i'm taking a mysticism class. i have an assignment to meditate for 30 days and keep a journal. i have no experience with meditation. basically we had one class about medition. breathing meditation...just sitting and focusing on out breathing...and walking meditation...walking without a destination and focusing on each step. is that really all there is to meditation? what am i supposed to get out it. the journal is 25% of my grade so i want to do good but more than that from my understanding meditation should lead to personal peace and i really need some peace in my life. i just don't really understand what meditation is and exactly how it works. any help would be greatly appriciated.
Try getting this book....The Miracle of Mindfulness ( a manual on meditation) by Thich Nhat Hanh .... it's a good book , It helped me, I am more peaceful and calm....But it takes time and practice, It does'nt happen overnight.....PEACE
Basically its Simple, You concentrate on your breathing, Listen to it...When other thoughts come into your head just sort of let them go and come back to your breathing....Ex; Inhale, I breathe in....Exhale, I breathe out.... Do it nice and slow , calmly..... Good Luck http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/H/HanhThichNha/ http://www.plumvillage.org/MLResources/BooksInfo.htm
Check out what mojo said, plus you might wanna check out wildmind.org (my personal favorite, of what I've seen). But there's several different types of meditation for different purposes. Some are thoughtless, some are full of thoughts. Depends what your doing.
thanks for the help! and i really like thich nhat hanh. for that class we have to read essential writings. we have read much (we skip around in like 3 books so you dont read too much of anything) but i really like his writing style. and the website is very helpful and is just interesting to check out in general
Yeah meditation merely entails focusing on something, hence the breath and the steps. I second that about Wildmind...great site. I do his Metta Bhavana a few times a week and enjoy it immensely.
If I was giving a class and I told a seventeen year old to do some form of meditation without instruction and they wrote a bunch of mystical nonsense in a notebook I would flunk them. The very notion is anathema to those people who are truely mystics. Their experiences are not meant to be categorized or even understood, better yet studied as if one could understand them in a classroom setting. Ha Ha.... Tell your teacher he/she is a dope.
