Did you meditate today? Meditation is a good way to counter the stress from heavy lifting...

I've been meaning to meditate and am half way through a book on it, but I keep forgetting and then when I'm stressed about the same shit on my.kind that always drags me down I remember i need to meditate. Hopefully I'll finally start to actually do it tomorrow and then daily after.

I will meditate when I get back home. I never can before class, it starts too early. Thanks for the reminder : )

About to meditate once these mushrooms kick in. 5 dried grams on an empty stomach (24 hour fast) want to do a non-redditfag AMA? I'll go as long as I can manage to type.

placebo as fuck

Let's get back to a good place together breh

m.youtube.com/watch?v=a7pzAxRa2Ok

Tips for a beginner?

How do I meditate. My mind just runs wild with thoughts and scenarios

My mom taught me breathing retention to help with anxiety and I do that sometimes.
Recently I saw a video about Wim Hof and he does something similar to what I was taught. My mom didn't know other people do that, she said she just started doing it out of nowhere. A lot of ppl on Youtube comments were shitting on Wim Hof for it, what's your opinion Veeky Forums? Is it just buddhists butthurt because it went mainstream?

if you googled "how to mediate" just once you would have your answer, jesus

Ever hear that high pitched tone when you're in a quiet room after a noisy day? Focus everything you are on that sound and nothing else for as long as you can. Focus on its modulations or variations. Maintain this for as long as you can.

just don't attach yourself to the thoughts and scenarios

bring your attention back to your breath when you get yourself lost in thought

it gets easier as you practice and your mind calms down

it's not about not thinking, it's about not hanging on to the thoughts that appears in your mind

Meditation is basically training your brain to become present and empty of thoughts.

As you become better at meditation it will become easier to get into this state of emptiness and calm.

It just takes consistency and patience.

Alright dude. Same thing happening to you ?

Meditate for 20 min a day , think I want to get up to 45. I used to do 90 min a day and really felt the benefits but I don't have that kind of time. Life is getting in the way of my enlightment

Isn't meditation just relaxing?
Can't I do that just watching Netflix? I'm currently in the 3rd season of Mad Men, pretty good, although everyone in the 60s was DYEL apparently.

Meditation brah here. I'm starting to get more and more into it. I don't think I really have a specific style but I mainly focus on my breath or just general emptiness.

You're doing it, allow the thoughts to come and go, try your best to not react or entertain the thoughts. Anytime you find yourself about to always go back to focusing on your breathing. The thoughts don't mean you're failing, so don't worry. Just keep at it and as you get more practiced they start to come less and less.

No, meditation is a state of concentration on something whether it be your breath, a mantra, or nothingness. With Netflix you are engaged, and constantly taking in information, meditation is a state of concentrating on training your mind on searching inward. Or that's how I see it.

No is the short answer.

Don't get me wrong, I can get into TV series like a junkie and binge watch certain things on youtube for hours, and while you may think you are relaxing, your brain is being bombarded with stimuli every minute you watch that show. You may feel physically relaxed but your brain still isn't getting a break.

Just try meditation, it feels really good and I would've called myself an idiot a few years ago for "believing" in meditation. Sit your ass down on a cushion, do a half lotus and just focus on a point that you see while keeping a neutral spine. Focus on breathing and acknowledge the stream of thoughts entering your head, breathe and push them back out.

Shit's relaxing bro, give it a try for 5 minutes tomorrow morning and I guarantee you'll feel good.

Thanks, I'll give it a try tomorrow morning.

Is it better to do multiple different ways of meditation during one day or just to pick one method and stick with it?

I want to do zen, mindfulness, visualizations, and experiment with more. I just don't know if I'll get long-term benefits if I'm mixing methods.

...

You do know that there are multiple studies showing the results of meditation on the brain? I mean yeah it could still be construed as placebo but why wouldn't you want to trick your mind into being better in every way regardless.

Just stick with zen and mindfulness.

>buddhist
Did you grow up Buddhist or adopt it later in life?

The meditation aspects of Buddhism intrigue about the religion, but I am an atheist and don't think I can ever believe in a god.

>inb4 fedora-- force fed Catholicism all my life and organized religion just doesn't sit right with me

Lifting doesn't give me stress, it reduces my stress and makes me more well balanced

Before the modern bullshit buddhism trend we used to call meditation relaxation.

