GENIUS FORUMS

What are the proper conditions for effective meditation? What are the best ways to learn how to concentrate?

Matt Gregory wrote:What are the proper conditions for effective meditation? What are the best ways to learn how to concentrate?

Have you ever met a girl you can't stop thinking about?

When you really love something, the concentration will be automatically focussed.

I like to think of concentration as direct neurosymbosis: the collective union of the 'spheres. With a static energy source, you transform hertz data, into mega-hertz awareness. With this, you envelope your God-given potential: You interact with the quantum energy field; that is at your disposal.

Ever seen the output of a electrode monitoring system? - those invarible tangent lines, streaking against the screen. At times, when the ego kicks in, those lines become diffuse. But, when you are able to acheive deep theta wave states, you're able to throughly perceive the energy that fluxuates your environment. Buddhists conceived of the term "samadhi" for this enchanced state of being.

I really enjoy zoning out, while listening to jazz, free-form; trying to acheive a picture of the melodic cadence of the horn, the polyrhythm of the kit, the punched timbre of the bass. I mean really embed my consciousness into the color and tonality of the piece. I find that these types of techniques focus the mind into singularity, while at the same time, conjure up new patterns of thought.

It's just developing a state of mind that's completely absorbed in one thing. It sounds weird coming from me (since I've always hated it), but doing math seems like it'd be a great way to develop your ability to focus.

Trying to focus your concentration on something like a sound of a gong or mantra is really hard to do. After a while you realize that your mind is constantly avoiding it, and thinking of other things. This kind of thing takes a lot of dedication and conviction.

I've also noticed that different types of food influence it. I'm not exactly sure since I've experimented with vegetables and fruits, and some days are better than others. Eating a typical American diet it's really hard to focus. It's good to eat more whole foods, stay away from processed shit. Drink enough water so you don't feel thirsty. Be sure to eat different types of meat, but stay away from pork and try to get the meat from a reliable source...like a farmer who feeds his cows with green grass and doesn't use hormones or pesticides.

Go to sleep at the same time every night. Wake up without an alarm, just by your body's natural rhythm. Make sure you get at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise each day (like running or swimming) but only if you're sedentary. If you have an active lifestyle, like a surfer or something running won't matter...you're good enough.

Also don't watch tv. Try to be outdoors more often. The computer is okay, since it's only as fast paced as you make it. It's good to just do one thing on the computer at a time...unlike me where I have AIM open while I'm typing this and listening to music at the same time.

All those little things don't matter though, they just help. It's more important to analyze which things make you concentrate better and do those things in order to develop your ability to focus.

sevens wrote:I like to think of concentration as direct neurosymbosis: the collective union of the 'spheres. With a static energy source, you transform hertz data, into mega-hertz awareness. With this, you envelope your God-given potential: You interact with the quantum energy field; that is at your disposal.

Ever seen the output of a electrode monitoring system? - those invarible tangent lines, streaking against the screen. At times, when the ego kicks in, those lines become diffuse. But, when you are able to acheive deep theta wave states, you're able to throughly perceive the energy that fluxuates your environment. Buddhists conceived of the term "samadhi" for this enchanced state of being.

LOL
LOLOLOLOL ROFL I have no self respect

I know. It's embarassing, isn't it.

-

ksolway wrote:Have you ever met a girl you can't stop thinking about?

When you really love something, the concentration will be automatically focussed.

Love is a wild animal, though. We only love things in our environment it seems.

sschaula wrote:Trying to focus your concentration on something like a sound of a gong or mantra is really hard to do. After a while you realize that your mind is constantly avoiding it, and thinking of other things. This kind of thing takes a lot of dedication and conviction.

Yeah. I'm actually not that bad at it. It only causes me a little hysteria (boredom) if I concentrate real hard for awhile. I'm just not good enough to become enlightened, apparently.

Matt Gregory wrote:

ksolway wrote:Have you ever met a girl you can't stop thinking about?

When you really love something, the concentration will be automatically focussed.

Love is a wild animal, though. We only love things in our environment it seems.

That's fine, since Truth is always in your environment, if you have a deep love of Truth then you won't have any problem concentrating on it.

I don't believe in forcing the mind in one particular direction. It must go where it wants to go. It is natural for the mind to think about a whole range of things in quick succession - the trick is to see the Truth in all those things.

This doesn't seem to gel with the rest of your philosophy. Let me relate my understanding of masculinity and femininity.

