful images in the white areas of my computer monitor. I think this may be from playing Bastion, which has very colorful and vibrant scenery.)
I had a couple thoughts while meditating. One thought was about these scenes not going away, and uncertainty about why that was happening, and thinking about writing that thought here. The other thought was the meta-thought that I shouldn't be thinking about stuff to write here while meditating, coupled with the thought that it is probably still a good idea to log my meditation session in my blog, since it does seem to keep me doing it, and I think it helps me track my progress.
Anyway, I'm not sure what to do next time. I feel like this time was worse in terms of clearing my mind. I did have a moment where I felt like ideas and thought were falling away, and they did literally fall away in the sense that my mind conjured an image of them dropping out of view, but that same sense of my mind conjuring a view at all seemed to be the core problem.
Maybe this isn't a problem? Maybe I should just ignore it and keep concentrating on my breathing? I'm sure I should just keep concentrating on my breathing, I guess I'm more wondering if this is a sign that "I'm do'in it wrong" -- meaning that maybe I'm not concentrating on my breathing "correctly". For instance, maybe I should be "focussed" on my breathing, directing all my attention there. Currently I'm.. hm.. I'm concentrating on my breathing, but also trying to relax I guess. Maybe I shouldn't be trying to relax, but just focussed on my breathing? Hm.. this may be something to try next time.
6/22/12
meditation 3
Continuing my thread of meditation posts, I meditated again today, again for 5 minutes.
My current method is to sit in some sort of lotus position, close my eyes, and concentrate on my breathing. Other thoughts did enter my mind on this occasion, but I did a better job not attending to them. I remember one image of a white sheet, with something breaking through the sheet, sortof like a scene in Edward Scissorhands where you are looking at something, and suddenly there are scissors penetrating through it toward the viewer. In this scene, the thing was some sort of fancy batmobile style car. I knew what it was, even though I couldn't "see" it yet. Anyway, I stopped attending to the image before it progressed very far.
I had some other thoughts, which I forget now. One thought I had was that as I progress, I may have less and less to write about here. We'll see.
Toward the end, I felt I had entered a pretty good state of not thinking about anything, except my breath. This time, I didn't have much of an issue with the slow breathing problem, with long pauses between breaths. I'm not sure if this was because my breathing never got that slow, or if my mind had managed to find something in my lungs to attend to while they weren't actually doing anything.
Another thought that crept in a bit was noticing other parts of my body, like my legs and back, which were being "exercised" a bit to maintain the lotus position. However, this didn't seem like a problem somehow. That is, it seemed like I was noticing these things, but not attending to them. And somehow, I've gotten the impression that meditation is about "being aware", though I haven't resolved how that meshes with the idea of "clearing the mind of thought", but I think they may be mutually compatible.
My current method is to sit in some sort of lotus position, close my eyes, and concentrate on my breathing. Other thoughts did enter my mind on this occasion, but I did a better job not attending to them. I remember one image of a white sheet, with something breaking through the sheet, sortof like a scene in Edward Scissorhands where you are looking at something, and suddenly there are scissors penetrating through it toward the viewer. In this scene, the thing was some sort of fancy batmobile style car. I knew what it was, even though I couldn't "see" it yet. Anyway, I stopped attending to the image before it progressed very far.
I had some other thoughts, which I forget now. One thought I had was that as I progress, I may have less and less to write about here. We'll see.
Toward the end, I felt I had entered a pretty good state of not thinking about anything, except my breath. This time, I didn't have much of an issue with the slow breathing problem, with long pauses between breaths. I'm not sure if this was because my breathing never got that slow, or if my mind had managed to find something in my lungs to attend to while they weren't actually doing anything.
Another thought that crept in a bit was noticing other parts of my body, like my legs and back, which were being "exercised" a bit to maintain the lotus position. However, this didn't seem like a problem somehow. That is, it seemed like I was noticing these things, but not attending to them. And somehow, I've gotten the impression that meditation is about "being aware", though I haven't resolved how that meshes with the idea of "clearing the mind of thought", but I think they may be mutually compatible.
meditation 2
I tried meditating again today, again for 5 minutes. I focussed on my breathing again. I had some thoughts near the beginning, though it's difficult to remember them now, which is perhaps a good sign, since one of the thoughts was about it not being a good idea to pay too much meta-attention to myself for this blog post, because that would distract from the meditation itself.