Fellow OCD bro here, looking for answers as well

>lifting doesn't stress your muscles, your mental, joints

You're not lifting heavy enough

Ever heard of NLP and Meta-thinking?

Well me neither, but meditation is still pretty cool I guess

Muscles yes but not my mind. The gym is my relaxation time.

Attempting a PR or grinding a rep doesn't strain your mind?

No? Dude it's physical. You can either do it or can't do it, there's no worries.

>doesn't get worried that if you fail a bench press, you'll injure yourself and make a scene in the gym

You shouldn't solo bench an amount you're unsure you can lift to begin with.

Let's achieve new heights together.

Walking meditation is where it's at

Any good videos by wim hof about his breathing?

meditation is great. have a nice day bro

Its all pretty simple. The easy and straightforward way to do it would be to simply sit down, close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. You shouldn't try to forcibly supress your thoughts, just let them fly by and breathe. Do it for 15 minutes twice a day. You can also try to visualise something inside your head and concentrate on it or use a mantra or whatever. Ultimately it all works the same way, don't make it more complex than it needs to be

nice quads
practice
try headspace it's a good app

not that guy but i adopted buddhism after being atheist for a number of years. I don't believe in a god but do believe in some universal connection and follow the teaching of Buddha

>hey come sit for hours to "clear your mind"
>no, we don't have any scientific evidence to back up our claims you just have to trust the process bro
>just sit for 7 hours a day eating only crackers and lemon juice
Get the fuck out you buddhist gains goblins.

pure O ocd reporting in

have you guys read 'the power of now'?

started reading it last night and i already have more of a positive outlook about life.

dont fucking call it meditating
people will think you're some tree hugging hippy who doesn't wear deoderant
you can literally lie down and just relax and maybe even fall asleep from it, thats still meditating
you don't have to be the shitskin in the OP and sit like a faggot and close your eyes like you're some smug fuck

Oh shit, I'm pure O too. How are you holding up user?

yes please

(You) good content

Not here
but yeah, in similar spot here. Gotta go back to meditation, let's do it, we know it's good for us!

I think this dude was in my physics 2 class...

> we don't have any scientific evidence

my sides

youtube.com/watch?v=sAKdFBg40pk

You wont get it the first time, but you will find, see and feel new meanings over the years as you develope.

Bump for interest! OCD has gotten really bad lately I'm honestly scared for my future. Feels bad man.

No, but lifting to failure foes work

You are much wiser than this post shows

Applies to 90% of the posts on this board

Never heard of Pure O. Looked it up. Holy shit I think this is what I have. Recently developed it this year. Always had regular OCD but newer shit developed that I couldn't explain and drives me crazy.

>user asks a meditation related question
>on a post about meditation
>durr hurr google it
fuck off mate

Sounds like you need meditation brother

You have issues mate.
Literally how can something as simple as people talking about meditation get you this upset.
Seek help bruv

Buddhism has no god

Is this placebo?

youtube.com/watch?v=wusYZFXpPas

This focus meditation is some intense shit.
Meditating to the point where your focus is unparalleled with anything else on this planet is incredible.
Meditation for relaxing might be placebo, as it's pretty much similar to sleeping, just while sitting, but meditating to increase focus and resistance to pain is very real.
I'm not knowledgeable enough on the topic to discuss it any further, but when I meditate to increase my physical and mental resistance to pain, I've felt much stronger, and resistant.
There's just a type of "off switch" that I can trigger in my brain now during intense periods of focus that allow me to withstand incredible pressures and pains.
It's truly incredible what focus meditation can do for you.

I am about to try out some buddhist meditation,

There are some classes in my city, but desu I do not have time atm to attend them (busy month at work)

can any anons here guilde me to some internet materials so I can try it out at my place?

Or is it something that has to be learned and learning it by myslef will be a waste of time?

