Your thoughts about meditation?
What do you think about meditation? Do you believe it is wrong or right?
Do you do it?
I think it is OK and believe it is healthy. I try to do it everyday.
Do you do it?
I think it is OK and believe it is healthy. I try to do it everyday.
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I practice mindfulness meditation. It seems to be more about psychology than things like chakras, although I don't think any kind of meditation is bad. It's really helped a lot of my issues with negative thinking and depression, since it's about being more mindful of your thoughts and your body and how to let go of negative thoughts and focus more on the present.
I don't know if this counts as meditating, but I guess in a way it does. What I do, before I go to sleep, I turn off the lights, I go to bed and close my eyes. I slow down my breathing and try to stay as still as possible. I imagine that slowly my body is floating away to a different place, a comforting place. A place far away from where I am and then I float off to dreamland! :3 It helps me sleep. So yes, to answer your question, I wouldn't necessarily say it is right or wrong, but more like it works for me. 
I practice Transcendental meditation, and have been for a little less than a year. I like the feeling it gives me and helps me think clearly.
Well, sitting while doing nothing but breathing isn't really a spiritual problem, but I'd rather do something, well, REAL, like reading a book.
It's psychologically healthy. It's good. It deals with stress.
I meditate daily, usually after I bathe in the morning if I have a lot of extra time.
I also meditate for my Tulpa, but that's a whole other barrel of snakes.
I also meditate for my Tulpa, but that's a whole other barrel of snakes.
I love meditation. I'm not Buddhist, but I still love it.
I always meditate to warm up my body : D
Harvard Unveils MRI Study Proving Meditation Literally Rebuilds The Brain’s Gray Matter In 8 Weeks
Test subjects taking part in an 8-week program of mindfulness meditation showed results that astonished even the most experienced neuroscientists at Harvard University.
The study was led by a Harvard-affiliated team of researchers based at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the team’s MRI scans documented for the very first time in medical history how meditation produced massive changes inside the brain’s gray matter. “Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology. “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.”
Sue McGreevey of MGH writes: “Previous studies from Lazar’s group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced meditation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.” Until now, that is. The participants spent an average of 27 minutes per day practicing mindfulness exercises, and this is all it took to stimulate a major increase in gray matter density in the hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection. McGreevey adds: “Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time.”
“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” says Britta Hölzel, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany. You can read more about the remarkable study by visiting Harvard.edu. If this is up your alley then you need to read this: “Listen As Sam Harris Explains How To Tame Your Mind (No Religion Required)”
www.feelguide.com/2014/11/19/h…
Test subjects taking part in an 8-week program of mindfulness meditation showed results that astonished even the most experienced neuroscientists at Harvard University.
The study was led by a Harvard-affiliated team of researchers based at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the team’s MRI scans documented for the very first time in medical history how meditation produced massive changes inside the brain’s gray matter. “Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology. “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.”
Sue McGreevey of MGH writes: “Previous studies from Lazar’s group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced meditation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.” Until now, that is. The participants spent an average of 27 minutes per day practicing mindfulness exercises, and this is all it took to stimulate a major increase in gray matter density in the hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection. McGreevey adds: “Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time.”
“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” says Britta Hölzel, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany. You can read more about the remarkable study by visiting Harvard.edu. If this is up your alley then you need to read this: “Listen As Sam Harris Explains How To Tame Your Mind (No Religion Required)”
www.feelguide.com/2014/11/19/h…
very interesting. thanks for posting that. you may be interested in the following. "the brain that changes itself" by norman doidge. i haven't read it yet myself but i plan to get it.
www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Chan…
www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Chan…
Say no more!!!
I'm already a devotee, now I can tell the naysayers "I told you so."
I'm already a devotee, now I can tell the naysayers "I told you so."
I never really had the patience for it, personally. But if it works for you, more power to you, it isn't like it is something that there is anything wrong with.
Meditation will keep you young, cure disease, and bring mental and physical health.
You can do it anywhere at any time, for any amount of time, even just 10 seconds.
Stress produces "flight response" chemical changes in the body that over time will overload the body's immune system and cause diseases including cancer.
Meditation is the antidote!!
You can do it anywhere at any time, for any amount of time, even just 10 seconds.
Stress produces "flight response" chemical changes in the body that over time will overload the body's immune system and cause diseases including cancer.
Meditation is the antidote!!
"Right, wrong, who cares? I'm the guy with the gun." [likely paraphrased]
lol. 
