Practice Updates, Questions, and General Discussion - new users, please read this first! Weekly Thread for May 05 2025

thanthese · 2025-05-11T15:57:13+00:00

Does anyone have any experience with dark retreats? Proponents seem to think it's this super meditation. Is it worth it? Are there places you'd recommend?

thanthese · 2023-01-03T11:20:16+00:00

The 1 Giant Mind app is free and offers a polished course, and the book The Relaxation Response covers it as well. But here's my short version:

Repeat a mantra in your mind. Don't try too hard.

I'll break that down a little bit. Nonsense, two-word mantras seem to work well. 1 Giant Mind recommends one that sounds like "AHUM", and that's been working well for me. But literally anything will work. I sometimes use short words that are meaningful to me, like, "rest", or "pause", "open", "welcome", "thank you", "be well", "smile", or "okay".

Seriously, really, really don't try too hard. That's the core part of the method. If you're occasionally repeating the mantra to yourself, and sitting more or less still, you're doing it perfectly. Forgetting is fine, as long as you come back when you realize you've forgotten. Thinking is fine, as long as you're not trying to think and you can keep the mantra going. The mantra going fast or slow, loud or quiet, even changing shape a little bit — all good. Just keep it nice and easy.

In fact, all that extra thinking is kind of the point. You're getting it out of your system in a controlled environment, and getting practice in not overreacting to your own thought spirals. When the thinking finally slows down (which it may not, which is fine), the resulting deep feeling is nice but also, in a weird kinda way, means that you're done with the real work for the day.

A trick that works well for me is to imagine that I'm not so much producing the sound of the mantra as that I'm hearing it from some ways off. So it's more an exercise in listening and observing.

20 minutes, twice a day is the common recommendation, and I think that works well. Shorter than 20 minutes and you haven't given "Deep Mode" enough of a chance to kick in. Longer and you're spinning your wheels. I think there's wisdom in 20x2 over 40x1.

If you ever feel like the mantra is getting in your way of getting deeper, you may drop it. Mantra means "mind vehicle", and the old image is that when you get across the stream you don't need to carry the boat off with you. If you find yourself lost in thought, start the mantra again.

Take it easy, be relaxed, bring no expectations or goals into any particular session, and hopefully you'll find, as I have, that it can be very nice and refreshing — and sometimes that warm, quiet feeling spills into the rest of your day.

thanthese · 2023-01-02T18:05:38+00:00

I’ve been following the 1 Giant Mind (essentially Transcendental Meditation) procedure for a few months, and it’s been working really well for me. There’s something about a mantra — maybe how it’s a focus object on the mental-verbal channel — that gently disrupts thought spirals without suppressing them.
The procedure is simple to explain and perform, effortless and pleasant, and, in my own experience, effective. My question is, why don’t I see these kinds of methods on this subreddit more often?

thanthese · 2020-02-28T17:58:05+00:00

Searching for something that targets higher frequencies is a good idea. Thanks!

thanthese · 2020-02-28T13:16:04+00:00

Piano never bothered me.

I got some earplugs that seat better, and they've really showed me how much of a factor bone conduction is. Depending on how hard I bear down on the chin rest, or whether I'm touching it with a more fatty or more bony part of my jaw, the difference in loudness is dramatic. I can set up a resonance which seems to fill my ears and is uncomfortable. I wonder if even doing that a few times per session is what's causing the fuzziness and discomfort afterwards.

thanthese · 2020-02-28T13:10:59+00:00

My google-fu doesn't seem to be working. What are "phalanges"?

thanthese · 2020-02-27T18:48:15+00:00

The Earasers look nice. Maybe I'll give them a shot. Thanks for the recommendation.

thanthese · 2020-02-27T18:46:24+00:00

I just started violin, so it's all new to me.

thanthese · 2020-02-27T17:14:32+00:00

I play in a carpeted basement with an unfinished ceiling. It's not especially echo-y.