Still, I do remember some other thoughts: first, I remember sortof seeing my breathing in different ways.. I mean, I was focussing on the feeling that breathing produces, but even that manifests itself in my mind in something analogous to an 'image', and I experienced perhaps three different viewpoints of that image. The first was from the high-hand side looking down, as if my breathing was taking place in my chest -- which of course it is -- but the feeling of air coming in and out is more in my mouth, and yet those feelings 'appeared' to be in my chest. This is the view I had during my previous attempt as well. The other view was also from the right-hand side, but mentally placing my breath closer to my actual mouth, and the third view was sortof looking straight forward from the back of my brain to my mouth.
At some point into the meditation, my breathing slowed down again like before, and I was casting around for something to concentrate on during the pause before the next breath. I decided to focus on my heart. This worked fairly well, although it was a bit faint; that is, it was difficult to feel exactly when my heart was beating.
At some point during the experience I do recall thinking 'this is very peaceful', and I thought that perhaps there is some legitimacy to the idea of quieting the mind as an end in itself. I'm not totally convinced of this yet, since I'm not sure what the effects are on the rest of my life -- I guess I'm hoping that one possible benefit of meditation may be sortof pressing the 'reset' button on my brain, which I suppose sleep is supposed to do, but sleep doesn't always do a good job of it.
Anyway, we'll see where this goes.
Still, I do remember some other thoughts: first, I remember sortof seeing my breathing in different ways.. I mean, I was focussing on the feeling that breathing produces, but even that manifests itself in my mind in something analogous to an 'image', and I experienced perhaps three different viewpoints of that image. The first was from the high-hand side looking down, as if my breathing was taking place in my chest -- which of course it is -- but the feeling of air coming in and out is more in my mouth, and yet those feelings 'appeared' to be in my chest. This is the view I had during my previous attempt as well. The other view was also from the right-hand side, but mentally placing my breath closer to my actual mouth, and the third view was sortof looking straight forward from the back of my brain to my mouth.
At some point into the meditation, my breathing slowed down again like before, and I was casting around for something to concentrate on during the pause before the next breath. I decided to focus on my heart. This worked fairly well, although it was a bit faint; that is, it was difficult to feel exactly when my heart was beating.
At some point during the experience I do recall thinking 'this is very peaceful', and I thought that perhaps there is some legitimacy to the idea of quieting the mind as an end in itself. I'm not totally convinced of this yet, since I'm not sure what the effects are on the rest of my life -- I guess I'm hoping that one possible benefit of meditation may be sortof pressing the 'reset' button on my brain, which I suppose sleep is supposed to do, but sleep doesn't always do a good job of it.
Anyway, we'll see where this goes.
6/21/12
starting self hypnosis
Along with trying out meditation, no reason not to try out self-hypnosis as well I suppose. I've actually been trying this for a while in various ways without much success (some sortof successes.. I guess I can write about what happened at some point..)
In any case, I hadn't been writing about my experiences, or doing things very systematically, so I thought I'd try doing so.
I decided to try for 10 minutes. Now, the first step in hypnosis, as far as I can gather, is relaxing. So I lied down on a foam mat, and started counting down from 10 to 1, saying to myself stuff like "with each number, relax.. letting go.. more and more with each number.." and I would say numbers, 10, 9, 8, and kindof think about my limbs and try to "let go" of them.. at some point I started thinking about sortof massaging my whole body mentally, wiggling everything around.. somehow I associate mashing everything up and kneading it with relaxing.. the association may just be with massaging, but I feel like I do that with my mind too when I'm trying to relax, I try to sortof mash my thoughts around every which way. But I wasn't doing that yet in this attempt, I was focussing on mentally mashing up my body, trying to relax my limbs.
And then I got to thinking about my timer, which was counting down 10 minutes, and I got to worrying about the annoying sound it was going to make after that time. Somehow this was not a big concern while meditating.. I haven't quite figured out what the difference is there.
Anyway, after 4 minutes I finally quit because I was worrying too much about the timer to get more relaxed.
So I tried again using a script that has the Mac's built in voice synthesis speak to me. It waits 10 minutes, and then tells me "good, you have done well, the 10 minutes are up". Unfortunately it's still a bit disturbing to hear "good.." all of a sudden, but I didn't know that until the 10 minutes were up, but it may be an issue for next time.
