Thread 41359186

What is the best way to meditate?
Just sit and focus on my breath?

>>41359186 (OP)
Just sit and observe your thoughts

>>41359186 (OP)
Relax and focus on all that you need to do
Albeit don't list things and approach it
from an empty set of thinking
But fall into your mind in visual learning

>>41359215
This lotus is best half lotus is good but just fucking do it.

>>41359215
Just sit and monkemaxxing in spiritualed astropilled cohesion.

>>41359186 (OP)
Loving kindness meditation and mindfulness of death to cultivate joy and curb your pride respectively. Mindfulness of breathing to enter the jhanas and develop concentration

>>41359691
Lovemaxxed kindpilled meditation and be minded of death to cultived joypilled and curbmaxxed pride respectived. Mindfulness of breathed to enter the zoom and concentrationmaxxed

>>41359739
uh...yeah

>>41359186 (OP)
>What is the best way to meditate?
Your way is the vest way, i.e. you have to fjnd your way
>Just sit and focus on my breath?
Pretty much it.
If you are an autistic, with time you'll start to notice patterns of meditatuon abd you'll probably start to map the mental states they induce.
>>41359473
>cohesion
Based and cohesionpilled

>>41359186 (OP)
its not just about breath
its about fine tuning the breath to be as efficient as possible
this is the proper first training
you just dont sniff the air, use the diaphragm, it attaches to the lumbar spine
support the exhale with the perineum and abdominal muscles
exhale fully but not to the point of strain
smooth the transitions in between inhale and exhale
the better you keep your attention focused on the task at hand, the better the autonomic programming that takes place
once you master breathing and paying attention to executing it perfectly a bazillion times
your body is programmed with a maximally efficient way to breathe
then you can focus more on cultivating the awareness itself, things arise out of just that

>>41359829
>Based and cohesionpilled
austisticpilled zoomaxxed meditated inducitor

>>41359908
How should the pelvis be placed when I sit on a chair? (I can't do lotus) Should I rotate it a bit backwards (posterior pelvic tilt) so the lumbar spine gets straightened (meaning that the normal lordosis we all have becomes zero)?

Also should I breath only with the pelvic floor and front belly? Or should I also expand the sides of my belly and the lower back? I'm asking because the diaphragm attaches to these places too.

>>41360039
try and get the lumbosacral junction parallel to the ground, that is where the body of L5 meets the top of the sacrum
you more or less want to stack the spinal bones as if they were a bunch of flat rocks
the main ingredient of inhaling is the motion of the diapragm
you dont need to consciously expand places, just let them naturally relax and manage the diaphragm
getting its motion down smoothly is an order of magnitude more important than getting a little more in those extra areas

>>41360222
Thank you!

Define meditation first.

>>41359908
>focus more on cultivating the awareness

How do I do that? Do I keep focusing on the breath?
Or it's the "focus on your own awareness" thing which people keep talking about and I never really understood?

>>41360395
its just paying attention, at root
but, if one has trouble with this, then that just means one is still at the stage where breathwork is appropriate to focus on, primarily

>>41360222
sacrapilled lumbomaxxed bodytagged meditated inhalitor

>>41359186 (OP)
Metta. Read the path to nibbana by David Johnson

>>41363181
metta will naturally arise out of a proper cultivation regimen
but some people love to try and fake it till they make it

Observe your attention as it hops from one thought or perception to the next.
Once you've done that long enough to get some good concentration, switch to vipassana and observe the anicca/dukkha/anatta of all perceptions, using the Noting technique if you need to. When you get good at that, you will naturally release clinging to perceptions at the bare sensate level which frees up a ton of mental energy and is ultimately what leads to stream entry and beyond.

