Sitting meditation: for how long do you sit?

[dawei]

while in meditation you are completely cognitive and aware.

 

Curious of others feel this way...

[Ya Mu]

Curious of others feel this way...

I think yes and no. It depends on the type of meditation. Remember me posting about the Japanese medical doctors who wired up Zen people and qigong people? The result was that the Zen folks had extremely calm brain waves. The qigong people did as well. But in addition, the qigong people stimulated the creative part of the brain whereas the Zen people didn't.

 

For the neigong we do, brain activity approaches zero and yes, we can do that almost instantly, and I have proven this in a sleep lab, but natural awareness increases. Even though we go very deep, if we want (intent) we can keep up with the energetic changes surrounding us very well and have increased instead of decreased awareness of our surroundings. It follows that if a person can very quickly get into this "qi state", and we can, it is totally false that qi can only be manipulated while in a state that requires one to sit for hours to get to. It can be almost instant if not instant. In this aspect, it is totally false that a person HAS to sit for many multiple hours to progress. It DOES take time & effort, but the quality of the effort far exceeds quantity without the quality; the quality is derived from a person actually studying and applying an authentic system.

 

A point on the above comment about sleep. Sleep can be a meditation. It depends on the system, but ours has a sleeping and a dreaming component. Long term practitioners are able to stay aware while sleeping. Although she is used to my ways, it kinda gets to my wife when I describe everything she was doing in the room while I was sleeping. She says "But you were sleeping!" Yes.

[steve]

The lower your brain activity goes while you remain conscious, the deeper in meditation you are. The difference between sleep and meditation is that during sleep you are unconscious, while in meditation you are completely cognitive and aware.

Thanks for that - I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "lower" brain activity, however.

Do you keep your eyes open when you meditate? Is there less vision, sound, tactile sensations, and smell?

Are there any thoughts, feelings, fleeting images? Are you doing something with intent or focus?

 

Not picking on you, just curious. I think that there may be an enormous variety of activity, inactivity, and experience for us during meditation that when we make claims, recommendations, and dogmatic statements, they may not be applicable across the board. Deep for some may mean a trance state, for others, a state of perfect attentiveness, yet others, absolute focus and control of the Yi through the orbit or at a particular point or points, alteration of time and spatial awareness, etc..

 

Also, as far as sleep is concerned, there is consciousness during dreams and for those who are skilled at dream and sleep yoga there is lucidity in dreams and consciousness during dreamless sleep as well.

[steve]

Curious of others feel this way...

 

Awareness - absolutely

 

Cognition [def. the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.] - tougher to answer. My first impulse is to say no, to the extent that I am capable of achieving that during calm abiding. In my current practice, I'm not making an effort to acquire knowledge or understanding through thought, experience, or the senses. That said, in the post-meditative period, there certainly is reflection and perhaps enhancement of understanding. Also, there are times that I intentionally bring my meditative equipoise to bear on specific questions, emotions, blocks and so there would be cognition during those activities. There are also other meditative activities I participate in that involve cognitive activity. So yes and no for cognition.

[KenBrace]

Thanks for that - I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "lower" brain activity, however.

Do you keep your eyes open when you meditate? Is there less vision, sound, tactile sensations, and smell?

Are there any thoughts, feelings, fleeting images? Are you doing something with intent or focus?

 

Not picking on you, just curious. I think that there may be an enormous variety of activity, inactivity, and experience for us during meditation that when we make claims, recommendations, and dogmatic statements, they may not be applicable across the board. Deep for some may mean a trance state, for others, a state of perfect attentiveness, yet others, absolute focus and control of the Yi through the orbit or at a particular point or points, alteration of time and spatial awareness, etc..

 

Also, as far as sleep is concerned, there is consciousness during dreams and for those who are skilled at dream and sleep yoga there is lucidity in dreams and consciousness during dreamless sleep as well.

By "lower" I mean that the brain wave frequency lowers (e.g. beta to theta, theta to delta, etc.). You heart rate and breathing also slows down.

[Jetsun]

It doesn't necessarily take a long time to get to the deep brain states, as Ken Wilber shows here using an EEG machine he can access the full range in less than 10 minutes, although he is an experienced meditator.

 

 

Yet all of those states are just states, the whole belief that you need time and effort to achieve something in meditation takes you away from being aware of the completely free ground which all states arise within, which is always aware and present no matter whether you are a complete novice or a meditation master.

