Is meditation a meme?

remake of lolita ft pete dink when?

bump

>Replace meditation with general relaxation.

Meditating means focusing on not thinking at all, breathing consciously, feeling yourself, feeling God, etc. A good book is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. This is a video, not a book (obviously), but I recommend it, as it got me into meditation: youtube.com/watch?v=8a5fO8jE7mc

>mumbling Tibetan gibberish.
That's right but relaxation and meditation are two totally different things user. Both are healthy and helpful but meditation is different and although these yoga mamas in their forties that read Thich Nhat Hanh meditate, it doesn't mean that it is bullshit.
Try to research a bit on buddhist meditation and jhanas and you'll understand the difference. Don't close these door just based on prejudice user, it is really great

Motivation is fleeting but discipline lasts. DO you think all the great achievers in human history were constantly motivated?

Discipline>motivation.

I find it funny how meditation was appropriated by unfulfilled secular consumerists yet those same people will deride prayer or other religious activities.

>Just meditate bro
Cool man thanks I'll try
>Try praying bro
Wow are you seriously trying to push your religion on me??

zizek pls go

What difference though? Anything you do causes differences in your brain.

theconversation.com/meditation-mindfulness-and-mind-emptiness-21291

those are pretty much different things...

I prefer not to

I think meditation is very nice and beneficial. I just haven't been able to get into the rhythm and habit of it. The longest consecutively I've maintained daily meditation is only about two weeks which is pretty laughable desu. It's difficult for me to deviate from my "routine" and to add new habits.

The main method of prayer is the rosary or its orthodox counterpart. Very very similar to meditation. Eastern Orthodox even incorporate breathing control into prayer recital.

They are essentially the same but after generations of ridicule the secular normies can't eat humble pie and start paying again.

Meditation is practice for controlling attention. You can't relax if you are preoccupied with what you should be doing or the feeling you don't deserve to relax.

I was raised mormon. Prayer was forbidden from being ritual repetition and was supposed to be a literal conversation with God. This type of prayer may be helpful in someways but is definitely not meditation. I'd be interested in using Catholic prayers as meditation but I don't know the ritual. I'd also love to go to confession but I need someone to tech me how or the priest will figure out I'm not Catholic.

>"routine"
Every time you use needless citation marks I kill a child.

Why does it always put in this bullshit terms

> empty your mind

Who the fuck find this appealing

Yeah. They get that from Matthew 6 I think. Jesus mentions repetitions as useless before teaching the Lord's prayer. Other parts of the Bible mention ceaseless prayer. It's all very hard to figure out what exactly to do I suppose.

I agree with this post, but that mainly has to do with people misunderstanding prayer and it's purpose, whereas people over complicate and mystify meditation.

When I first started to read about dhyana meditation, the very first thing I wanted to know about was: "What did it feel like when one had accessed a dhyana state." Because I knew that if I could answer that question, then I would be able to gain access to it AT WILL. I just needed to KNOW (from direct experience) what they were talking about. Then I could figure out how to get there.
>
>Oddly enough, one of the best clues as to what this state was like came from reading the Mahasaccaka Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya (MN 36). It told about the occasion when Gotama himself first realized that the dhyana state might be a pathway to enlightenment. But it also gave me a clue as to how that state was materialized, and just exactly what it was! An extract from that passage follows below:
>
>31. "I considered: 'I recall that when my father the Sakyan was occupied, while I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, I entered upon and abided in the first jhana, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion.[389] Could that be the path to enlightenment?' Then, following on that memory, came the realization: 'That is the path to enlightenment.'
>32. "I thought: 'Why am I afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensual pleasures and unwholesome states?' I thought: 'I am not afraid of that pleasure since it has nothing to do with sensual pleasures and unwholesome states.'[390]
>

>Footnotes
>389. MA: During the Bodhisatta's boyhood as a prince, on one occasion his father led a ceremonial ploughing at a traditional festival of the Sakyans. The prince was brought to the festival and a place was prepared for him under a rose-apple tree. When his attendants left him to watch the ploughing ceremony, the prince, finding himself all alone, spontaneously sat up in the meditation posture and attained the first jhana through mindfulness of breathing.
>
>390. This passage marks a change in the Bodhisatta's evaluation of pleasure;now it is no longer regarded as something to be feared and banished by the practice of austerities, but, when born of seclusion and detachment, is seen as a valuable accompaniment of the higher stages along the path to enlightenment. See MN 139.9 on the twofold division of pleasure.
>
>I recalled experiences from my childhood when I experienced a pleasant sensation in my head when I would swing on those leather saddle swings in a park that allowed you a nice long back swing and a long forward swing. It gave the sensation of being able to fly through the air. There were other instances where I recalled just calmly watching something (some peaceful event or other, could be just about anything) which I became absorbed in and a tingling sensation would arise inside the top of my head. That was what Gotama was talking about. (You see what I mean about reading the suttas; there are little clues there that can help you put two and two together.)

