Some meditation disciplines involve slowing the breath down, while others involve speeding the breath up (research Breath of Fire). Some meditation disciplines involve quieting the mind and ignoring stimuli, while others involve opening the floodgates of sensation to more fully experience stimuli (research Vipassana).
The reality is that almost no single person can say what is and is not meditation because meditation comes in many different forms, in many different traditions, from many different sources.
Anyone who arrogates to him or herself the authority to say what is and is not meditation is regrettably mistaken.
Something to consider, is that there seems to be some confusion on this thread between meditative practices and meditative states etc. This would be like comparing the act of drinking a lot of alcohol with the drunkenness that results. There are many different types of alcohol and varying means of consuming it but that state that results from its consumption is somewhat common to most people.
In my comment above, I was referring to Meditation as a state of consciousness where the sense organs and mind become highly introverted. In that state the mind slows way down and comes to a stop.
When you say years of sincere effort, are you talking devoting a full-time job's worth of time, or just keeping a routine?
I've been interested in meditation for a while, but it seems whenever I try and dig around I get completely lost in literature and terms and fail to see a proper starting point. I'm not looking to go crazy, I like the idea of Mindfullness and having a better understanding of how to control the ebb and flow of your thoughts.
1. The Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh
2. Mindfulness in Plain English, Bhante Gunaratana. This one is free online, though the paid copy is a bit more edited for clarity.
My primary guide is 1. It's concise and provides just the right amount of breathing exercises to help me focus while I "sit." 2 is more comprehensive but I've found it a bit too scattered, with too many tools to help with breathing that I go in circles attempting different ones. Most people I think employ a couple and ignore the rest. 1 is much better written and just a more cohesive book than 2 IMO, but they're both great books and either one alone works well as a guide to meditating.
http://www.urbandharma.org/pdf/mindfulness_in_plain_english....
As for sincere effort, it isn't full time job style, but, it isn't "just" keeping a routine. It is keeping a routine, and actively trying to improve your meditation technique. Much like going golfing every week isn't the same as intentionally practicing your swing or putting with a coach every week.
Allocate a certain room and time religiously where you will sit down every day. Reduce distractions to nil zealously.
Sit on the floor, cross your legs and close your eyes.
Now focus on taking deep slow breaths. Every time a thought comes, and you get focused on it, relax and let it go. Refocus on your breath.
Its more practice than technique.
The aim is pretty simple - be able to witness your thoughts and let them go. Finally you reach no thought.
To get started I recommend finding a group and going a few times at first to understand good posture and breathing techniques. There is no right way to meditate so which group you join probably doesn't matter. I personally like the methods of Zen or Shambhala.
I have actually managed to meditate for 20-30 minutes first thing every morning for the last 26 days in a row, although over the years I've been practicing on and off. The trick I've found to do it everyday for nearly a month now has been to use some findings in behavioral economics.
The idea is this: come up with a challenge for a month and a small but immediate punishment for yourself if you don't meet it. For example, donating $50 to an organization you hate if you don't meditate when you knew you should've (obviously any real crises are exempt from any skipping). It is amazing how well this works. Suddenly I have 20 minutes at home to just sit down so the Westboro Church doesn't get any of my money.
But to more correctly answer your question, just keeping a routine is enough. We cannot all become monks, but if you can ever get to a place where 20-40 minutes is a daily routine, it will change your life. Feel free to message me if you have any specific questions on books to start with, etc.
For the mental aspect, a good starting point is the audio session Alan Watts Teaches Mediation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tYENNBA0cA
(... http://xkcd.com/378/ )
It's just a timer, which I set for 3 to 5 minutes. When the timer reaches 0, (part of) a particular song plays. (And a record is made of the start and end times of the meditation session.)
In the rare case that I am doing something other than meditating when that song plays, I know I got so distracted that I did not even notice I got distracted -- which I take as a sign that I have an unusually pressing need for meditation that day.
Also, those 3-5 minutes sometimes cause subjective experiences of increased calmness that tend to last the rest of the day.
It probably takes longer durations to achieve some of the other effects commonly ascribed to meditation (e.g., becoming more contented). I have tried longer durations, but I judge that in my particular case they are more likely to be harmful than helpful.