This time, I think I did ok relaxing my muscles, though I was sitting down this time in front of my computer (I'm not sure whether it's better to relax sitting or lying down). As my muscles got more relaxed, there are some things that happen which I haven't figured out the right thing to do about. First, my eyes seem to have two relaxed states: one is sortof tightly closed, and one is loosely closed, and I feel like they alternate. I feel like the loosely closed state is more relaxed from the point of view of my muscles, but somehow the tightly closed state is more relaxed for my mind.. as if my mind can concentrate better on relaxing in the tightly closed state. At any rate, I decided to not worry about this, and then I started thinking about relaxing myself mentally.
Now, I'm pretty tightly wound mentally, I think. I think a lot, and even while I'm trying to relax I'm watching myself relax and thinking about that (and of course knowing I'm going to write a blog post doesn't help with that, and I tried to forget about that.. we'll see how that goes in the future).
Anyway, I feel like I hit a sortof wall. My mental image was of a hollow rock, like a geode, and I couldn't penetrate it. I tried sortof prying it apart, and I tried "relaxing" through it somehow. Eventually the image changed to a capped steel cylinder, which I also couldn't break through at first, though eventually it opened and I was sucked into it. However, I didn't feel very much more relaxed when this happened, so I'm not sure the "victory sequence" of breaking into the thing was generated from the same part of my brain that was manifesting the impenetrable object to begin with -- though the impenetrable object could have just been me thinking that my subconscious mind has some barrier that is hard to break into.. hard to know.
In any case, then the "alarm" went off and I heard "good", which like I said was a bit alarming, so maybe I need to turn the volume down more on it, or perhaps have my computer start playing relaxing music.
In any case, I hadn't been writing about my experiences, or doing things very systematically, so I thought I'd try doing so.
I decided to try for 10 minutes. Now, the first step in hypnosis, as far as I can gather, is relaxing. So I lied down on a foam mat, and started counting down from 10 to 1, saying to myself stuff like "with each number, relax.. letting go.. more and more with each number.." and I would say numbers, 10, 9, 8, and kindof think about my limbs and try to "let go" of them.. at some point I started thinking about sortof massaging my whole body mentally, wiggling everything around.. somehow I associate mashing everything up and kneading it with relaxing.. the association may just be with massaging, but I feel like I do that with my mind too when I'm trying to relax, I try to sortof mash my thoughts around every which way. But I wasn't doing that yet in this attempt, I was focussing on mentally mashing up my body, trying to relax my limbs.
And then I got to thinking about my timer, which was counting down 10 minutes, and I got to worrying about the annoying sound it was going to make after that time. Somehow this was not a big concern while meditating.. I haven't quite figured out what the difference is there.
Anyway, after 4 minutes I finally quit because I was worrying too much about the timer to get more relaxed.
So I tried again using a script that has the Mac's built in voice synthesis speak to me. It waits 10 minutes, and then tells me "good, you have done well, the 10 minutes are up". Unfortunately it's still a bit disturbing to hear "good.." all of a sudden, but I didn't know that until the 10 minutes were up, but it may be an issue for next time.
This time, I think I did ok relaxing my muscles, though I was sitting down this time in front of my computer (I'm not sure whether it's better to relax sitting or lying down). As my muscles got more relaxed, there are some things that happen which I haven't figured out the right thing to do about. First, my eyes seem to have two relaxed states: one is sortof tightly closed, and one is loosely closed, and I feel like they alternate. I feel like the loosely closed state is more relaxed from the point of view of my muscles, but somehow the tightly closed state is more relaxed for my mind.. as if my mind can concentrate better on relaxing in the tightly closed state. At any rate, I decided to not worry about this, and then I started thinking about relaxing myself mentally.
Now, I'm pretty tightly wound mentally, I think. I think a lot, and even while I'm trying to relax I'm watching myself relax and thinking about that (and of course knowing I'm going to write a blog post doesn't help with that, and I tried to forget about that.. we'll see how that goes in the future).
Anyway, I feel like I hit a sortof wall. My mental image was of a hollow rock, like a geode, and I couldn't penetrate it. I tried sortof prying it apart, and I tried "relaxing" through it somehow. Eventually the image changed to a capped steel cylinder, which I also couldn't break through at first, though eventually it opened and I was sucked into it. However, I didn't feel very much more relaxed when this happened, so I'm not sure the "victory sequence" of breaking into the thing was generated from the same part of my brain that was manifesting the impenetrable object to begin with -- though the impenetrable object could have just been me thinking that my subconscious mind has some barrier that is hard to break into.. hard to know.