Similar experiences of concentration occurred when I would be reading an interesting book and became unmindful of the time that had passed because I had become so absorbed in reading the book. Just this is CONCENTRATION (also known as samadhi)! That pleasant absorption in an object of interest. Most people can point to having experienced similar occurrences.
>

>Of course you are correct in saying that you "can't force it," meaning dropping down into an absorption state, or a similar state known as appana samadhi or fixed concentration. Appana samadhi is what I practice now. It allows one to use contemplation (insight meditation) in order to examine and analyze any object (or mental subject, like the teachings of the Dhamma) that one wishes to observe in order to gather more details about it.
>
>In order to reach a state of appana samadhi, the best foreplay for that state is being able to attain to the fourth dhyana. The fourth dhyana is extremely quiet and profoundly peaceful and is the doorway to being able to attain to the four (or five, the fifth being the "cessation of perception and feeling" or sanna-vedayita-nirodha) immaterial dhyanas. Incidently, it is not necessary that one necessarily experience the immaterial dhyanas in pursuit of awakening. Being able to attain the first four are all that is necessary. Because they help one develop samadhi.
>
>In order to have access to these states, as a meditator, one just has to be patient and relaxed and allow them to come to you, then not become overly excited when they do occur because you might upset them if you allow the mind too much movement. Once a meditator has experienced the fourth dhyana, it may occur to him that this is a stable enough state from which to use contemplation (or insight methods of meditation). And he may grow weary of having to go through the previous three stages of dhyana in order to obtain that fourth state. That is when he figures out that he can go directly to appana samadhi at the very start of his sit, and be there within two or three breaths. And then he is off to the races!

>The fourth dhyana (from my experience) is a state where the meditator enters a profound state of tranquility where, unless the mind provokes them into existence, thoughts do not arise and one's awareness is only focused on the utter non-movement of the mind and the peace that this brings. When you get enough of that, though, mental inertia carries you over into something more meaningful wherein the mind is encouraged to engage in movement and thought. And this is when one can begin a practice in a more profound insight contemplation on matters pertaining to the Dhamma that Gotama taught.
>
>Yet, it stands to reason that one should be able to contemplate these subtle teachings by just applying their own waking consciousness to these matters and to reap the same rewards as during meditation contemplation. So, it seems to me that any attention at all directed toward the Dhamma and its deeper understanding would be well worth the time spent, no matter whether one was a master in meditation or not. If you get around to reading Bhikkhu Bodhi's writings, you will find someone who understands the Dhamma quite well from an academic standpoint. I find it hard to believe that that hasn't also translated into a profound integration of the Dhamma into his psyche and personality. It is well known that Bodhi has suffered from migraine headaches all his life, and as a result has not always been able to perform a fruitful meditation practice. Do you see the implication? (I'm certain you do.)
>

>The cultivation (bhavana) of the mind in meditation practice, however, is useful in helping the practitioner carry forward that tranquility into his waking consciousness in the form of a state called passaddhi which just means "calmness" or "tranquility" which permeates the mind of the practitioner after sitting meditation. When I experienced this in my own practice, the description of "a profound inner peace" came to mind as a better definition of this word. When you can extend this passaddhi or calmness for one, two, three hours or more after meditation and between sits, then you are in the midst of mastering mindfulness on a more or less uninterrupted basis in your conscious life. This, from my personal experience, is the pinnacle of the fruit of a meaningful practice in meditation.

>So you see meditation, in and of itself, does not guarantee anyone enlightenment. It is what one does (in terms of investigation into the Dhamma) with the condition that these states provide for the stable mental landscape of the mind as a result of a fruitful practice in meditation that makes the difference!

Everything is a meme. This word means nothing. Veeky Forums needs to drop this word from it's vocabulary.

That said, meditation is built up into a lot of things that it's not. Deconditioning the mind and body is great for you. However you won't find god no matter which name you give him. That's nonsense.

Meditation just means "not thinking".

I don't know why all this copy pasta is needed.

Flow>Discipline

no it doesn't

No it doesn't

I agree with this more than think that I should.

Most, if not all, great achievements where accomplished by people who didn't need motivation or discipline. They achieved by simply doing what felt right. Take Schwarzenegger as an example. He didn't become Mr Olympia by being insanely disciplined. Schwarzenegger became Mr Olympia because he loved bodybuilding. He has said that sometimes he would even bust out laughing during workouts because he was enjoying it so much.

nigga look up mantras u bumba klot, they dont need to be nothing spooky about it

nice buzzword
>Take Schwarzenegger as an example

Why isn't this thread in /x/?

Also, meditation is just trance for people with shit to do or daydreaming for people that want an on/off button on that shit.

I've experienced the first and second dhyana. It isn't a subtle sensation. It can be overwhelming, and extremely uncomfortable to enter. My knowledge of them is limited to wikipedia, and my reading of bhuddism has so far only been Mindfulness in Plain English, so I cannot say for certain what I have experienced. For me, the first jhana is a full body tingling sensation, akin to pins needles. It's hard to call it pleasure as we usually experience it. On entering the second jhana for the first time, I laughed continuously for about an hour. It was the most happiness and pleasure I have ever felt. Like full body pins and needles multiplied, it was uncomfortably intense. I assume this emotional pleasure characterises the second jhana, the first is purely physical. I can only compare the experience to weed, the first jhana probably being as if not more physically intense, but they aren't really comparable at all.
As for getting there from experience, it's not all upwards from the first jhana. I've only been able to reach the second one once, and have had meditation sessions without any sensations at all. But with regular practice, I can feel the prana (energy) in my breath without focusing on it pretty much all of the day, a kind of pleasant tingling in the alveoli. On a side note masturbation is ten times better but ejaculation drains me for a couple days, daoism recommending complete abstinence which I probably will.

In regards to the thread, meditation isn't really about relaxation, rather relaxation is a symptom of a successful/regular practice. The practice consists of two parts, concentration (Samantha) and mindfulness (Vipassana). It's not easy or pleasant for the most part, and just like any practice it requires motivation and discipline, but these aren't what meditation is about. I don't even know what meditation is about really, I can pretty much just do it for the high.

I'm guessing that they're trying to find terminology that is comprehensible to people in STEM, rather than aiming for appeal.

Why don't you meditate and find out?

The truth that can be spoken, is not the eternal truth.

youtube.com/watch?v=aahfynCnWaI
Been meditating every day for 6 months. Just start doing a couple minutes each day when you wake up