Buddhism and meditation are often associated in my thoughts. How do you actually meditate and how does it feel? Can people who believe in other religions do it as-well?
Anyone can meditate, and it can be quite interesting. Now, I am NO authority on meditation, so don't necessarily take me to be correct, but I was taught how to perform mindfulness meditation by Darrell before he left the forums. You just sort of sit down in a relaxing position (a place with as few distractions is possible is ideal), and concentrate on breathing. It's not just normal concentration though. First you have to understand the concept of "monkey mind." The human brain can only concentrate wholly on a single thing for 2 or 3 seconds at a time; then it must shift its focus to something else, even if for just a split second. With that in mind, the goal of mindfulness meditation is to expand your awareness of this, and to train your mind to be able to focus on a single thought or sensation *indefinitely,* while disregarding all distractions and external stimuli other than that single thought or sensation. That's called "single point concentration." One of the easiest ways to do that, is to focus entirely on the wholeness of your breathing. Concentrate on the muscles in your lungs and stomach, as they expand while you breathe in, and focus on the air as it goes into your lungs, and then focus on the contracting of your muscles and the air as it is expelled from your body. So, correct me if I'm wrong. =)
You're right that one-pointedness is the goal, but it's mostly out of our reach. Relaxation and concentration ought to be difficult enough goals for most of us!
Thank you for the explanation Hikky Z & Jim. So it gives you a feeling of relaxation and you live in the moment without feeling of time that is passing by. Is one pointeness the ultimate goal or is it something as inner peace?
Supposedly, there are four "stages" of attaining Nirvana. The first is attaning single-point concentration as I described above, so that you can block out all distraction and focus intently on a specific thing. Once you can do this, you can put pure focus into your own thoughts, and you'll be able to "see" how your thought patterns go, and change them easily enough (or so I have been told). To my limited understanding (and I may very well be incorrect again), the second stage entails feeling only joy and peace, the third stage entails feeling only peace, and the final stage is complete Oneness with all things; complete balance between all things, emotions included.
Yeah, that's about right. But remember, those fabulous buddhist taxonomies of spiritual experience are written for monks on the path to enlightenment, not laymen wanting to be more relaxed, happier and have stronger concentration. It's very interesting to read about this stuff, but it should be banished from your mind w.r.t. actual meditation. The slightest thought of "I'm getting close to stage one now; in three more stages I'll have acheived enlightenment!" is fatal to meditation.
i don't have a religion but I meditate... I have different meditations... sometimes i do it as a meditational dance.. with candels and innscence and stuff like that. a really mystical dance.. and i close my eyes and dance... sometimes throw in some of my belly dancing as well as some other stuff... very mysterious and mystical.. or i do the other meditating... sitting in the middle of some dried flower petals (normally roses) and a knife (which later i would like to replace with with a really nice dagger), candels, innscence and stuff like that. no light in my room except for candel light.
I dunno.. just because I think it looks neat and decorative... I would never actually use it on anybody.. lol. plus I think daggers look very neat... I want to get a really neat looking one with jewels on it..