I got into it years ago with the Diamond Way centers, where they offer guided meditation like twice or thrice per week. You should check in their website if you have one nearby and join one session, they usually hand out these blue booklets you can be using for years.

promienie.net/images/dharma/books/16th-karmapa_meditation.pdf
wikileaks.org/wiki/Ole_Nydahl_Diamond_Way_Buddhist_books

Of course I linked you to a pdf but only so you can get a look at it, you should try to get a physical copy to use for meditation.

lifting heavy is the stress relief

ok, I am probably am retarded and I don't know shit. Is this somekind of mantra to read during meditation? Is there is nothing more? I guess I'll wait till I have some time to attend classes...

Straining, also known as putting stress on something, is what you do to muscles. Cannot be stress relief if you strain to do it.

Nothing is the point

Hey user, just got back from uni so this is a late af response but I'll answer it cause why not.

I adopted it. It's like a "born again" type thing, I just woke up one day and knew I was reincarnated from a buddhist and got my shit together, became a much better person very quickly from reading the book of flowers.
Classic religious bs I know, but it's the way of it.

There aren't specific gods so much as there are sects which mingle with each other, mahayana sect has a lot of indian lore and shit in it like Vishnu and Mara, book of fire is that one. Though I don't believe in gods so much as I do the soul, karma, and reaching nibbana.

It humbles me to know that my iteration will never reach nibbana, but with my wisdom, one day, a soul thousands to millions of years from now will come to understand, and my good work is simply another step of their journey.

Funny thing about buddhism is that you'll simply know if you are one. You might already be catholic, muslim or protestant. It doesn't matter. Buddhism is the only spiritual philosophy where its teachings can be employed by anyone of religious persuasion. Atheist buddhists exist user, do some research if your interested, you'll be fascinated by it.

It's just a text with instructions for the guided meditation. You can do without it as well, in fact that's what I do nowadays, only that for starters is one of the best things to do since it introduces many of the attitudes useful fro meditation.
>It humbles me to know that my iteration will never reach nibbana,
why so many buddhists out there have that attitude? Every one I meet thinks that although it is a great thing they won't achieve it in their life, that somehow it is out of their reach.

The word "enlightenment" sounds like a superhuman feat but I don't think it is so, even if it happens very rarely. I think it is just "paying attention". Even Gautama taught it was the most natural of things.

Just b urself bro.

fine right now desu

i actually had a few really good days last week where i basically felt totally normal, but then my intrusive thoughts came back. it gave me hope though. this shit isn't permanent, you just have to accept it and let it pass. i also had it when i was 15 and i can't remember how long it lasted, but it did go away eventually.

also there is a supplement called inositol which you should try.

good luck brother. if you have a burner email and would like to talk or anything put it in the field and i'll email you.

The stress is what cause an adaptation, aka muscle growth.
And meditation is NOT shown to relieve exercise induced stress.

That is one really good book, user. It really gave me a direction on how meditation can be practiced for best results and a good explanation on what all religions are based on, which also gives you a new point of view on history in general, or at least that was for me. I never got out so much of meditation before reading this book, and many people experienced something similar to an ego death just by reading it or reading and practicing what the book says.

This is a book one should keep and study several times throughout his life, I've read it twice or thrice and I can assure you the more you read it the more you get out of it.

No wonder it became such a huge best seller with almost no publicity except the mouth to mouth during the first few years.

yeah it's wild, i have only read the first chapter but already i feel like i completely understand what the book is about

I've been meditating for a few years and this seems to go against the general idea I've learned from meditating. As I understand you're not building up a resistance to pain - that's considered a form of aversion. The idea is that you give up all resistance to the pain itself - and by doing so the pain is completely gone. The physical pain may still be present but their will be no mental pain.

I have hard enough time getting through the day with meditation without being reminded of the time i watched Army Dog, sometimes when I am sitting out on the sand dunes at sunset doing my yogic breathing I start to hear the screaming all over again and can't shut it out

Well, Nietzsche said once something along the lines "you could summarize every single book in existence to one phrase and still not lose its essence", and this is very well the case of this book too, only for this one it is even more obvious because it is closer to truth.

Truth is always simple. The book can be summarized in "YOU ARE NOT YOUR MIND", and like most books it only gets to have some length because it deals with the limitless applications that simple yet true principle can have in many facets of life. I have found this principle to exist whenever I found anything that I came to consider true.

> As I understand you're not building up a resistance to pain - that's considered a form of aversion.
>The idea is that you give up all resistance to the pain itself - and by doing so the pain is completely gone.
>The physical pain may still be present but their will be no mental pain.

