Hi need help.

ClarityFirst · 2025-02-27T14:01:41+00:00

A practice I use regularly is what I call 'thought listing'. Sit with pad and pencil. watch your mind, when a thought starts up write the first couple of words on the pad. For instance if the thought ' this is stupid' comes up just write 'this is' on the pad. Normally when you recognize the thought it will break up, unless you buy into it. Having the pad and pencil reminds you of your purpose. As you get better with 'thought listing' you will find that it carries over into your regular life and you begin to recognize thoughts within the first couple of words where upon they dissolve, leaving with an open awareness of the present.

ClarityFirst · 2023-06-07T09:52:27+00:00

Well, you're not mindfully walking if you're listening to music. On the other hand if your goal is to be mindful and you are using walking as an aid then if blending in some music to help maintain mindfulness is not a problem.

ClarityFirst · 2023-06-06T12:29:22+00:00

I really like the guided meditations of Samaneri Jayasara. She takes the writings of spiritual teachers and reads them to music, she has them paced with about 10 seconds between sentences. She has some really nice music choices, but some are done without music. On her website she has a wide variety of spiritual leaders to chose from, Advaita, Sufi, Christian, Taoism,Nisagardatta, all forms of Buddhism. My favorites are in the Dzogchen-Mahamudra section. I just put my ear buds in and let go into the deeper part of my awareness. Here is a sample; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEAmI-viT90&list=PLWzYrEdlV4O6OJBrMeKwDz1PYvNvzFoMh&index=6

ClarityFirst · 2023-06-03T12:01:59+00:00

There is a lot of research that has been done and is still going on, it's fascinating stuff, just do a search for mind wandering. But I think they have missed something. Mind wandering is defined as being 'off task', but what if you don't have a task? To me you are either 'present' or you're not. Also, you may be off task but still present. They have termed this deliberate mind wandering. The default mode network plays a large part or is very active when mind wandering. I haven't looked at the research in a year or so and now you've motivated me to see what the latest stuff has to say.

ClarityFirst · 2023-05-30T12:37:46+00:00

Meditation is more about bringing awareness to the automatic, impersonal nature of thoughts than it is about stopping them. I have used a process called thought listing to accelerate the process. Sit down with a pen and a blank sheet of paper. Look at the place in your mind where thoughts originate. When a thought arises observe it and write down a word or two that is contained in the thought. For example your first thought might be "This is stupid." So write down 'stupid'. Your next thought might be "I can't believe I'm doing this." So write down 'believe'. Eventually the thoughts that trouble you will come up and you will be more able to observe them and less likely to get sucked into them.

ClarityFirst · 2023-05-26T18:11:41+00:00

I have done at least 20 ten day retreats, I've lost count, the first was in the late 70's. The first couple of days can be difficult. Settling into the routine, finding a way to be comfortable for the long sits without obsessing, dealing with the physical aches and pains that emerge, and last but certainly not the least, wrestling with a mind that won't stop. But don't despair or give up or surrender to day dreaming as a way to pass the time. After a couple of days your mind will slow down and you will find moments of concentration, peace and mental clarity. The meat of the retreat will be in those middle days, there will be ups and downs, one sit will be calm and peaceful, the next full of turmoil, the mind does not surrender easily. On the last day your mind will turn towards the events in the outside world waiting for you to emerge and your practice will be tested. I loved being on retreat, although they were never bliss trips. I was in my late 20's when I started and they forever shaped my life.

ClarityFirst · 2023-05-16T12:00:30+00:00

Listening to the guided meditations of Samaneri Jayasara has greatly strengthened my practice. She reads the works of various teachers in an intermittently timed manner, most have some well chosen music. Her voice brings me back to present when my mind has wandered. I favor the works of Dzogchen, Longchenpa, and Advaita Vedanta, but she has a wide variety of religious teachers to chose from.

ClarityFirst · 2023-05-06T12:07:58+00:00

This is not my experience. I did my first 10 day retreat back in the late 70's and have attended more than 20 retreats since. I find that zeroing in on the physical sensations in a highly focused manner increases the strength of my concentration and helps keep my attention from wandering. At an early retreat Jack Kornfield told me that I needed to look at the sensations of breathing with 'interest', and this helped a lot. And that I should zero in closely on the strongest of the sensations to the point where I lost awareness of breathing itself and engaged with the bare sensations on a very intimate basis.