The activity in a feminine mind is diffused and the activity in a masculine mind is more localized and this is the primary difference between the two from the point of view of cognitive science.

The way I interpret this is that a woman's mind jumps around a lot more and can think about multiple things at once. This allows her to keep society in mind at all times (the diffusion of the individual) while she does her thing. She can perceive and process many gross relationships at once and is capable of multitasking. She is more responsive to changes in the environment.

A man's mind is more individualistic and focused. The focused mind has to explicitly think about things to become aware of them, but can see them in more detail because they remain in consciousness longer. The downside is that he tends to think of things being removed from reality because being focused on the intricacies, he isn't paying attention to the external relationships. Of course, he can focus on the external relationships and ignore the intricacies if he wants, but he has to be deliberate in everything he thinks about whereas a woman's thinking is all instinctive and intuitional.

It seems to me you're saying the feminine mind is more valuable than the masculine mind because the masculine mind is always forcing itself in a particular direction (and, incidentally, is able to do that). That's not unnatural, though. How could it be? It's not "natural" to become enlightened, either, but people do it anyway. It also requires concentration to reason about things. I can't see any reason why concentration would ever need to be abandoned.

I can see your point about seeing Truth in all things, but I don't see what that has to do with the mind being concentrated or not. But, but if someone is currently unenlightened then it seems to me like it would be in their best interests to work on learning to force the mind in a particular direction so that problems can be solved and subtle delusions can be detected.

Matt Gregory wrote:This doesn't seem to gel with the rest of your philosophy . . .

. . . It seems to me you're saying the feminine mind is more valuable than the masculine mind because the masculine mind is always forcing itself in a particular direction

I would put it this way: the masculine mind has more memory. So even though its concentration flits from one thing to another, its memory remains constant, and that ties all its experiences together into a more cohesive whole.

For example, when you love a girl deeply then you are thinking of this girl, in some fashion, all of the time, sleeping or waking. You see her everywhere, in crowds she's not even in, etc. Every thing reminds you of her.

So it's like that with meditation on God, the Infinite. No matter what you think of, you see the Infinite expressing itself through the thing you're thinking of.

I don't agree with methods such as "concentrating on the breath", unless one concentrates on the causal processes of the breath, as a doorway to the Infinite. The very moment you concentrate on the causal nature of the breath, and how it brings "life", etc, you immediately stop thinking of the breath and your thoughts are led out to meet with countless things. But all the time you remember the Infinite, if you love it enough.

The generation of this love is supposed to be the essence of bhakti yoga, and is what Ramakrishna concentrated on in his teachings.

I can see your point about seeing Truth in all things, but I don't see what that has to do with the mind being concentrated or not.

My way of thinking is that a concentrated mind is "concentrated" on whatever it is thinking in the moment, when there is nothing to distract it and blunten or fray its needle point. But such a mind can safely think of very different things from one moment to the next, provided the moments are linked through memory of Truth.

Once one has this strong memory of Truth, one need not fear thinking about anything at all, and can let the mind wander wherever it wants to go. In a sense there is only one possible thing you can think about - Truth - just as the lover can only think about the loved one, and is in no danger of losing concentration on the loved one, no matter which direction his mind turns.

But, but if someone is currently unenlightened then it seems to me like it would be in their best interests to work on learning to force the mind in a particular direction so that problems can be solved and subtle delusions can be detected.

You shouldn't need to "force" anything. Like trying to remove the nut from a bolt that are stuck together, forcing it will only make the problem worse. Better to go back to basics and study the ways how one safely solves the problem, before tackling it in your own good time, and without ever forcing anything. You will take this path if you want to do it. So all you really "need" to do is to decide which path you want to take - which you will do if it is your nature to do so, and which you will not do if it isn't.

ksolway wrote: I don't agree with methods such as "concentrating on the breath", unless one concentrates on the causal processes of the breath, as a doorway to the Infinite. The very moment you concentrate on the causal nature of the breath, and how it brings "life", etc, you immediately stop thinking of the breath and your thoughts are led out to meet with countless things. But all the time you remember the Infinite, if you love it enough.

I think concentrating on the breath is a very good exercise.

Part of it is that you see how easily the mind wanders, how other topics arise. But you can always bring your mind back to the breath. Gently, just remembering what you were doing: following the breath. (That's a hard part for me: just returning to the breath, not scolding myself for wandering off.)

Continually bringing the mind back, over time, helps you develop focus and single-mindedness. Concentration is good, but you need to be able to keep a sustained concentration on a single thing for some period of time for it to really be effective.

