Meditation

You can use this thread to talk about meditation and ask questions. I am going to be starting a new form of meditation I haven't read about anywhere. I would like to try the transcendental mediation technique with a somewhat zen philosophy. My goal is just for a little better mindfulness and a way to practice my concentration, which is quite poor currently. I like the idea behind some schools of zen meditation that all realizations encountered while meditating should be ignored, but I find the practice itself to be quite difficult for the level at which I'm pursuing it and I haven't made much progress, especially without the opportunity for guidance. I like that the practice of transcendental meditation is so much simpler but I don't like some of the beliefs and programs associated with it. I have found that even more simple and western-oriented mediation practices are fine, but I still find TM more attractive. I have a "natural koan" as it's known in zen meditation so I am going to meditate on that in a TM fashion. Anyone know of similar practices? Regardless, wish me luck.

Here are my findings so far. It turns out that koans are not suited for transcendental meditation, so I just changed my natural koan into a mantra. It worked very well. Because my thoughts race so much, I did not follow the practice of "say your mantra on your out breath" exactly, but replaced all of my thoughts with my mantra as they came in. As my mind became more at peace I was able to only repeat my mantra on the out breath. Transcendental meditation is indeed TONS easier than zen mediation. I was expecting it to be easy in terms of posture, closing my eyes, and staying away from noise, I was not prepared for just how rapidly and easily I would be able to achieve a state of meditation. It makes me think that zen meditation has too many roadblocks not only in the way that it is intentionally hard physically, but also that it is intentionally hard mentally. This could be because of how active our modern minds are, it is much easier to replace a thought than it is to think of completely nothing. At the very least, they should teach these techniques to western absolute beginners and ease into some of the more difficult techniques. I still associate strongly with the zen philosophy. I found this great simple video explaining the technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FVw-Pt_fRQ

>>17654 does anyone have any good resources on various meditation practices, search engines aren't helping much, all i get is a bunch of journalist articles all regurgitating similar things without much context or anything helpful to understand how these were practiced in various places and times, and what are the benefits of each.

I have difficulty keeping up regular meditation. I have done Hindu mantra recitation, walking meditation, mindfulness meditation and metta meditation. Mantra recitation seems to improve breathing practices a bit. I find meditating with my eyes open easier than closed eyed. Metta meditation is difficult but helps with empathy. I on two occasions without even trying experienced something that sounds a lot like the start of a kundalini rising. I felt a crazy warmth in my spine radiating and it got so hot the second time this happened I started getting scared and had to calm myself and enjoy the euphoria.

>>17846 That's crazy. I also have problems with regular practice. That's why I'm just using it to clear my head once in a while now. I don't want to beat myself up over it >>17801 Also curious about this. I learned some of the fundamentals of meditation from Three Pillars Of Zen, but it's not an ideal source and only covers one school of meditation.