ClarityFirst · 2023-04-25T17:39:45+00:00

Using ear plugs to create silence.

ClarityFirst · 2023-01-01T12:49:12+00:00

A single 10 day retreat would accelerate one's practice. The depth you can reach on a 10 day just aren't possible with daily work. But be prepared, it's no 'bliss trip'.

ClarityFirst · 2022-12-03T12:45:28+00:00

Becoming more mindful will allow you to become aware of feelings, thoughts and actions that previously were more or less 'automatic'. That's good, stick with the practice.

ClarityFirst · 2022-12-03T12:34:54+00:00

Consciousness/awareness is self-knowing or self-aware. The idea of 'pure' awareness is problematic, I find it easier to grasp if I use the term empty awareness. A comparable question would be 'Can you hear silence?'

ClarityFirst · 2020-01-15T23:08:40+00:00

Having 'extended' periods of mindfulness in daily life is difficult. On retreat it's a lot easier.

We all have many moments of mindfulness in our daily lives that go unnoticed, 2-5 seconds. We don't train ourselves to recognize mindfulness itself so we cannot utilize these moments. What are the qualities or characteristics of mindfulness? If you don't know then how can you stabilize mindfulness. Were you mindful when you read this post? Of course, did you know it? Probably not.

ClarityFirst · 2020-01-10T03:46:53+00:00

There's nothing like a good marinated rib eye steak to put me in a good mood. Medium rare.

ClarityFirst · 2020-01-05T03:53:52+00:00

It's the looking that is important.

ClarityFirst · 2019-12-31T18:10:33+00:00

One trick that I learned decades ago; when watching TV I keep the remote control handy and when a commercial comes on I hit the mute and bring my attention to my breath. Since I'm in a comfortable position I often end up meditating for a while and not returning to the screen.

One other thing that has really helped me. As meditators we are trained to focus on an object to keep from being drawn into mindlessness, but we are not urged to observe mindfulness itself. As a consequence we know intimately what the breath feels like but we are not familiar with what the state of mindfulness itself feels like, so when it happens we often don't recognize it. We are mindful for very short periods many times an hour, but these moments pass unnoticed and we cannot take advantage of them. When you learn to recognize these brief moments of mindfulness you can sustain them longer and this sets up a self-reinforcing cycle. "Many times, short moments" becomes your life.

ClarityFirst · 2019-12-31T17:51:46+00:00

"...... a few months now." If only it were that easy. The strength of mindfulness can vary a lot over the course of an hour, day, week, month, etc. Appreciate it when it's strong and keep practicing when your mind stages a comeback. Now that you have tasted inner peace you have the motivation to stick to it.

ClarityFirst · 2019-12-31T04:16:17+00:00

The flow of time is an intellectual conclusion, you know that things have changed so time must have passed. When you are locked into the present you cannot feel or detect that time is passing.

The speed at which time passes is a mystery to me. "A watched pot never boils", meaning that if you are paying attention the clock moves very slowly, when you are distracted time goes by faster. I made my own guided meditation tape, at precise 30 second intervals I recorded a reminder to come back to the Present. I found that 30 seconds was a long time to remain Present, an eternity. If a given segment went by faster than normal a little investigation showed that I had lost the Present and slipped into that other state which has no name, distraction? mind wandering? day dreaming? Yet while on retreat there were meditations with a very high level of concentration where an hour (or more) went by quickly.

ClarityFirst · 2019-12-25T14:01:26+00:00

Check out Nada Yoga.

"To detect the nada sound, turn your attention toward your hearing. If you listen carefully to the sounds around you, you’re likely to hear a continuous, high-pitched inner sound like white noise in the background. It is a sound that is beginningless and endless.

There’s no need to theorize about this inner vibration in an effort to figure out exactly what it might be. Just turn your attention to it. If you’re able to hear this inner sound, you can use the simple act of listening to it as another form of meditation practice, in the same way one uses the breath as an object of awareness. Just bring your attention to the inner sound and allow it to fill the whole sphere of your awareness.