It may have physical benefits as well. But meditation should probably not be approached as a means, something just to be done in order to get some end result. It should be approached as an end in itself.

Hopefully it is something I will get back to. For me, it's kind of like exercising. I know it's good, and once in a routine it's not that hard to keep going, but it can be tough to get started and stick with it long enough to make it into a routine.

meditation = mental masturbation

ksolway wrote:

Matt Gregory wrote:This doesn't seem to gel with the rest of your philosophy . . .

. . . It seems to me you're saying the feminine mind is more valuable than the masculine mind because the masculine mind is always forcing itself in a particular direction

I would put it this way: the masculine mind has more memory. So even though its concentration flits from one thing to another, its memory remains constant, and that ties all its experiences together into a more cohesive whole.

For example, when you love a girl deeply then you are thinking of this girl, in some fashion, all of the time, sleeping or waking. You see her everywhere, in crowds she's not even in, etc. Every thing reminds you of her.

So it's like that with meditation on God, the Infinite. No matter what you think of, you see the Infinite expressing itself through the thing you're thinking of.

I don't agree with methods such as "concentrating on the breath", unless one concentrates on the causal processes of the breath, as a doorway to the Infinite. The very moment you concentrate on the causal nature of the breath, and how it brings "life", etc, you immediately stop thinking of the breath and your thoughts are led out to meet with countless things. But all the time you remember the Infinite, if you love it enough.

The generation of this love is supposed to be the essence of bhakti yoga, and is what Ramakrishna concentrated on in his teachings.

I can see your point about seeing Truth in all things, but I don't see what that has to do with the mind being concentrated or not.

My way of thinking is that a concentrated mind is "concentrated" on whatever it is thinking in the moment, when there is nothing to distract it and blunten or fray its needle point. But such a mind can safely think of very different things from one moment to the next, provided the moments are linked through memory of Truth.

Once one has this strong memory of Truth, one need not fear thinking about anything at all, and can let the mind wander wherever it wants to go. In a sense there is only one possible thing you can think about - Truth - just as the lover can only think about the loved one, and is in no danger of losing concentration on the loved one, no matter which direction his mind turns.

But, but if someone is currently unenlightened then it seems to me like it would be in their best interests to work on learning to force the mind in a particular direction so that problems can be solved and subtle delusions can be detected.

You shouldn't need to "force" anything. Like trying to remove the nut from a bolt that are stuck together, forcing it will only make the problem worse. Better to go back to basics and study the ways how one safely solves the problem, before tackling it in your own good time, and without ever forcing anything. You will take this path if you want to do it. So all you really "need" to do is to decide which path you want to take - which you will do if it is your nature to do so, and which you will not do if it isn't.

Ugh, I think I had an insight overdose on that one. :-)

I sent NickOtani the address to this forum before I had refreshed myself of its contents -- so pardon the meditation question in the ABCs thread, when you are down here already discussing it. (My time has been limited to vertical reading into threads instead of horizontally across the board.)

There are some serious misconceptions about meditation parked in this thread -- descriptions that I think come from people who have really only read about meditation or heard about it, have limited experience with it, perhaps even rejecting it out of hand. One can see the spin being put on it by the individual thinker. Let me start with the most serious misconception of all.

Kevin Solway wrote:

Have you ever met a girl you can't stop thinking about? [and] For example, when you love a girl deeply then you are thinking of this girl, in some fashion, all of the time, sleeping or waking. You see her everywhere, in crowds she's not even in, etc. Every thing reminds you of her.

This is a gravely miscast analogy. What you describe above is obsession, and further, obsession based upon a great physiological riot.

Kevin also says:

I don't agree with methods such as "concentrating on the breath"

And this is just plain misunderstanding. When I get done addressing specific points, hopefully it will help you understand why.

sevens writes:

I really enjoy zoning out

This too, is not even close.

sschaula writes:

I've also noticed that different types of food influence it. I'm not exactly sure since I've experimented with vegetables and fruits, and some days are better than others. Eating a typical American diet it's really hard to focus. It's good to eat more whole foods, stay away from processed shit. Drink enough water so you don't feel thirsty. Be sure to eat different types of meat, but stay away from pork and try to get the meat from a reliable source...like a farmer who feeds his cows with green grass and doesn't use hormones or pesticides.

Go to sleep at the same time every night. Wake up without an alarm, just by your body's natural rhythm. Make sure you get at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise each day (like running or swimming) but only if you're sedentary. If you have an active lifestyle, like a surfer or something running won't matter...you're good enough.