Not interested in it, honestly 
meditation - it's not what you think 
on a more serious note i do meditation to help me deal with life/work stresses and to recharge my spirit, my self worth, my will to exist. mind-body-spirit, a even balance should be sort. i don't necessarily sit in the lotus position. i don't zealously or ritually practice meditation. i just do it when i need it. i'm not trying to solve the world's problems, just trying to get by in my own way.
sometimes i'm just laying on my back on the couch. thoughts are allowed to flow through my mind unhindered, whatever they are, good or bad (or other?), i don't allow myself to be judgemental of them and i don't fixate on them. i become like an outside observer, i become like a surfer riding the waves of my thoughts. and if i plunge in the water flows through me and around me but never stopping to settle within me but then i desolve into it and we flow together, exploring all possibilities together. ok pretty heavy metaphors. enough you scream! lol.
we keep our house neat, tidy and organised (well some of us anyway. lol) so in the way same i keep my mind. i review my perceptions and throw out those that have been shown to be wrong. i consider in what areas i am ignorant and how to shed light into that darkness. i review the things that make me angry or fill me with unhealthy desire or adversion and consider how i can manage those negative emotions better. i reinvent myself constantly, learning to be adaptive, and hopefully improving little-by-little.
if you go to a buddhist monastery of course they will teach you meditation their way which is meant more for an ascetic life style. however one must learn to adapt the techniques to ones own life style. water them down a little even, don't be so dogmatic. here is a bit more about my approach to meditation in dA journal Nirvana
"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world." - dhammapada (collection of buddha sayings)
here is a little video to help you with your meditations. just something to think about.
The hidden meanings of yin and yang - John Bellaimey
on a more serious note i do meditation to help me deal with life/work stresses and to recharge my spirit, my self worth, my will to exist. mind-body-spirit, a even balance should be sort. i don't necessarily sit in the lotus position. i don't zealously or ritually practice meditation. i just do it when i need it. i'm not trying to solve the world's problems, just trying to get by in my own way.
sometimes i'm just laying on my back on the couch. thoughts are allowed to flow through my mind unhindered, whatever they are, good or bad (or other?), i don't allow myself to be judgemental of them and i don't fixate on them. i become like an outside observer, i become like a surfer riding the waves of my thoughts. and if i plunge in the water flows through me and around me but never stopping to settle within me but then i desolve into it and we flow together, exploring all possibilities together. ok pretty heavy metaphors. enough you scream! lol.
we keep our house neat, tidy and organised (well some of us anyway. lol) so in the way same i keep my mind. i review my perceptions and throw out those that have been shown to be wrong. i consider in what areas i am ignorant and how to shed light into that darkness. i review the things that make me angry or fill me with unhealthy desire or adversion and consider how i can manage those negative emotions better. i reinvent myself constantly, learning to be adaptive, and hopefully improving little-by-little.
if you go to a buddhist monastery of course they will teach you meditation their way which is meant more for an ascetic life style. however one must learn to adapt the techniques to ones own life style. water them down a little even, don't be so dogmatic. here is a bit more about my approach to meditation in dA journal Nirvana
"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world." - dhammapada (collection of buddha sayings)
here is a little video to help you with your meditations. just something to think about.
The hidden meanings of yin and yang - John Bellaimey
Well.
I would be in a bad place without it.
I would be in a bad place without it.
In my experience people who think meditation is "wrong" tend to be fundamentalist Christians who freak out over anything vaguely Eastern, while forgetting or ignoring the existence of Christian forms of meditation.
I do it sometimes, but not on a regular basis of habit, even though I should.
I do it sometimes, but not on a regular basis of habit, even though I should.
Why bother asking if it's wrong or right? That's just a weird question.
You simply sit & think & tune your mind to whatever you want to. So what's so bad about that?
Unless you're easily bored, that is.
For quite some times now, I've learned that people in the west believed there's only 1 method to meditate (I also learned that "meditation" is a terrible British translation of the actual word as well) which is ridiculous. But then again, take your time, soon you'll eventually realize there are plenty of ways to channel your mind.
You simply sit & think & tune your mind to whatever you want to. So what's so bad about that?
Unless you're easily bored, that is.
For quite some times now, I've learned that people in the west believed there's only 1 method to meditate (I also learned that "meditation" is a terrible British translation of the actual word as well) which is ridiculous. But then again, take your time, soon you'll eventually realize there are plenty of ways to channel your mind.
No! Too much meditation and you get cancer. Science says so.
Depends upon the level of meditation and the exact definition a person gives it i.e some people put music on and close their eyes and call it meditation, i call it listening to music but anyway. Another person might consider it relaxation, sleep is relaxation. Another might close their eyes for twenty minutes and try to clear their mind, this is useful and can help people focus, but generally they end up contemplating on something as it is the nature of the mind to not remain still.
The more serious forms of meditation all point to some form of enlightenment. They are varied and some are not to be taken lightly. Any of the serious forms of meditation should not even be attempted without prior instruction.
The more serious forms of meditation all point to some form of enlightenment. They are varied and some are not to be taken lightly. Any of the serious forms of meditation should not even be attempted without prior instruction.
Useful at times