Meditation ?

Meditation is not a physcial act. it is not a posture. Meditaiton is just to be aware of your thoughts and your "being".

The posture of meditation is good to bring you in a discipline so that you can learn to do it. Like kids going to school. They need to wear a uniform and sit in the classroom. It is to discipline the kid to get to learning. But just by wearing uniform and sitting in the classrrom does not guarantee the kid would learn.

This is exactly for meditation. All the suggestions we hear to sit and close eyes...blah blah... is needed to bring a discipline to ourself. I read from a site that every moment in life should be like meditation..

what does it mean. it does not mean to sit in a place and meditate and not do anything.

It means we watchful of your thoughts while doing all actions. This practise takes time. what we should do is sit brief time in the traditional posture and do the act. You cannot be aware of the thoughts easily. after you finish meditation continue to aware of our thoughts. Simply watch yourself. watch what you talk, how you eat, how you react.....this is then full time meditation. With this practise you also start to see your inner light.
 
Please understand that meditation alone (just mediation for sake of meditation) is no good/useless regardless if it is Zazen or other types! You must live the life style for it to work. Meditation is good to gather thoughts and mental energy, there for you must do it the correct way! By the way the Zazen taught to me was through a master/instructor or head senior monk. If you moved out of line during Zazen you were hit with a shinai (bamboo sword used in Kendo) although it woulden't hurt, the noise was defening and made you correct your posture! That is real Zazen, sorry guys/gals!
 
dont apologize Hediki, I don't HAVE to do that.
I think it is a bad thing that people are drilled in meditation as in your culture with a stick. a bit like the army. it is outrageous/when we sit ...and i dont mean straight back 'i am meditatiing--clearing my thoughts for goal of enlightenemnt like the Buddha"...i mean wehn we sit and listen and are with the flow of things. THAt must be spontaneous, not forced with a stick. if that so-called master had done that to me i woulda grabbed it back and hit him hard then walked out..if not thrown out...whothe fuk is someone hitting anyone with a stick. that is disgraceful

the whole reason you and others have put up with that bad behaviour, is because you have bought the myth. the carrot on the stick hope that you will become like 'Buddha'...otherwise there would be no big deal about sitting, or lying, or dancing or whatever. there would be freedom of movement
 
Hideki Matsumoto said:
Please understand that meditation alone (just mediation for sake of meditation) is no good/useless regardless if it is Zazen or other types! You must live the life style for it to work. Meditation is good to gather thoughts and mental energy, there for you must do it the correct way! By the way the Zazen taught to me was through a master/instructor or head senior monk. If you moved out of line during Zazen you were hit with a shinai (bamboo sword used in Kendo) although it woulden't hurt, the noise was defening and made you correct your posture! That is real Zazen, sorry guys/gals!
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HM, ummm...when zen teachers walk around with a stick at other zazen sessions they place it vertically in a straight line behind the students (meditator's) back and if the person's back is not touching the stick towards the top or bottom it is an indicator of slouching and they straighten up.

If you or anyone is in a room and worrying (wondering) about being hit with a shinai while meditating you are gonna not be real focused on posture and breathing.

If that one school was your only set of experiences with mediation please get a second opinion and visit another school, even another zen school. ( i am guessing you are buddist which is why you brought up zazen as mediation and not mediation independent of zazen). Even if you decide that the teacher who beat you is the one you will have based after experimenting with schools.

Also, I can't speak for zazen cause I never did that, (not buddist), but as far as meditation goes it is also a physical and technical exercise not just a mental one. You spoke about it as the correct way and than only said mental. If you didn't get technical instruction or phycial instruction you only got part of the formula for meditation.

The physical included postures and varying muscle tension with postures open to inpretation that vary slightly but not greatly.

Techincal includes breathing techinques which again have some variance, duration and setting.

Mediation (again I am not saying zazen--cause I dont' know enough about it but mediation is part of zazen) is a mental exercise but also technical and physical.
 
Eincloud describe a typical meditation session for you including length, postures, breathing techinques ect ect. thank you.
 
yeah, ok, but I usually go for about 15-30 min. I do slow long breaths inhale threw the nose and exhale through the mouth. Usually go in half lotus position but do sometimes go for a full lotus. Back strait and begin.
 
I think meditation is a waste of time without martial arts to accompany it. If you're not going to use what you gain then what's the point? If you're looking for peace and happiness go walk in the woods or climb a mountain.
 
