Which Meditation Techniques Are Right For You

Meditation Truth

(Reprinted with Permission From the Excellent library of articles on Meditation at   http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2721602)

Which Meditation Techniques Are Right For You

Posted: 18 Dec 2008 04:17 PM CST
If you’re looking for meditation instruction or want to learn some meditation techniques, whether you’re looking for meditation and relaxation techniques, or if you want what you might call spiritual meditation techniques, whether you need anxiety relief, and whether you’re looking for meditation for beginners or advanced students… no matter why you want to meditate, you might want to realize that there are different types of meditation. And not every meditation technique is right for every person.

There’s a reason why Tiger Woods doesn’t play football.

There’s a reason why you don’t want see Henry Kissinger on Dancing with the Stars.

There’s a reason why, as it’s said in ancient texts, the Buddha taught 84,000 different meditation techniques to his 84,000 different students.

There’s a reason why in Hinduism they say that each person has his own god and must discover his own way of praying to and, ultimately, becoming one with that God.

And the reason is obvious: we’re each unique.

Who you are is different than who your neighbor is.

So it’s helpful to work with the way you are, rather than fight the way you are.

In other words, if you are Christian, you may want to explore Christian meditations.  There are dozens.

If you are Jewish, there are many Jewish and Kabbalistic meditations.

If you’re Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist, there are meditations that emphasize the beliefs and ideas inherent in each of those religions.

If you don’t think of yourself as religious, you might want to take a moment to think about your own personal nature, your own psychology.  For example, are you someone who enjoys sitting still in a quiet place, or are you someone who needs to be moving in order to process information? Are you someone who is able to feel sensations in your body easily, or is your body just that thing that happens to be attached to your head?  Do you enjoy probing philosophical ideas and looking for the way things work?  Are you better at following instructions, or would you rather have the barest bit of direction and then go off on your own? Do you easily get absorbed in something that you’re reading or in your own thoughts or feelings, or does your mind easily move from object to object?

You see, none of these are a problem.  There are meditations and meditation techniques designed to work with any one of those situations… and many that I haven’t even brought up.

I have a good friend who was one of the first Western meditation teachers. And asking him to sit down and keep his attention focused in one place for an extended period of time doesn’t produce deep meditation results for him, because that’s not the way he’s built.  But practices that allow his him to move his attention throughout his body, from experience to experience, and investigate deeply what he’s experiencing and how he’s experiencing it… well, with that technique, he’s an ace.  If he had gone to a meditation school that said, “Concentration is the only kind of practice,” he would never have become a great meditation master.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a test that you can take, a meditator’s personality test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Meditation Personality Inventory, that identifies different characteristics that you have and different meditation techniques that might fit who you are.  So you may have to poke around a little bit.

This is where your discerning wisdom is important. Because some meditation teachers will say their technique is “the only one” and that you can’t go jumping from practice to practice.  “Like digging a well,” they’ll say, “you have to just keep digging until you hit water.” That’s a great metaphor, but sometimes there’s no water where you’re digging!

So the best suggestion is to find a meditation practice that gives you immediate results, and then dig there for a while.  And if it doesn’t continue to give results, you’ll have to decide for yourself whether you’re trying to dig a well in the desert, or whether you haven’t dug deep enough.  My recommendation is trust yourself rather than getting answers from anyone who has a monetary interest in you agreeing with them.

In other words, if you ask your teacher, “Should I stay, or should I go?” and they say “Stay! And you need to come to the advanced workshop for $5,000,” then, personally, I would go to another meditation teacher.

It’s not uncommon, and in the Tibetan tradition for teachers to say to a student, “I can no longer help you. Here is the name of someone I’d recommend you study with instead.” If your meditation teacher isn’t willing, or able, to make that kind of suggestion then you might consider that important information.

I don’t think that meditation requires believing everything the teacher says.  It’s about becoming independent, and discovering and trusting what is genuinely authentic for you.  Be careful, if someone suggests that they know better.

From Meditation Truth
http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2721602

where there are numerous other highly entertaining and interesting articles on Meditation.

2004 Revisted?

Wow.

I’m living yet a new dimension of “many happy returns.”

That’s what a birthday is, a “solar return,” and technically, my birthday isn’t until February, but the season has begun. My longtime friend for over 2 decades, Drew, has moved back in with me. My ex-lover from 2004 , Cricket, has moved in for a while. AND my cat, Sphere, is back for a Christmas visit that may become permanent.

So, everyone is home except Storm, Sphere’s son, who died last year.

It’s warm and wonderful and the best Christmas present a girl could ever want. Well, there’s one other thing, but hey.

That’s perfectly okay!
 
I LOVE the Christmas/Channukah/New Year’s/Solstice Season !
 
If I am ever wondering if anybody cares or telling a bunch of lies that they don’t, all it takes is the holiday season for dozens of people literally to come out of the woodwork to remind me of all that I have forgotten.
 
*tears*

I’ve received season’s greetings from my mother & stepfather, my sister and her sons, one brother, one ex-husband, several ex-boyfriends, several girlfriends and friends, one teacher (well, that I’ve had classes with – they are all teachers!) and a few brand new friends, co-workers and a total stranger or 3.

One of my girlfriends, hilariously, spent the night in Katherine, Arkansas last night. She called to check in on some brunch plans for next week and we had a good laugh over the small world phenomenon. Paul lives in his old hometown now, as far as I know. He doesn’t seem to be capable of remaining friends, I guess. 

I woke up with Cricket cuddling me this morning, (Lorlaei is on the East Coast with family and he needs a place to stay till he finds a new job.)   Ms. Cat wanted breakfast. Drew was in the living room watching CSI with his headset on.
 