Also don't watch tv. Try to be outdoors more often. The computer is okay, since it's only as fast paced as you make it. It's good to just do one thing on the computer at a time...unlike me where I have AIM open while I'm typing this and listening to music at the same time.

All those little things don't matter though, they just help. It's more important to analyze which things make you concentrate better and do those things in order to develop your ability to focus.

You may have pointed out some good homespun behavioral advice, but this is the mind of thinker out of control (and needing many controls to arrive in the form of advice).

sschaula writes as well:

It's just developing a state of mind that's completely absorbed in one thing.

the present. And such dramatic words as "completely absorbed" run the same danger of miscasting this into some sort of aggressive athleticism.

Let me recast the original questions and answer them this way:

The purpose of meditation is to get to know the nature of your own mind. It's goal is to bring you into the present. That's where everything is. Now here are the particulars that fall inbetween.

I could ask you right now what you usually think about, and unless you have looked - truly looked - at what your mind is doing, you will probably [accidentally] lie. You will have to sit a long long time with yourself to really start seeing: seeing the endless little tape-loops you replay over and over; the sick little corners into which you take refuge; the fights you conduct with others in order to protect your sense of self; the conceptual and abstract thinking to which you cling as well as just how far this kind of thinking takes you from reality (the present, the truth, the eternal and the infinite - whichever synonym you prefer).

Kevin writes:

I don't believe in forcing the mind in one particular direction.

In this, Kevin is correct. You cannot force your mind to go anywhere unless you know what's it's doing all the time anyway. Once you know what it's doing (. . . long long gap of experience goes here . . .), you don't have to force anything at all. You become all by yourself sick of your own sickness. You have the capacity to begin recognizing these repeated wrestling things: mimetic responses; tangled memories we spend so much time trying to rewrite or recover; obsessive imaging, worked and overworked internal narrations and justifications of your thinking and your life; at first, the outward clothing of your big defense of yourself; eventually its actual roots - and ultimately, the seeing that your own emotional affectivity for all of this is groundless, and that you are the author of it from coming at cause-and-effect either conceptually or from the ass-end. And after awhile -- a long while - it is your own disinterest in them that begins to rise, and that disinterest is the beginning of their dissolution.

KS: [The mind] must go where it wants to go.

In the beginning. And you must pay attention to where it wants to go, so that you can see that it is not where you want to be at all. There is no direction for this "going" if you do not first know how it "goes." And in this will heal the sensation of a division between "you" and "your thoughts."

It is natural for the mind to think about a whole range of things in quick succession - the trick is to see the Truth in all those things.

There is no "trick" to this. And what you want to see first is all the "untruth" in that range of things. If you have not faced squarely the nature of your own mind, everything you try to apply to it will eventually fall off like a old band-aid.

Paying attention to the breath is the quickest and most efficient way to bring you into the present. No, it is not the ultimate goal, but it is the clearest way to enter into it. Interestingly, it is the gesture of both the beginner and the adept. It is helpful to both. When one goes to sit and offload the streaming dialogue of the day, the breath is the door. And meditation is like this; this is why it is done for a lifetime amongst the really serious. There's a lot of offloading needs done in a noisy world. If you don't -- if you leave it there -- it will take root in the originally turned soil of delusion and start growing there again.

Leyla (if you're here), you asked in the ABC thread what happened to my previous serenity, now replaced by disgust. Here is my answer. I have not meditated for awhile. And I'm startled by my own reminder.

These truths to which various and sundry have arrived - these conceptual truths (A=A; law of causality and the like) - will continue to need this work on this board, as long as one has come at them through conceptual thinking. I realize I am probably in minority here in my recommendation, but one cannot dismantle erroneous concepts by using more concepts. One cannot arrive to the present (truth, reality, eternity, infinity) by conceptual recipe. If you do, this is where you will stay. If you have not taken this blank journey into the nature of your own mind -- this honest look at what you're thinking (and believe me, it will take more than seven veils to fall to get you there) - this look at of what your thinking actually consists -- lived with that thinking long enough to see it and get sick of it, and eventually disinterested in it-- you will continue to plant things in the soil of delusion. And you will continue to be estranged from the present.

And finally, to anyone here who speaks of, who is desirous of reaching Buddhahood, I would just like to add this:

The Buddha, sitting under that bodhi tree, was not under there just whistling "Dixie." He was learning the nature of his own mind. He was meditating.