[steve]

By "lower" I mean that the brain wave frequency lowers (e.g. beta to theta, theta to delta, etc.). You heart rate and breathing also slows down.

thanks

[joeblast]

I haven't been able to make much progress unless I meditate consistently for long periods.

 

keypoint of anapanasati - whenever you catch a moment. re-initiate breath protocol. hundreds of times a day, even.

 

see how that adds to your longer meditations

The lower your brain activity goes while you remain conscious, the deeper in meditation you are. The difference between sleep and meditation is that during sleep you are unconscious, while in meditation you are completely cognitive and aware.

it is not linear, that's a component of what I've been trying to explain to you. (its why I've likened it to a bose-einstein condensate in how the phenomena manifests.) think cranial nerves and their "normal" modes of excitation - once the energypotential of them drops beneath a threshold energy level, the signal "drops out" but what really happens is that the mode of vibration changes, the result being it is no longer an excitatory signal. you'll excite yourself right out of it the first time it manifests for you (not a jab, its literally *that* wonderful a thing that you need to figure out how to deal with it and rest in that state...as another step on the troubleshooting path...'integrating boundless joy' )

 

 

Curious of others feel this way...

I think his intent was correct, its just a jumble on the fine line of the "bounds of cognition"

 

so long as the little things get cleared up and recognized when terminology may fail a concept...no need to argue over verbiage, the pit of language nuance is deep and sometimes rather stinky.

Edited July 8, 2014 by joeblast

[Spotless]

Heart work is often overlooked and little understood.

We are often far to heady and many are out of body.

 

A short morning session can be a very productive "short" practice.

 

Two short sessions a day can be very helpful for residing in stillness throughout the day, particularly if you did a long session in the evening the day prior.

 

A very long meditation session can be greatly lengthened by sustained short sessions and or Qi gong / Yoga / movement practice in the days after.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Spotless

[Spotless]

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Edited July 8, 2014 by Spotless

[Spotless]

It doesn't necessarily take a long time to get to the deep brain states, as Ken Wilber shows here using an EEG machine he can access the full range in less than 10 minutes, although he is an experienced meditator.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFFMtq5g8N4

 

Yet all of those states are just states, the whole belief that you need time and effort to achieve something in meditation takes you away from being aware of the completely free ground which all states arise within, which is always aware and present no matter whether you are a complete novice or a meditation master.

 

Ken Wilber is also an Awakened individual - going to some of these states is not a matter of being an experienced meditator.

[Mark Foote]

 

For the neigong we do, brain activity approaches zero and yes, we can do that almost instantly, and I have proven this in a sleep lab, but natural awareness increases.

 

From Wikipedia on Milton Erickson:

 

"Erickson also believed that it was even appropriate for the therapist to go into trance.

 

 

'I go into trances so that I will be more sensitive to the intonations and inflections of my patients' speech. And to enable me to hear better, see better.'"

 

Erickson used something called the confusion technique for induction:

 

'Confusion might be created by ambiguous words, complex or endless sentences, pattern interruption or a myriad of other techniques to incite transderivation searches."

 

Transderivational searches are described on Wikipedia as:

 

" search(es) for a possible meaning or possible match as part of communication, and without which an incoming communication cannot be made any sense of whatsoever."

 

The turning word of Zen instruction, which is designed to "utterly kill a dead man", because:

 

"Utterly kill a dead man, then you will see a live man. (Bring a dead man fully to life, then you will see a dead man.)"

(Blue Cliff Record 41st case verse commentary, parenthesis mine)

 

Now why would the Zen masters be looking to induce a state of trance. Because the senses get sharper, and the way in which all the senses inform the sense of location and through location alone, engender activity, comes forward.

 

"...Layman Pang pointed to some snow in the air and said, "Good snowflakes-- they don't fall in any other place."

(Blue Cliff Record 42nd case)

My own turning word lately is difficult to say, but I keep saying it anyway:

 

"She calls to her maid again and again though there's nothing the matter, because she wants her lover to hear her voice."

(Zen Letters: The Teachings of Yuanwu, trans. T. Cleary, pg 16; contemplating this saying, the "bottom fell out of the bucket" for Yuanwu)

_/\_

Edited July 9, 2014 by Mark Foote