Meditation experiences

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Hi…!

Just curious about if there are any other people lurking in here who practise meditation.

I myself practise tranquility/breath and walking meditation daily since a while, and find great benefit in it. Especially because I have to deal with psychic problems, and meditation seems to bring to me great relief and extra strength to deal with the pain. It took quite a while until it helped though, and teaching myself wasn’t always effective and brought me to many wrong tracks in the beginning…but I am very glad I kept going with it and went through the initial frustration, until it started effecting the mind in positive ways and became pleasurable.

I think meditation, if done right, is a simple and natural technique to enable the mind to train and cleanse itself. It can bring great changes to the personality and the way the mind works. It can make you very calm and patient, strengthen awareness and attention, make you less distracted, reduce “junk” going on in the mind and make you deal with it more effectively, enables you to deal with problems or negativity in better ways, bring strength to control your behaviour in positive ways and change your personality to the better, make you deal with other people in more controlled, effective ways, relief stress and regenerate body and mind, enables you to deal with and even heal problematic patterns in your psyche, …

Also I personally find it becomes a very pleasurable, relaxing experience once you reach deeper levels. There is peace to be found in the inside after all, and that peace can radiate into your daily life if you foster it well… It might also bring you to pain and push you through it at times, but I think often this will on the other side have the effect of making you more tolerant to stress and enabling you to control difficult situations in more effective ways.

Of course it isn’t all that easy. You will need to go through quite some pain and frustration until the more serious techniques will show effect. Every human has a unique mind, so the experiences may vary greatly, some reach deep levels after some weeks, some need many years of hard work for the same job. Also I think with advanced techniques it is important to make sure your ethics/morality is set up the right way, because you will be confronted with yourself and the reality if you look inside, and negative patterns in thought will have to be mitigated, else they might keep you from progress and make your sessions unpleasant. Not all possible experiences are desirable, and learning about the mind can also be a very humbling, if not humiliating, experience. Some people might be confronted with very negative things, up to the point where the practice can become harmful for them, so it is best to have a good teacher or other good source of detailed information on potential problems, so that problems can be handled in the right ways, and not cause too much pain…

So how are you going with it? Any experiences to share, and which techniques are you using to train the mind? Or also negative experiences?

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This is a great post. I’ve been a meditator pretty much my whole life, mostly as a means to process lucid dreams and recurring sleep paralysis as a child.

As an adolescent, I started down the path of shamanic meditation, which is sort of the opposite of the mindfulness meditation you hear people talk so much about lately (let your mind go blank, let your thoughts wash past you, soft focus, etc). Shamanic meditation is a much more active sort of exercise, with deep focus and intent from the outset. Originally and historically, it was a means to contact “spirit animals” for guidance, but it’s a great way to experience so-called non-human intelligences (real or imagined), and a great way to deal with existential fears. It also helped me get comfortable talking to my body from the inside, and gave me the tools to be able to listen. Because it’s such an active meditation, it’s the coming back to real life that feels more like the relaxed state, and that part really appeals to me, as well.

That being said, it can definitely be scary. You’re actively probing dark places, feeling around for the unseen, and you often find disturbing truths back there. I don’t think it’s really for the casual meditator who just wants to lower their resting heart rate or chill out a bit during the commercial break.

I still lucid dream, which is probably the single biggest aspect of my psycho-spiritual life at the moment. I would say that it’s replaced most of my meditation practice, as I can reliably count on 16-72 hours of lucid dream time every night, like clockwork. If I’m not having adventures or exploring solutions for waking problems, I can spend time in the setting of my choosing to “get right”.

About 10 years ago I had a near-death experience and spent 11 days in a coma, and I firmly believe my prior experience with shamanic meditation and lucid dreaming helped guide me out of that without too many emotional scars or psychological baggage.

I think lucid dreaming is the most powerful non-narcotic soul-healing, self-exploration practice available. It’s tricky to activate, but I think it’s accessible to everyone with the right mindset and a lot of practice.

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Interesting to read about your trance and lucid dreaming experiences. I also once tried to get into lucid dreams consciously, but I found the levels I reached were too abstract and my mind too unstable to get beyond hypnagogic imagery. Maybe I will try again in some years, if my mind became stable enough by meditation practise.

Well, currently my longing is for simple things and making the mind peaceful, and not for mayhem or adventures, so I resort with the mindfulness type of meditations. Also the way it trains the mind helps me deal with certain mental problems very well.

