what is meditation supposed to accomplish

Meditation helps me to focus better. I'm usually distracted easily with meaningless thoughts instead of getting things done. Meditation trains my mind to focus.

 

Meditation helps you gain more precision over your mind in my experience. You have ideas whizzing around your head all the time, and often times you don't know how to shut the valve off. I don't think its explicitly a practice for only relaxation. I think that the task of trying to quiet the mind can be anything but relaxing. If I wanted to relax, I'd just turn on the tv or sit around and do nothing and just let my mind race around in any way it chooses. Really, meditation for me is kind of a chore, like making my bed. Its not something I really wanna do all the time, but I know it helps, so that's why I do it.

 

i went to a meditation class last week and we meditated about death it was weird in a group setting with a dead-quiet room filled with people i didnt know but it was kind of relaxing. i prefer doing it alone though with some incense or somethinng

 

ideally meditation is something never far from you.. once you work really, really, really hard at attenuating yourself to the consciousness you wish to carry with you, meditation is not something separate or special, particularly set aside, but become a tool pretty well much deployable at will..

the first function of meditation, and the single most important one, which if mastered thoroughly allows all other to flow through one's self naturally, is withdrawal from anger.

it's a lesson that good parent's teach to their children:
"be kind".

if you learn kindness, work at learning it, so that it your most natural perceptual mode, everything else follows..

it may not be descriptive, as in kundalini yoga or plainchant or mantras or om breathing, but when you have worked hard enough at being good that you feel bad when you are not good, and know when to move to correct it, everything else follows...

the *difficult* part is imparting *complete primacy* to that kindness as being central to your being...

when you get there, or near there, you can step from one state (non-meditating) to meditating, in an instant...

this one thing, the work to be kind, yields the greatest freedom of existence; there are no special rules, no special forms & no special knowledge..

it is, however, the hardest work.

meditation to accomplish anything else is a work that seeks to accomplish a thing far off target from attenuation with simplicity..

if you have half a small sandwich, are hungry from two days with little food & meet a stranger who is hungry also?
tear the sandwhich in half, and give them the larger piece.

*that* is what meditation is supposed to accomplish, and if it comes naturally to you, then your work is already done, and all it takes is one breath & one step back, and the taste of peace will be in your heart enough that you have enough control to love rather than hate, even if that means not body slamming some asshole who deserves to have the fucking life choked out of them...

because after all is said & done, that is the prime conflict in life, and the thing we use ourselves to step away from:

giving people what they deserve.


there are a lot of words that go with that..

-mercy,
- tolerance
- introspection
-courage
-work

once you are kind, those things are a bit easier, because kindness has already prepared you for selflessness..

one breath, and you can pull away from instincts...


meditation as a formal discipline is easy to abuse..

-the concentration of the body's focus for the purpose of harming another..
-the focus of the mind towards gaining knowledge to used to hurt others..
- the focus of creative powers on endeavors while discarding consequences..
- the focus of perception upon pleasure rather than actual work.

none of these are of value in themselves, but they *are* far more potent and addictive purposes to attain to..

no question about that...

and each of those things *can* be attained without kindness or love..

meditation, in fact, may really be a distraction, when it is looked at as something other than a natural path..

what needs to be asked, perhaps, is not "what is meditation for?", but "what am * i * for?", and if what you do helps you fullfill *that* answer, then you have one for both.

anyways..

hope it's worth asking..

peace,

john

 

Meditation is a way of relaxation and enlightenment. If we dissolve our attachment to the outside world and bring our minds to rest, well-being, positively and enlightenment (inner happiness) arise. All negativity vanishes. We think positive again and suddenly live in the light. We see God (the positive) in the world, in our fellow men and ourselves. We are in harmony with ourselves and our lives.
Meditation helps to reduce stress by teaching us to switch off from the worries that can plague us through the day. Meditation is an opportunity to spend time by ourselves, without feeling at the beck and call of others. Spending 15 minutes in quietening the mind and focusing on the present moment, makes us more relaxed and effective decision makers.

 

i don't meditate, i think

there is no such thing as enlightenment there is always something to be learned

 

It gives you the comfortable illusion that you're relax, higher state, peaceful, ego loss.
Because a lot of people hate reality, I didn't get into the buisness of taking medication too get away from anything or cure anything.. I don't get high to ecscape, I shamanicly explore only too experience if you wanna get healthy eat some god damn greens for fuck sakes put down the chicken god damnit but no we can't do that it's to hard we wanna feel comfortable, and thats what seperates a winner from a loser.

I have seen a lot of people build ego on the fact that they took more acid then the average person & a lot of people completely miss the point. The reality of it is this, if your stupid you're just fucking stupid LSD can't fix stupid, thus for them it becomes medication. Where as me I take it and realize how much of an idiot, an asshole how insensitive I am like right now and it kicks the fucking shit out of me till I am less then human..and that becomes a tonic
if you're conserned about health, will you be stronge enough to step out of your own way?

 

im a gump. The exact opposite of 'scarface'
The above poster thinks he is bad and cool.

5 minutes with him and he will be a good little boy instead of a bad little boy he thinks he is now
He has NO IDEA what bad means because his ideas are from movies .. not from real life
im a good teacher. I can teach real life very quickly.. in fact 5 minutes is too long
3
and 025 becomes 000

Sorry, i detest violence, but some people literally need the shit kicked out of them cause they are too stupid to know they are
stupid

 

Freedom man

Exactly the question i posed at your age.. now at 50+ i still don't really know the answer.

I propose that humanity is infinitely variable. Thus the set of people who can meditate is a set within humanity. Not all of it.

I could counter the meditation line with 'why cannot so many think in logic chains of more than 3 conclusions'
After all just about everyone i meet cannot. thus manipulators have a free field

Why do i need to meditate?Please explain.
I have no need or desire to unload my fears and doubts.. They are what make me me. I have according to buddhist methods already reduced my titanic ego to measurable levels.
I fear not death or woe.. they WILL happen.

I fear only for those i love. And this this the hold evil has on us all who feel the same.
Before i Die i would without a thought snuff the life from all who harm others for gratuitous desire. Lucky for them i cannot.
I do not consider any who willfully harm others to personal gain as human beings.This is why i love and hate the united states
They have the power to do this thing.. yet.. they are ruled by it.
power indeed corrupts the weak minded.. absolutely

fluffy occam

 

It sounds like you've answered your own question. I think meditation accomplishes different things for different people, if they choose to practice it.