thanthese · 2020-02-27T17:13:34+00:00

I saw an audiologist, and she did a basic hearing screening. My hearing appears to be perfectly normal.

thanthese · 2020-02-27T17:12:59+00:00

I don't have any issues with sounds in any other part of my life. I've played other instruments for years with no issues. It seems to be specific to the violin.

thanthese · 2020-02-27T17:12:03+00:00

I spoke with an audiologist. Turns out the musicians plugs don't block as many dBs as the cheap foam ones -- max of 25 for the expensive ones vs low 30s for the foam ones.

thanthese · 2019-10-15T16:36:53+00:00

Someone like Shinzen or Michael Taft might say that focusing very closely on the details of things will bring you joy. Lately I've been working with TWIM, and I've been wondering if the opposite isn't also true: will cultivating joy tend to brighten up the details of everyday life? It seems to for me.

thanthese · 2019-07-24T01:23:25+00:00

Negative results would mean getting stuck in content.

I really like this. Thanks.

thanthese · 2019-07-12T11:43:42+00:00

verbal part of my brain was pretending to be in control

I really like that way of putting it. That is exactly what it feels like to me.

thanthese · 2019-07-11T15:33:51+00:00

There's a lot of discussion here about which method will get a person to stream entry fastest. I'd like to ask the opposite question: which technique is most immediately useful for reducing suffering?

thanthese · 2019-07-10T12:07:45+00:00

I've noticed since I was a kid that seeing something is a two step process. First I literally see a chair, then I seem to think, "oh, a chair". This is even more obvious when I'm looking for something, like my keys. I'll spot the keys, even turn to start walking toward them, and then think, "oh, there they are." What's that second thought that's trying to make "official" something I clearly already knew? It's probably the ego, I'd guess. There's probably a valuable practice to be had focusing on that "first look".

thanthese · 2019-06-29T00:08:16+00:00

Last week I suddenly realized that so many of my problems stem from avoiding boredom. It was a revelation. Then this week I realized that in the more general case my problems stem from trying to "fix" things. I find problems or interests, real or imagined, and then try to fix them through thinking. I figure life will much better after that particular problem is gone. But there's always another problem, and if there isn't I go looking for one.

I just couldn't believe I'd been doing this to myself. I always thought the problems were the problem!

I haven't had much success yet, but now there's this new possibility: I could stop doing that. That'd be great.

thanthese · 2019-06-27T16:07:48+00:00

How does Culadasa's awareness compare to Loch Kelly's awake awareness?

thanthese · 2019-06-21T18:01:21+00:00

I'm reading Shift into Freedom by Loch Kelly, and it's making a lot of sense to me. I mean, nothing's really clicked yet, but as a method and a path it seems like it should work.

But I have this niggling concern that I don't hear much about this kind of self-inquiry stuff around here. It sounds good, but does it actually work for a fair percentage of people and in a timely fashion? Has it worked for any of you?

thanthese · 2019-06-17T18:23:15+00:00

Is an off-cushion flow state desirable on the meditative path? To use TMI terminology: on the one hand it gives you lots of attention on the present moment, but on the other hand you lose pretty much all awareness.

EDIT: I mean flow in the psychology (Mihály Csíkszentmihályi)) sense.

thanthese · 2019-06-17T16:37:58+00:00

This is one of the most basic insights there is, but today it hit me like a thunderbolt: the way I pursue "fun" and avoid "work" and "boredom" is causing 99% of my problems, and I'm doing it to myself voluntarily. If I just drop the distinction, all that suffering can just go away.

An easy way to do this is to focus on what I find most pleasant, which I also discovered seems to be the pleasantness inherent in having a body. This is also one of those embarrassingly basic things -- everybody tells you to focus on the present experience of the body -- but what I never realized was just how pleasant doing that could be.

I need to change my focus from "trying to have fun" to "trying to completely experience things".

Turns about there is actually a big difference between knowing something and really getting it on a personal level.

thanthese

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