>>41363611
>Observe your attention as it hops from one thought or perception to the next.
this is just a waste of time
>Once you've done that long enough to get some good concentration
mainly because the former does not necessarily lead to the latter
>Once you've done that long enough to get some good concentration, switch to vipassana ("to see things as they really are") and observe the anicca/dukkha/anatta (the three marks of existence in Buddhism, representing impermanence, suffering or unsatisfactoriness, and selflessness or non-self) of all perceptions, using the Noting technique if you need to.
this is a winding path around the mountain, paying attention to the scenery, thinking about the scenery's impermanence...hoping its going to lead to better ability to concentrate, and somehow worrying about clinging to perceptions hoping to decrease this clinging, not realizing that analysis of these things is entirely unnecessary, the operation is noncommutative from a habit standpoint.
this means the opposite of the thing does not cancel out the thing
habit energy is like this:
analysis, noting, paying attention to the scenery, watching the awareness shift from one thing to another...these are all techniques that waste time and dont necessarily further one's meditative advancement.
what you have is habit energies that include the generation of random thoughts
analyzing this is not going to counter it, observing it all and not immediately doing something about it is not going to counter it
what leads to "stream entry" is eliminating the habit energies of the ruminating mind
there is no way to kill a habit except to replace it with another habit
any observation/analysis does not lessen the habit energy of randomly arising thoughtforms
what lessens that habit energy is reinforcing the habit energy of the practice fundamentals
for beginners this pretty much means anapanasati, cultivated until the habit energy of the nerves/thoughts are dampened

>>41359186 (OP)
>>41359186 (OP)
The reason breath is often the focus of meditation is that it is the clearest example of a semi-autonomous process outside of thought itself. So, the thinking goes, if you can watch your breath, you can watch your thoughts. "Watch" is the key word here. Pay attention to your breathing. Now do so without controlling it? Pretty hard. Very hard for many.

The key for me was breathing exercises. I think one thing that has been lost in modern meditation practice is doing work to alter your conscious state prior to the meditation work itself. How are you suppose to think yourself into a meditative state? And how are you suppose to settle down enough? There are many ways to do this, but it is a brick wall for most people when it comes to meditation. Try the basic breathing exercise below and keep the last breath hold as long as you can and let the video run out. Turn off autoplay.

Now meditate. See if you can wait for the body to start to breath on its own. It will be slower than you imagine, and gentle, easily disturbed. You will feel it rising very low, but as steady as the tide. It will take a while to even get one full breath after acquainting yourself with the sensation. But what's best about his method is that once you get out of the other side of the breathing exercise, you will know what you want to rest your attention on. It might not be the breath, it might be watching the parade/storm of thoughts, or the way your skin feels, or the soles of your feet, or the blood moving through your body, or the noticing that you have two visualization areas of the mind. What I mean to say here, is that once your put yourself in a conscious state to meditate you will always already know what to meditate on.

Best of luck!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU6Oi80n5J4

>>41364096
>Now do so without controlling it?
this is why the breath is trained and refined to a high level so that it can take place autonomously in a maximally efficient manner

>>41364257
I don't doubt you. In Breath, by James Nestor, he featured a quote from freediver who stated there are as many ways to breath as there are foods to eat. But if you want to meditate and haven't had a need to practice breathing, then I don't think you need to start by refining breath, just working with it. Our neuroticism, more than our lack of training, interferes in our ability to simply observe the breath, just as it is with our mind and our thoughts. I do agree, in a sense, that breath training is important, which is why I recommend exercising your breath as a warmup routine for meditation practice.

>>41364349
>and haven't had a need to practice breathing
this is assuming anything resembling optimal breathing patterns are naturally by default what's executed
which doesnt happen
every meditator should have this proper beginning
but alas, many dont

I find it is better to meditate while walking. It's much harder, but it's clearer to you when you're actually hitting the cognitive sweet spot.

>>41364472
Perhaps that's why it seems to me the perfect way to begin the practice is to learn to wait for the diaphragm to engage and understand this feeling/sensation. Being present for the inrush of energy that is the synchronized heart and diaphragm is unforgettable and, I believe, a prerequisite for any supplemental training.

>>41359186 (OP)
nice thread; i have also noticed that most buddhist esc threads are pretty positive and also high quality

>>41366466
>learn to wait for the diaphragm to engage
what do you mean by this

>>41366466
>the perfect way to begin the practice is to learn to wait for the diaphragm to engage
this pretty much makes no sense at all as written

What even is meditation? You guys always speak about it and everyone has a different way of doing it and what it achieves.

>>41372334
It's a bucket term comprised of all these different practices. Something like mental exercises performed for a limited period of time might fit as a descriptor

>>41372334
It's an exercise where you relax your body. Just like exercising the body, it can be done in a multitude of ways for a multitude of reasons and results. What you're asking is like asking "What even is exercise? You guys always speak about it and everyone has a different way of doing it and what it achieves."

>>41373845
*where you relax your body and really focus on something.

>>41359215
What does observing your thoughts mean?

>>41374288
exactly

>>41374288
Know thyself.

