by logansrun 27 Replies latest jw friends
How many here meditate? What is your program of meditation like? How often? With a group or by yourself? Do you feel it has had a positive effect on your mind and physical health? How has it affected your outlook and spiritual development (if you believe in that sort of thing)?
Questions, questions, questions! I'm all about the questions!
Bradley
Interesting ? Bradley
Meditation can help some people.
But it can backfire too. For some people it can trigger trance states similar to the feelings of being back in the borg.
While I can sit and think about things I know I can't do it in certain ways because it triggers many of the old ways of thinking and feeling - not good for me.
But if it works for you - great
There was a time I formally meditated: sat for hours everyday in silence. It turned into a trap. A place in which to hide. I also started thinking I was "spiritual" and people who didn't do like me were somehow less. In other words, it turned into a religion for me. It's easy to fall into this, so watch it. Presently life is a meditation. It's not about entering some womb of contentment anymore. It's much more about being very present with what the universe is presenting at the moment. Really being here, rather than lost in some mental commentary of the situation. Things can really be quite beautiful, even doing the dishes.....until the mind jumps in again saying "god I wish I was doing something else" or goes off on some tangent about something that happened yesterday or twenty years ago, or some anxious thoughts about tomorrow. Then the meditation is to nonjudgmentally see the thoughts and let them pass. There is nothing wrong with them; the suffering only starts when we drown in them. After a time we become less hidden in the mind and live life in a more naked and exposed way. The way it was meant to be lived. j
Technically, meditating isn't thinking - it's not-thinking, but without lots of practice and discipline no one sustains this state for very long at all. I think that one of the reasons that XJWs struggle with meditation (aside from the scare stories) is that we don't know how to stop talking to ourselves in our heads - it's from ignoring all those meetings and assemblies! Seriously, this is true for many JWs and XJWs of my acquaintance.
Yoga can be thought of as "moving meditation" - especially if you stay away from woo-woo or trendy fitness-oriented yoga and go with some traditional hatha breath-oreinted yoga. It's much easier to banish the constant chatter in our minds (even if only for an instant or two at first) when we are doing something with our bodies. The beneficial results are well documented in Jon Kabot-Zinn's books about stress and relaxation. He operates the Stress and Relaxation Center at the UMass Med chool, and he has had amazing results with health and wellness and pain management.
As far as spiritual development...like many XJW's, I have a distrust of any program of spritual development. I have found that practicing unconditional giving, along with getting out of my head through yoga and relaxation techniques, sets me up to have more of what I would think of as a spritual grounding. But even without such a goal, I find these practices very rewarding, without any dogma or belief system attached to them (I do not embrace many of the teachings draped around yoga - but I find it beneficial to me regardless).
For a while, i did 15 minutes per day, counting outbreathes from on to five. It gave me a centered feeling for the rest of the day. Also, my insomnia went away. I dropped that, but i am more conscious of things that were previously subconscious. For instance, instead of ignoring a fear, or another strong thought, i grab it, to explore it's source. More conscioussness can be a real bitch, sometimes.
SS
Personally, I can't see meditation in any way being similar to our experiences as JWs. But, that's just my observation.
The cover article to Time magazine a couple months ago was all about meditation and it's benefits. Martin Seligmann in his book "Authentic Happiness" advocates about a half-hour a day for meditation.
Bradley
I didn't mean to compare them - only to cite a possible reason that we struggle to still the voice in our head.
JT makes a point - you know what happens to you if you sit in your living room and meditate until you reach enlightenment? They come and take your house away...
PS,
I wasn't planning on meditating for "enlightenment." And I don't own a house
B.
Not to worry, there is no such thing as an "enlightened" person.
j
If you're interested, the tape "The Art of Meditation" by Daniel Goleman is a good place to start.