In any case, then the "alarm" went off and I heard "good", which like I said was a bit alarming, so maybe I need to turn the volume down more on it, or perhaps have my computer start playing relaxing music.
starting meditation
I decided to start exploring meditation. I've experimented a bit with it in the past, though I haven't gotten very far. For that matter, I've experimented a bit with self hypnosis as well, and haven't gotten that to work either. Though, I'm not sure how to know for sure whether either of these is "working".
In any case, today I decided to meditate for 5 minutes, trying to clear my mind. I read somewhere that the point of meditation is to clear the mind -- I'm not sure if that's true, but it's a place to start.
So I sat in my living room floor, in my best approximation of a "lotus" position, and tried to concentrate on my breathing. My mind quickly shot around to other things, and was a bit restless and bored. I kept trying to actively release control of my mind, letting it go where it would, but this did not seem to counteract the restlessness. I gave up and looked at my clock: I had only 2 more minutes to go.
So, I tried again, resetting the timer for 5 minutes. This time I decided to keep my focus on my breath. I felt my breath in, and I felt my breath out, and I would sortof imagine some imagery to go along with this -- I didn't decide to imagine imagery to go along with it, that's just how my brain interpreted the idea of "concentrating on my breath".
After a bit, I had a pretty disturbing thought. I spike was coming toward me, and piercing through my head. I kept concentrating on my breath. I wasn't afraid of the thought. It was a bit disgusting, and I assume whoever reads this will interpret it as such, but for me it was sortof like seeing a disturbing video but not paying attention to it. I had the thought at the time "this is a test my mind is playing on me, to try and direct my attention away from my breath." Anyway, the spike then started slicing down my body, and eventually the thought went away.
Then a thought came, "I should write my experience down! And what better place than the metameaninglessness blog?" This thought was very exciting, because I thought it would be a good way to keep up the practice of meditating, since I would sortof have a "checkbox" for when I did it, and I could see how it went and reflect on it.. which all seemed good.
Of course, then I thought: this is distracting me from thinking about breathing, so I decided I would probably remember to write about my experience, so I needn't worry about that, and I should continue concentrating on my breath.
A bit later, my breathing got slower, and I noticed a longer pause between breaths. This pause was a bit difficult because I wasn't sure what to do with my mind during the pause. I kept just waiting for the next breath to start.
Soon after this, the 5 minute timer went off, and I got up and wrote this post.
In any case, today I decided to meditate for 5 minutes, trying to clear my mind. I read somewhere that the point of meditation is to clear the mind -- I'm not sure if that's true, but it's a place to start.
So I sat in my living room floor, in my best approximation of a "lotus" position, and tried to concentrate on my breathing. My mind quickly shot around to other things, and was a bit restless and bored. I kept trying to actively release control of my mind, letting it go where it would, but this did not seem to counteract the restlessness. I gave up and looked at my clock: I had only 2 more minutes to go.
So, I tried again, resetting the timer for 5 minutes. This time I decided to keep my focus on my breath. I felt my breath in, and I felt my breath out, and I would sortof imagine some imagery to go along with this -- I didn't decide to imagine imagery to go along with it, that's just how my brain interpreted the idea of "concentrating on my breath".
After a bit, I had a pretty disturbing thought. I spike was coming toward me, and piercing through my head. I kept concentrating on my breath. I wasn't afraid of the thought. It was a bit disgusting, and I assume whoever reads this will interpret it as such, but for me it was sortof like seeing a disturbing video but not paying attention to it. I had the thought at the time "this is a test my mind is playing on me, to try and direct my attention away from my breath." Anyway, the spike then started slicing down my body, and eventually the thought went away.
Then a thought came, "I should write my experience down! And what better place than the metameaninglessness blog?" This thought was very exciting, because I thought it would be a good way to keep up the practice of meditating, since I would sortof have a "checkbox" for when I did it, and I could see how it went and reflect on it.. which all seemed good.
Of course, then I thought: this is distracting me from thinking about breathing, so I decided I would probably remember to write about my experience, so I needn't worry about that, and I should continue concentrating on my breath.
A bit later, my breathing got slower, and I noticed a longer pause between breaths. This pause was a bit difficult because I wasn't sure what to do with my mind during the pause. I kept just waiting for the next breath to start.
Soon after this, the 5 minute timer went off, and I got up and wrote this post.
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