Ah. I have always hated any sort of "meditation", "relaxation", blahblahblah. We had a "progressive" teacher for phonetics, so we'd sometimes do "mediational warmups" before speaking practice -- which only upset me and deconcentrized me.
You cannot relax just by being TOLD to relax. This is utterly stupid.

I have also been to an "esoteric" course, and then at home, before studying, tried to do those relaxation practices. Bah. It, in fact, worsened my abilities, and I would often start feeling sick after I had studied for some 30 minutes.
I can make myself ready for studying without that -- there are many ways of disciplining oneself.
 
:) Maybe I was a bit harsh. If it wasn't beneficial in some way nobody would've done it. But what's the point of doing something "useless"?
 
Nothing IS "useless". Every second you're are alive is reason in itself. To think of things as "useless" is a fearful and lazy cop-out.
 
Jenyar said:
I think meditation is a waste of time without martial arts to accompany it. If you're not going to use what you gain then what's the point? If you're looking for peace and happiness go walk in the woods or climb a mountain.
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Jenyar, can we isolate this for a sec. What benefits does meditation have to martial arts? Specfically. Name a few and I bet whatever list you think up you can take that same benefit and apply it to another physcial activity that it will also benefit.

For instance if one who studies martial arts were to list benefits as

1) focus,
2) relaxation
3) mental clarity
4) improved coordination
5 ) improved stamina

just a hypothical, I would surmise that you could take those same benefits and apply them to basketball, long distance running, or other physcial activites.

And actually, I have studied martial arts all my adult life and some of my adolescent life and used the mediation I learned in there for studying while in college. My rention rate seemed higher to me if I mediated sometimes before exams and such.

Just a counter theory.
 
SkippingStones,
I tend to agree, but there are things that add nothing to life. By useful I mean "applicable". Sitting under a bo tree giggling at butterflies isn't for everybody. What I'm worried about is that everybody thinks meditation is the way to go - the magic ingedient to life that will finally give it some meaning. I say it won't give it more meaning than it already has - not by its own merit. With me?
robtex said:
just a hypothical, I would surmise that you could take those same benefits and apply them to basketball, long distance running, or other physcial activites.

And actually, I have studied martial arts all my adult life and some of my adolescent life and used the mediation I learned in there for studying while in college. My rention rate seemed higher to me if I mediated sometimes before exams and such.

Just a counter theory.
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Yes, of course. And lots of athletes use it to good effect, but along with training. When you get to the level that you need meditation to perform, I think you might have overexerted yourself mentally. It's good for balance, but on its own it's no more beneficial than just training on its own, they have to come together somewhere. Mind+body=punch.

I did Karate for 7 years, without a hint of meditation. Then I started Shaolin and Tai Chi, where we did some Qigong and classic meditation. But it felt superfluous against sitting in low horse after a two hour physical, forcing my mind to focus and bring my breathing under control. Meditation should push against something or you'll still fall over, in my opinion. It doesn't really matter what, though. I just used martial arts because it's a more natural (intelligent?) companion.
 
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robtex said:
My rention rate seemed higher to me if I mediated sometimes before exams and such.
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Higher retention is more likey due to greater motivation. And before an exam, your motivation to pass it makes you think faster, remember more.
 
Jenyar said:
But it felt superfluous against sitting in low horse after a two hour physical, forcing my mind to focus and bring my breathing under control.
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But you realize that in itself is a form of meditation, right?
 
Jenyar said:
I think meditation is a waste of time without martial arts to accompany it. If you're not going to use what you gain then what's the point? If you're looking for peace and happiness go walk in the woods or climb a mountain.
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If you're peaceful and happy, you've already eliminated most of the reasons for fighting. I think meditation for relaxation is ok, but it's not why Buddhists meditate. Seeing into one's own nature is the point, and it's inherently useless, like everything worthwhile (music, love, art, poetry, walking aimlessly in the woods, etc...).

"...i mean wehn we sit and listen and are with the flow of things. THAt must be spontaneous, not forced with a stick."
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The method is to force one to be spontaneous, an inherent contradiction made even more difficult by the formality and seriousness of the setting. Of course, it is impossible, but so are the impossible paradoxes of the Zen koan. I don't know why, but that's sometimes what it takes to fool the mind into seeing what it has been trained from birth not to see. It is silly to object to the stick, just like if you're paying for college and object to your homework being corrected. That being said, you don't need to rely on the formal method. What evolved to work for Asians might not be right for everyone.
 
Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook by Ram Dass is a great book. By far the best I have read on this topic.
 
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