The trees had frost and ice frozen all around them all the way to work. If I hadn’t been traveling 50 mph on a single lane road, I would have pulled over to take pictures for my Southern coastal nieces, whose birthday is tomorrow, and who have never seen snow.
 
How glorious can it get?
 
How do I ever thank you all?  (Visions of Catherine Deneuve. Okay, I’m weird.)
 
All I want now is a husband.

I’ve been having this thought that maybe I’m done. Maybe I’ve had all the long-term lovers I’m going to have. I cry on that one. A bunch. Surely not.  I need to take pen to paper soon or something. And if it’s true?  What the hell?  I had had more lovers by the time I was 20 than most people have in their whole lives – so many good men (and a few women).  What if?  I think I’d be okay. 
 
I’m okay Now.

And Now.

And Now.

Love, Ann

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

                              

                                     – JRR Tolkein

My Body Hurts – Is That True?

 

No, not all of it. 

*sigh*
 
This is what always happens when I start doing exercise. 

Is *that* true?

Sunday I had been doing a minute or so on Drew’s elliptical trainer for a few days. I was feeling better in my body.  So, I tried doing 2 whole minutes.  Made it. Barely.  I did it again that evening.  And I think I jumped on it for a few seconds at another time or two.
 
I did my 15 minute Egoscue routine. Plus  15 minutes on each side in the hated Tower that hurts to use.  I’ve described it.  It is designed to straighten my knees – hurts like hell while I’m in it and when I move from one position to another, but I walk straighter when I’m done.
 
Monday I only did some on the elliptical before work, maybe a little after. Don’t recall. 
 
Tuesday?
 
I could barely move. Everything hurt. I took a bath in hot water and dead sea salts.
 
Today?  *shrug*  Some pain, lots of lethargy, heaviness in my muscles.
 
I had been on this Mexican food thing – nightshades, salt, cooked crap. Even ate a potato.  Bad idea.
 
Don’t try to problem solve this.  I have been working on it for 30 years.  I’d be interested only in hearing from anyone who has solved such a situation, personally, but . . .

The only real solution was to stop eating all cooked foods. I keep trying to get to that again. Hot water, bath salts and breathwork last night and this morning helped for a while.

I did 1 minute on the elliptical this morning and the Egoscue minus the Tower of Torture.

I want to go to bed and get up tomorrow!
 
Just saying.
 
Love, Ann

Meditation Truth

Wow

I haven’t even had time to read everything that’s here. But this promises to be the best meditation site I’ve seen in a long time!

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2721602

Read it and tell me what you find, what you like.

I’ll be back!

Love, Ann

Musical Orgies

Yes, yes. I realize that I left off on doing The Work on some things in the previous “to be continued.”  I’ll do that presently, but first this . . .

 

Have I written before on how closely music is related to sex? probably. What have I not related to sex ?

Still, having come from Gabriel’s warm embrace into the orgiastic energy of this Irish jam, well, the similarity strikes me again.

Start with the bouzouki player. I told him he had “Dangerous Fingers.”  (She trails off, watching them.) 

Ah. Excuse me – I got a bit distracted there. That, and I’m writing this thing in longhand at a table in the pub. Yes, again. If there is no singing, I tend to read or write while I’m here. I’ll type it up later.

My question is this:

Why can’t people as easily gather for a group sex jam as they do for music?

We all know I’m not really polyamorous, but I’ve had a few new interests pop up lately, and it’s got my brain on sex again. None of them are lifetime love candidates, and they are all but one involved with someone else (whose consent they have for such dalliances, though I haven’t gone there with *any* of them, yet.)

Let’s see. There are about 4 fiddlers, a couple of pennywhistles, at least one concertina I can see, 2 flutes, a boudran (did I spell that right?), a harp, and of course, a bouzouki.

One musician starts a tune, those who know it join in – usually most of them. I think they’ve been playing together here for a long time. So, like lovers, they know the moves. They know what they like. The can improvise around each other. Now, notice, this isn’t like you just threw a few people who could play instruments all together and they just played. There’s a core group that seems to be here every week. Some come and go ( *ahem* ) and others stay the whole night. Some watch, catch the tune and then play, learning as they go. About three of them seem to either know every tune or be *such* good musicians that they play nearly every tune. I’m betting on the latter.

Isn’t sex like that?

Please don’t misunderstand – I’m not into group sex. Never have been. I’ve been in bed with a couple of other people a few times, and usually, I prefer one-on-one, like 99% of the time. I’m just noticing that if there were a community, an openness, connection and flow between a core group and some other regulars – well, group sex could be a *lot* better and a lot more satisfying – just like this music.

Of course, just as I’m writing this, a cute blond starts playing her pennywhistle for all she’s worth. She’s blowing and fingering the slender silver instrument quite masterfully. Her hair is slippingout of its tie and falling erotically over her face. Yes, she looks just like she sounds like she does – like her lips are wrapped around someone she really loves. It’s a thing of beauty.

The drummer beating time seems to fit – what does it matter what her lips are wrapped around?  I think one of the musicians saw me laughing and figured out why. I am really quite tickled at her timing.

This is just a thought. I know others have thought it. “Stranger in a Strange Land” has a few similar ideas and with all the connection and well, grokking, that would make such an experience desirable.

I’d be interested in other writings that have similar passages or themes. For that matter, if you know of any groups that have practiced either the music or the sex, without all the drama that usually accompanies such scenes, that would be interesting to know.

The old hippie slogan comes back to me:  “Make love, not war.”

And my personal favorite, which I’d like in white script on a pink t-shirt:  “Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.”

It’s hard not to write something really trite, like “we could make beautiful music together.” And we are. That’s how the world looks to me when I drop my stories.

Love, Ann