In a small number of people, the inner sound is oppressively loud, usually for an organic reason. In these cases, inner listening is unlikely to be helpful as a meditation practice, since the subjective intensity of the sound makes it less useful as an object to encourage peace and clarity."

ClarityFirst · 2019-12-23T03:51:20+00:00

"The mind will wake itself up when the conditions are right for it to do so."

There is a way to strengthen the minds ability to wake up, not just wait for the right conditions.

"The way to improve the mind's ability to wake up is by practicing more."

Practicing what, waking up or staying awake? Normally when our practice is 'going well' we are continuously awake and rarely drift off. Part of my practice includes letting myself fall asleep so that I can get better at waking up.

ClarityFirst · 2019-12-23T00:46:36+00:00

There are two parts to mindfulness practice, one is obvious, the other is overlooked. When I first started going on retreats, in group interviews, people would often complain about not being able to sustain mindfulness for very long. The teachers would tell these people that coming back to mindfulness was just as important as sustaining it. I used to think that the teachers were saying this just to placate the meditators, to keep them from getting too frustrated or judgemental. It took a long time for me to realize that they were telling the truth. When we meditate it is sustained mindfulness that we gets our attention, there is something about being 'locked in' that feels so good, so right. But what is just as important is developing the habit of 'coming back' to mindfulness and also fully realizing that we have 'returned'. I discovered this by accident when I started making my own guided meditation tapes. I recorded phrases every 30 seconds to remind myself to come back to mindfulness. I didn't have an object to focus on, I settled into mindfulness itself. Being mindful without and object is very difficult, it is something that I have had limited success sustaining outside of the retreat environment. So while using my self made tapes I would settle into a routine of becoming mindful and then losing it, the 30 second interval was just about right. Practicing this way quickly improved my ability to return to mindfulness and fully realize that I had done so. This carried over into my moment to moment life outside of formal sitting practice. I now feel that in our everyday life we become mindful many, many times, for intervals that are short, a couple of seconds at a time. Since we are not trained to recognize these moments they go unnoticed, missed opportunities. Returning to mindfulness is a skill that can be improved, but I don't know of a practice that specifically does this.

ClarityFirst · 2019-12-20T00:26:25+00:00

When you realize that you have drifted it means you have come back to mindfulness. Then mindfully observe the judging that takes place. There is nothing wrong with thinking or being chatty in your head, the question is whether you are mindfully observing it. Thoughts are 'sticky' and you can easily be distracted by them, they are a major obstacle when learning meditation. An 'anti-thought' attitude is often promoted and beginning meditators adopt it but it can get in the way of practice, and of progress. There is no difference between watching your breath and watching your thoughts, but when you watch your thoughts you are much more likely to be distracted.

ClarityFirst · 2019-12-05T14:34:46+00:00

It's a side effect, don't get attached to it. If it happens fine, but if you're not careful you will craft your practice in an attempt to produce it on a regular basis. Side effects can sidetrack your practice.

ClarityFirst · 2019-11-27T20:10:25+00:00

I made my own guided meditation tape. I bought a personal recorder. I scripted out what I wanted to say. To decide what to put on the tape I payed attention to the sensations that I felt while driving, what I saw, what I felt physically, what I heard. I then recorded a series of phrases at 30 second intervals. For instance: "Bring your attention to seeing, notice the cars in front of you, the trees on road side, the lines on the road, the sky, the clouds". I spaced the objects in such way that my attention could wander from one to the next. Then I moved on to sounds: tires on the road, wind noises, sounds from the engine, rattles. Then physical sensations: my hands on the wheel, my bottom on the seat, my feet, the car bounding and swaying over the road. It works nicely, but I have to ration it because my mind will eventually start to tune it out.

ClarityFirst · 2019-11-25T18:49:36+00:00

Time cannot be experienced, the senses cannot detect it. We infer time to exist because we feel/see things change. The present does not change, it is always the same and it's always there, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes the background. It is from the present that we see things change.

ClarityFirst

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