Pye wrote: There are some serious misconceptions about meditation parked in this thread -- descriptions that I think come from people who have really only read about meditation or heard about it, have limited experience with it, perhaps even rejecting it out of hand. One can see the spin being put on it by the individual thinker. Let me start with the most serious misconception of all.

At last someone who I agree with 100%!
Way to go dude! (not joking).
Would you mind telling us how many years of practise you've done, how many hours or time a day, how long it took you to implement meditation into the rest of the day (while not sitting specifically for meditation)?
What do you think of Atma-Vichara (Self-Inquiry))
Greetings

Pye wrote:. One can see the spin being put on it by the individual thinker.

Are you sure it's not you who is doing the spinning? This thread seems to be about meditation, not about meditation.

Pye;

Very well analyzed post on meditation, just one thing though...

One cannot arrive to the present (truth, reality, eternity, infinity) by conceptual recipe.

Isn’t the above statement a concept too? How can one actually realize it as truth, reality, or whatever, other than through knowing what those words contrast? Isn’t present a concept too?

hades wrote:meditation = mental masturbation

Why?

--

Pye wrote: I could ask you right now what you usually think about, and unless you have looked - truly looked - at what your mind is doing, you will probably [accidentally] lie.

Do you think that thoughts you are not aware of actually exist?(this is a variation on the tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear it.)

Pye wrote: One cannot arrive to the present (truth, reality, eternity, infinity) by conceptual recipe.

Pye wrote: The purpose of meditation is to get to know the nature of your own mind. It's goal is to bring you into the present. That's where everything is.

So if the present is where everything is, how could anything( including yourself, abstract thought etc) ever be outside the present?

Pye wrote:

Leyla (if you're here), you asked in the ABC thread what happened to my previous serenity, now replaced by disgust. Here is my answer. I have not meditated for awhile. And I'm startled by my own reminder.

OK. I have some comments to make on your post here, soon.

Pye wrote:

The purpose of meditation is to get to know the nature of your own mind. It's goal is to bring you into the present. That's where everything is.

Jason wrote:

So if the present is where everything is, how could anything( including yourself, abstract thought etc) ever be outside the present?

Good question Jason. I’d also like to know which ‘present’. Is it ‘this one’, or 'this one', or 'this one', or…

* * *

Pye’s idea of meditation is a very popular view, especially amongst women. By building up the present as something different and separate from our usual experience, it makes it look like something mystical and magical - which of course it isn’t.

Sue

Pye wrote:Here is my answer. I have not meditated for awhile. And I'm startled by my own reminder.

Thanks for the reminder.

It's something I need to get back to, as well.

Jason wrote:Do you think that thoughts you are not aware of actually exist?(this is a variation on the tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear it.)

Something can be said to exist if it has an impact, an effect, that is observable on other things.

There are many sub- or un-conscious processes that go on without making it to center-stage awareness. You continue to breathe, your heart continues beating, maybe you continue to hear that background air conditioner sound, but are not aware of these things. Although you are not normally aware of the sound, you would notice it if that air conditioner sound suddenly stopped.

So, you stop. You sit quietly and pay attention. Generally you are focused on some activity, physical or mental - you are doing something, or preparing for something. Just stop, sit in a position that you can sit in without moving for a while, and just pay attention. Even then, there is so much going on that you can't keep track of it all. You will find that you are thinking of many things at once. There are several streams of consciousness going on, each with a small part of brain devoted to them; usually only one of them is the focus of "awareness"; staying in memory.

So, instead of paying attention to everything (since there is so much going on), you limit your attention, focus it on the simple act of breathing. Surely that is simple enough? You've been breathing all your life, you should be familiar with it. But can you pay attention to it - notice it - without controlling it? Just following it? Usually, you focus on something with some end in mind. You would shift your focus to your breath for some reason - for instance, if you are about to hold your breath.

The mind tends to wander. You start thinking about what you will do later, or something someone said in the supermarket. You realize, at some point, that you've let go of the breath. You bring your attention back to the breath, and continue.

It seems like a simple enough exercise - and it is. But you don't get any benefit from reading about it. You get the benefit by actually doing it. Just like, you won't learn to play the piano from reading about it, and conceptually understanding how the piano works. If you want to know what playing a piano is about, you have to actually go play a piano.

There's nothing mystical or magical about this. Meditation is something to try, to see if it works for you. You wil get more benefit from trying it than you will from mentally dissecting it or arguing about it.