That is my experience with meditation for focus too. If you have enough will to stop thinking about how bad physical pain is and how much you'd like not to be experiencing it, to be somewhere else, then you have removed the majority of it. It has to do with acceptance, being in the present moment, where is the only place you can be in, even if it is one of pain, is better than pretending or wishing to be somewhere else.

As they say: Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

The good thing here is that that mental resilience is with you in many other things in life, all the time. You are more calm and collected because you accept the moment you are in, you or your mind don't feel the need to flee somewhere else and acknowledge it's pointless to wish you were somewhere or someone else. It's like the allegory of the cave, you can choose to live in the real world that is in front of your eyes or pass your entire life daydreaming.

You reading the online PDF? I was the user who posted that.

Very happy to see you are enjoying it. It changed my life in a big way. You understand what it's about because it is fundamentally logical; it's not hokey new-age bullshit (despite what the title would suggest).

Eckhart is also incredibly relaxing to watch. He has plenty of videos on youtube from retreats he does.

how to focus meditation then?

Find some external object to place in front of you, something "positive", one meter or so from you on the ground and focus on that.

You could also try self-denial. If you don't exist, and only the external world does, you have no problems of your own to think about and only the present moment exists.

Another thing that works is cosmic awareness, try to imagine how huge the universe is and how small you are by comparison and your everyday problems will look like nothing, allowing you to stop thinking about them and concentrate better.

I don't know, there are many, many tricks out there that work for returning to present moment awareness, depending on the type of person you are. You must try and keep using the ones that work for you.

>Find some external object to place in front of you, something "positive", one meter or so from you on the ground and focus on that.

Congrats, now you have to look autistically at the ground to find peace in your every day life. At least train yourself to look straight ahead, not down.

>You could also try self-denial. If you don't exist, and only the external world does, you have no problems of your own to think about and only the present moment exists.

This is literally a classified mental illness. Good luck unfucking your shit after you meme yourself into developing a mental illness on purpose.

>cosmic awareness, try to imagine how huge the universe is and how small you are by comparison

This is okay since it's not a distortion of reality (you do exist, pretending otherwise is retarded) and is accessible at all times (unlike staring at something), the world really is vast, no harm in reminding yourself of this fact.

Okay, okay, I get it, you have lots of strong opinions on these things. But have you tried them?

How about you stop peddling what works on paper but doesn't in practice and start trying things that may work regardless what the theory says.

>such and such is classified as mental illness
Psychiatry is a pseudo science. Only the gullible would take counsel from a psychiatrist. No amount of drugging yourself or paying someone to pretend to be your friend will fix your problems.

You are 100% responsible for your mind and no "diagnostic" will relieve that responsibility from you.

lmao meditation is so gay smoke some pot and read a book if you're really such a deep guy

Buddhism is not a religion. They don't believe in god. I am an atheist and I'm also intrigued by big parts of Buddhist way of life. You should read about it and incorporate the positive points in your life. The general outlook on causing no harm to yourself or others, the discipline of meditation and the unconditional love towards others helps you live a fulfilling and happy life as a member of society.

that's some bad posture

youtube.com/watch?v=EWHRumILOOk
This video explains the method, it's something like 30 short breaths followed by holding your breath for a minute then filling your lung with air and holding your breath for again for a shorter period of time.

I linked the wrong vid lmao, this is the right one: youtu.be/OpTG02x6w5o?t=81 (starts at 1:21).

>you can literally lie down and just relax and maybe even fall asleep from it, thats still meditating

>sleeping is meditating

Meditation is basically the mental equivalent of clearing off a crowded desk.
You just 10-20min to just concentrate on something, a mantra, your breathing, your neighbors farting in the wind next door. Doesn't matter, just has to be something consistent.
Your brain goes through the day jumping from one thought to the next. If you drink caffeine this only increases the problem.

Meditation just allows your mind to reset and calm down. A good analogy is someone that's trying to see through a glass full of muddy water. You won't get anywhere if you just try and shake it. Instead, if you just let it remain still for awhile, the sediment will sink to the bottom, allowing you to see clearly through the glass.
In this analogy your mind is the glass.