Well there are many different types of meditation techniques in the way of mindfulness. Some is just lifestyle/wellness stuff, like many guided meditations, just thought to relax people who need some stress relief. It’s not bad and will regenerate you, but it won’t bring you all too far beyond the usual frame.

But there are also more serious mindfulness techniques, like yoga or buddhist people do. Constantly keeping the attention on a set meditation object and dealing with distractions that will arise. It is very tricky and subtle to make the mind stay with the same thing for a long time, you have to train it very hard! It will bring the mind into another state, like it will be able to recognise the body, thoughts and feelings with distance, instead of being kept within them, enabling you to watch mechanisms that are usually sub-conscious.

It is not like you just idle and let the thoughts wash and blank the mind, letting go of everything. You can try that, it is relaxing, but it won’t bring you far. The way I do it the mind is never blank, even if it can seem like it is in very advanced state. The thoughts and feelings are not ignored, but have to be accepted and evaluated, while maintaining distance and keeping with the meditation object. It is possible to have the thinking stopped later on though, it will do by itself once you concentrated the mind strong enough by keeping attention to the object. This can happen in advanced levels, after the mind was already in altered state, and that is one of the most peaceful and eerie experience to have, plus you will become conscious of higher levels of the mind that are usually hidden.

I find it interesting, that the mind seems to have mechanisms in meditation, to keep you busy and not letting the task be too easy… I think this is what will train the mind the most. Try to watch the mind or manipulate it beyond what it is usually doing, and it will turn into something making it a task of some kind. Like your experiences with other entities in trance, I am always processing thoughts and distractions in abstract ways during periods in my meditation, and I find that this transforms my personality, teaching wisdom, cleaning dirt off the spirit. Also every session is unique, sometimes it is easy to reach the current level, sometimes I really have to “bite myself through” it, and use lot of inner effort to stay calm.

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Only did it a couple of times to remove stress. It helped but I didn’t feel the need to keep it up daily so I don’t practice it on the regular. With that being said I did see a video recently about the topic of Zen Koans, short unsolvable thought experiments used by Buddhist Monks, that are used with meditation and I thought it was very good. Could be worth a look if you’ve not heard of them before.

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Interreting topic, this is quite personnal for each person.

I personally practice Zen meditation, but I admit not every days. Certainly this is the reason why I don’t still reached in deeper level with it. I came to Zen due to my interrest to Japan and Aikido.

So years ago I came regulary at Paris’ Zen dojo. I remember a meditation when came heavy rain on Paris… listening the sound of the rain on the street during the session and the silence of the other zen practitionners… letting the mind flowing, just a beautifull feeling.

Also with friends I helped several times showing to people the Zen meditation during Japan Expo (a big event in Paris related to anime and j-pop culture), and that was a super nice sharing experience! People, even teenagers, was often surprized how following the methode help to let go, despite a really busy and loudy environnement.

About an everydays’ method, I practice Reiki self-treatment since 20 years. Reiki is a japanese healing practice, between meditation and energetic treatment.

My practice is really simple and does not incluse much esoteric side. I especialy focus on the relaxation side with a spiritual touch and I’m happy with it.

The main thing I learned with Reiki is to take care of myself (and after that, taking care of others).

With Zen meditation I discovered the letting go (that not mean I’m so good at it).

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I’ve been practicing meditation for a long, long time…

My first experiences with zazen were as a young teenager in karate class. Throughout my 20s I studied hatha and ashtanga yoga, and participated in Shambhala. In my mid 30s I returned to martial arts. I currently have a purple belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu - before Covid Crisis I would hit the dojo 4 times a week. Things are strange with the mma right now. Training about twice a week. I’m probably a year, year and 1/2 shy of brown belt. Jiu jitsu average time to black belt is about 10 years…

I continue to practice yoga, and meditation, and still visit the local Shambhala Sangha on rare occasion.

More info on Shambhala here: https://www.amazon.com/Shambhala-Sacred-Warrior-Chogyam-Trungpa/dp/1590304519

Also one of my favorite meditation personalities is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thích_Nhất_Hạnh

Those with further interest should look into: https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Art-Seamm-Jasani-Movements/dp/158542241X

https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Self-Realization-Fellowship-Paramahansa-Yogananda/dp/0876120796/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Paramahansa+Yogananda&qid=1593744849&s=books&sr=1-2