mediation

[White Warlock]

I don't know, but i've experienced similar effects. In the story above, these rehabilitating effects were the reason i pulled myself under after banging my elbow. And yes, my elbow was much better afterwards, although the rest of me was freakin' out.

[markusan]

The pain may seem to be in your elbow, but it is really in your mind/brain. The injury is certainly in your elbow, but the mind creates and registers the sensation. In the same way that images enter through the eye but are processed by the brain. So I'm not sure that meditating fixes the injury...it can help, but that is another process. But it does enable you to switch off or control your brain's response to the nerve signals.

You can help healing by meditation by consciously relaxing the injured area. Less muscle tension means better flow of healing fluids, blood, lymph etc. This is a slower process than the pain control technique, which can be produced almost instantly with practice.

There are a number of levels of sensation control. Through meditation you can seemingly completely switch off the sense. It has a subtle feeling of ignoring the sense as if you're still aware that it is there but are ignoring it. Another version is a feeling that you are standing away from the pain and observing it. This second version is very useful for intense pain like bone breaks where the pain hinders your ability to reach a deep meditative absorption. I know people with no experience of meditation who have naturally achieved this state as a reaction to a serious injury.

And I agree with WW that you should find yourself a good teacher if you can. You can waste a lot of time if you take the wrong turn.

[shogeri]

Meditation is an attempt by a person to bring their body into mental and physical balance.

In western thought, a state of homeostasis if you will.

In eastern thought, where Yin/Yang are balanced.

Basically you are going to try to sleep, while being awake.

This means you are going to work on being aware of those things that are normally happening during the different phases of the sleep process.

Taijiquan is moving meditation.

However, the call for spirituality in all of this is wrong, or misplaced. I speak in terms of Martial Arts, since it's purpose is not to do these things. As a Christian Minister, I also do not advocate using something or an understanding of something in a manner that's not right for us.

Since one is attempting to get to a resting point, mentally and physically, in stands to reason that they may kick off the deeper mental activities our minds go through while sleeping. This could put some into an altered state of consciousness.

Is this nirvana or enlightenment?

Only if you are seeking it.

Otherwise it is nothing more than a neurological or physiological response to you starting the meditation process in the first place.

Regardless, even if you have trained yourself well, it is still a dangerous place to be.

Those are my thoughts...

Opinions will vary on this...Perhaps other's will have some enlightening things to say as well.

Good luck!

[Hudson]

I meditate every day, when I wake up, before and after classes, sometimes at night.

Instead of telling you what I am trying to achieve, let me just walk you through a routine process.

It begins with me sitting down, usually in what would be known as the "Seiza" position (I find this helps with my knee problems from my ACL tear).

I then correct any faults in my posture, align my spine correctly and lay my hands in my lap, and close my eyes.

I walk myself through the proper way of breathing in the beginning - in the nose, out the mouth. Collecting in the tan tien before exhaling. That sort of thing. I also make sure that I am not breathing haphazardly if I am meditating after cooling down. I slow my breath down.

After everything is regulated, I simply sit and meditate without thinking about anything. I'm not trying to reach a heightened state, I'm not trying to calm down, not reflecting on the days events. I'm just "being."

I find that allowing myself the time to drift through a few moments in time without worrying or thinking is a passive way of clearing my mind and returning my heart rate to normal.

Basically it's my healthy equivalent of a smoking break.

[markusan]

Nice post Hudson. That is meditation in a nutshell.

[shogeri]

Essentially we are mimicing sleep, just while awake.

[markusan]

Once you get the hang of meditation and, through regular practice, can drop into deep concentration at will, you can use it far more actively than for some kind of waking sleep.

The idea is to reach a state where the usual mind chatter stops and you can think---yes think--about a problem or subject with great clarity.

Zen monks contemplate koans or riddles in their meditation and that is by no means a passive process. Nor is it a logical one. The meditator focuses on the problem with single pointed concentration, and the answer comes, not as a thinking process or a logical progression, but as a direct experience.

In the same way the meditator can contemplate a martial arts problem, or just about anything, and if the conditions are right, can reach some level of insight. Often the insight does not come during the meditation but at some point later.

[stonecrusher69]

sleep is a good form of meditation..forced meditation..

[Chris05]

if ure catholic can u meditate

[ladyj]

Anyone can meditate. Lets talk science. A simple mindfulness meditation will allow you to slow your brain waves down from a frenzied state (Beta) to a more settled state (Alpha). Proven by EEG. When you slow them down, it allows you to concentrate better which in turn improves your learning ability or retention, and it also helps you to rid your body of harmful chemicals you have flooded your body with. Neurotransmitters are very powerful and it has been proven when people are in a relaxed state such as a meditative state the body releases numerous helpful neurotransmitters that will in essence cancel the effects of the harmful ones that were released. Good luck.