>>41359186 (OP)
>>41359215
When I meditate I focus on my breathing but at some point soon I start focusing on sexual thoughts and my dig gets hard.

I kinda like zuckerberg and bernie

>>41368060
>>41369176
>>41368060
>>41369176
Your body breathes on it's own. Like in sleep. That rythem syncs up with your heart [see Chasing the Wild Pendulum]. To watch/observe/witness the breath is not to have a hand in it's process, but to fully attend to it. It is possible to watch your body breath, to feel it rise from nowhere. It is no small feat. At least not for me.

>>41372334
>What even is meditation? You guys always speak about it and everyone has a different way of doing it and what it achieves.
the etymology of the word is the reason for the confusion
"real meditation" is basically dhyana, cultivating the awareness
the blanket term can generally be split into 3 categories:
the og western etymology indicating contemplation,
dhyaha/stillness meditation, the yin compliment of spiritual practices,
and any active spiritual practices, of which our topic itt is but one, which are the yang side of cultivation that shape things like siddhis.
this means that what siddhis manifest is mostly a function of whatever yang practices are undertaken
the highest amplitudes are produced by a balance of yin and yang,
but yang practices dont cultivate much yin
when yin is cultivated, yang easily rises to match it
this is why any spiritual undertaking should have a basis of stillness underlying all of it
it can be noted that contemplation really only enters the picture by accident of etymology
contemplation isnt really a spiritual practice
and mentation of any sort is antithetical to advancement in stillness endeavors, for it consumes the same root energy required for advanced meditative states to arise
indeed, meditative states cannot be manifested upon command
one may only arrange the conditions for them to arise
the universe is quantum mechanical and probability is merely the outcomes of having arranged the conditions for a given thing

>>41374288
>What does observing your thoughts mean?
it means you're not making much of any progress in meditation
random thoughts destroy advanced meditative states
so this fact makes the notion of "observing thoughts" complete folly
the only proper action upon the arising of a random thought is to immediately abandon it and return the focus to the practice you were undertaking
the reason for this is habit energy/momentum
random thoughts arise as a blowoff valve that resolves the 60Hz conscious and 250Hz subconscious processes, with a creative side benefit
but at root its the same reason animals randomly wag their tails
so if one wishes to lessen the habit energy of random thoughts, "observing" them or letting them continue at all in any way shape or form is merely contributing towards the habit energy of randomly thinking and isnt productive
given that there's positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, this translates to there not being any such thing as an anti habit, its a noncommutative operation
in that "the opposite of the thing will not lessen the thing"
this means that a habit cannot be destroyed, it can only be replaced with another habit
thus one should just simply immediately return to the practice, immediately, the instant the deviation is noticed
that is the only way to properly reinforce the habit of the practice and lessen the habit of randomly thinking

>>41374954
sure the body breathes on its own, the instruction set that it defaults to is stored in the medulla
this default instruction set can be modified so that by default it is meditative breathing
its the entire reason to train anapanasati
the heart speeds up and slows down along with breath at the stage where the breathing has been brought under good control but the heart hasnt gotten the memo yet
a true experience of heartmind solves that problem

>>41375633
>of which our topic itt is but one,
kek this isnt the k thread

>>41364096
>no mention of the balls

I observed one of my thoughts but nothing happened!

>>41376294
You need to install mind computer

meditatemaxxing, what a question.
>go sit on your lower legs. one hand over the other, in front of your belly
>focus a point on the ground aprox. 1m away
>breath in thru your nose and exhale through your mouth

do this for 8-10years and viola: simsatratra achieved

>>41376347
>do this for 8-10years
a properly focused regimen should not take this long at all
I had full blown repeatable (daily) samahdi light in a year and a half

>>41376544
What was your regimen?

>>41377343
I am olfactoryanon
I took anapanasati to its logical conclusions via rote habituation
one needs to learn to breathe properly so as not to rouse the neurology
which means you cant sniff the air when you breathe
return, return, return to the practice until the habit energy of meditation destroys the habit energy of the ruminating mind
once true stillness arises, the energy potential within is stark and noticeable
this needs to be kept and cultivated further in order for the spiritual light to arise
its rather simple, but requires dedicated execution
execute properly, repeatedly, I daresay one cannot fail

>>41375633
Good post, at last someone who knows.

>>41359186 (OP)
By breathing in and out and thinking of Jesus and God's infinite love and wisdom