Meditaton Techniques?

[a_ninja]

I have heard of this technique that you can use during meditation and it sounds very mystical and possibly mythilogical. well they say that when you meditate you are supposed to search for a doorway, and that doorway leads to a place called the void and it is supposed to be mad up of everyones imaginatons that enterd it. It is said that once there you will see other people who have also entered the void, and you can interact with them( or fight) if anyone has any info for me on this please tell me.

[bushido_man96]

When you meditate, I don't believe you are supposed to focus on anything. Therefore, focusing on the "void" would counter the purpose of the meditation.

I think that you may have stumbled on to something more myth than fact.

[Taylor]

There are various methods of meditation, and you are right bushido man about the ideal, but ninja is also onto something.

The issue that comes up is, how the heck to you meditate on 'The Void'? Do you meditate on an empty space? That's not 'The Void' proper, that's a SOMETHING, an empty space. To meditate on 'empty space' is to look at or imagine something, and empty space. We might envision 'empty space' as a dark void or bright void, but none of these are really The Void, because this is absence that is the fundamental ground of all imaginings, and all existence, including the absence in which space exists So we can end up tricking ourselves into believeing we are meditating on The Void when we are really subtly imagining.

What is The Void, really becomes an interesting meditation in itself when we look into it. We can witness this if we look into our own minds.

Watch a thought, any thought. It can be something with an image, or not, just watch a thought. Then follow it into non-existence and try to find the place it goes when it dissapears. When you think you found the place, look at that, and recognize another sutble imagining, and watch that dissapear and try to find the place that goes as well.

You will discover you cannot find the place. This is VOID proper. Thoughts come from SOMEWHERE, so it's not NOTHING, but we can't see from where they come or where they go, so rather than calling it NOTHING it is called VOID.

This is the first meditation. I'll give the second meditation after people have a chance to try this one. Simply follow thoughts into the Void and try to find the Void. Accept that you cannot, so that you can relax in the meditation, by try to find it anyway by following these thoughts into the void.

[Rateh]

That's an interesting way, I've got to try that.

I meditate two different ways. One is for anxiety, I get panic attacks. The one for anxiety that works best for me is picturing in your mind a leaf falling. And watch it as it slooooooowly drifts toward the ground. Counting to 10 as it goes. Count as slow as you can, focusing on the leaf. At the end of that, I feel much less anxious.

The other way is before training. Here I breath in and out to a count of 10. I focus my mind on my training. I don't think of anything specific about MA or training or anything. I just pull in my focus. Since I'm usually the high rank so I decide the stop of the meditation, I stop it once I have my focus. On days I just can't seem to gather the focus, then my performance suffers greatly. Those are the days I forget something right after being shown, or I blank out on something I know well.

[Taylor]

Excellent! I especially like your leaf meditation. Very peaceful feeling.

Yes, there are many methods. The one I presented is for the purpose of 'entering the void' or 'realizing the void'. There are a lot of meditations for a lot of purposes.

[Taylor]

The next technique extends from the first. Upon watching phenomena arise in mind, seeking diligently for the source of thoughts, and the place they return, without finding it , observe how thoughts arise without end. As one falls into The Void, another arises, sometimes there is a gap, sometimes not. Sometimes thoughts overlap, but watch the limitless generative capacity of consciousness. This is the second nature of The Void, it's limitless generative capacity.

The first Nature of The Void is its existence/non-existence which is impossible to identify or find.

The second is its limitless generative capacity.

There is a third, but I will give people a chance to explore that in meditation first before discussing the third.

[Kajukenbopr]

Here's another exercise:

stand up, hands at the sides of ur thighs, pull your chin back a little, feet parallel pointing forward, unlocked knees(bend them just a little), breathe with the diaphragm, not the chest.

concentrate on relaxing your whole body, piece by piece, start wherever you want, and keep checking that no part in your body stiffens up or tightens. hold the position for 15 minutes concentrating only in how your body feels. After the 15 min, walk around and shake your hands lightly.

Edited June 2, 2008 by Kajukenbopr

[Johnlogic121]

There is a book called "The Relaxation Response" which talks about scientific studies of half a dozen meditation techniques and their effectiveness at eliciting relaxation. Not all meditation techniques involve freeing your mind of thoughts and keeping your mind so clear that you never even think of thinking. That form of meditation is common in Zen Buddhism, but Transcendental Meditation is a form in which you train the attention aspect of consciousness to "let go" of all thoughts that come into it and thus you relax the concentration of ordinary consciousness until subconscious material floats in. When subconscious material comes up to the surface, you acknowledge it, but you also let these thoughts go and allow more thoughts to enter freely like sets of clouds floating across the sky. This method is similar to the method Salvidor Dali used to come up with his curious paintings. As for the Void, there are references to it in some of the books by Glenn Morris, who wrote "Pathnotes of an American Ninja Master" and various other works like "Shadow Strategies." My impression from his writings is that the Void is a kind of dreamscape that you can enter when you are asleep and sometimes you can experience shared dreaming with other people who are there. Working on lucid dreaming is considered important in Mikko Buddhism, because they believe that dreams are either the same as or similiar to the afterlife. Thus, you want to learn during this life how to have a free consciousness that can effect the environment during dreams so that you can be safe from nightmares in that belief system. Hope this helps. - JL

[Tiger1962]

Music helps me get into meditation mode, unfortunately, it also puts me in such a relaxed state I sometimes fall asleep. LOL I suggest music geared toward meditation and the whole aromatherapy thing - candles, incense, that also helps put me in meditation mode.

I also try to use "conscious" meditation when I'm in a stressful situation. I was having dental surgery done and although I was so numb in the jaw you could have hit me with a brick, my nerves were shot and so I just stared at a painting on the wall in front of me and let my mind wander. It helped - not 100% but more half than not.

I learned from a yogi that meditating can be what you want it to be --- either repeating a word ("mantra") over and over or staring at a picture or a painting that brings you peace. Pick some object and use that - stare at it and let your mind wander. Get a portable fountain and listen to the water trickle down....that sound can put me at ease so fast!!! Like rain falling on a tin roof.