Specifically, I have a bit of a chronic health problem which necessitates that my immune system remain always strong and active. Getting too much sun and not getting enough sleep are 2 things that personal experiences lead me to believe are bad for me -- and according to immunology researchers, those 2 things suppress the immune system. The suppression tends to last only a few hours or a day, but that is long enough for me to notice bad effects. Meditating for hours at a time produced subjective effects in me similar to the effects of those 2 other things that suppress my immune system.
So, that is one reason I avoid long meditation sessions and tend to advise other people with chronic health issues similar to mine to do the same.
Sometimes (particularly, in the rare situation described in grandparent in which the first meditation session of the day ends with me looking at a web browser, looking at some file on my computer or doing something else other than meditating) I do 2 to 4 sessions (of 3 to 5 minutes each) a day, and I have not experienced the adverse health effect mentioned above on such days.
By the way, a large part of time I am meditating I am resisting urges (the theme of the OP) rather than doing what most meditators describe, namely, resisting attachment to or involvement in sensations or resisting dwelling on regrets about the past or worries about the future. Specifically, urges to execute a sequence of motor actions (e.g., get out of my chair and move something that needs moving) or to plan out how to achieve some goal.
First, it's good to have a minimum amount of time in mind for a meditation session, and stick to it. You can always stay seated after your timer goes off. Without a firm minimum, it's very easy to stop as soon as you get fidgety. Speaking from my own experience, sitting through fidgetiness has been the immediate precursor to some of my most meaningful progress in meditation.
Second, consistency is more important than intensity. My (personal, inexpert) recommendation is to choose a time that you can manage every day, and stick with it. Don't over-commit, or you may get burned out. For me, 20 minutes is about right. YMMV.
Stick with it! It's very rewarding.
By "years of sincere effort" I mean practicing daily. 20-30 mins is probably enough to start. I would compare it to playing an instrument. Daily practice is pretty essential.
Do this and you will no longer have doubts about meditation. You will like it or hate it but you will know what it is.
I really prefer the 'this may mess you up if done wrong' meditation instruction to the usual sanitized new agey pap, purely on aesthetic level. It makes meditation sound like something that can actually be effective. Like a scalpel instead of a homeopathic solution.
Another fun article: http://blog.muflax.com/propaganda/why-you-dont-want-vipassan...
It really all boils down to each individual and their capacity of how they wish to learn.
Some people can easily start the meditation (of any type beginning with what the author describe in the source, of breathing exercises) to mantra meditation to anything else. However, if the above methods does not come easily to you, you can still meditate by being in here-now (what you describe as mindfulness).
The point is, that we don't have to be dogmatic about meditation and everyone can easily and equally get on the path of bliss and self-improvement in all walks of life.
For far too long, the traditional culture has sort of relegated the arts and artists to the lower pole of meaningful life. What is being suggested here is that either you can plainly observe the sun rising, or you can take pride in your singing or painting....all of these artistic self-expressions give you containment which leads to blissfulness...something an average meditator of various type would achieve by sitting idle or concentrating as their practice.
The more one stays in here-now, the more the mind sheds the distractions, the more there is bliss.
If the writer of the TFA experiences 4 seconds of emptying his mind and a state of bliss, does it really matter that he didn't in your opinion use the correct terminology? or wasn't in the state long enough for this or that term to apply?
I enjoyed the article, it has inspired me to take up my own practise again, even 1 second of no thoughts and blissful awareness at the beginning of my day changes everything.
Of course there is. It's the only rational reason to do something: for present or future benefit. Otherwise you quit the realm of reason and enter the domain of religion.
It's a technology of the sacred in the same way that visionary plants and chemicals are. In fact visionary plants can be a very effective preview/shortcut of the end goals a meditator wishes to reach.The point of meditation is to quiet the mind so that one can know God*
*Where here "God" means an experiential state of nondual, atemporal awareness radically different from our normal states of waking and dreaming.
That wasn't my experience. I tried very hard to attain that "no thought" state. At best, I was able to let my thoughts flow without holding on to them.
I concluded that silent mind thing is an analogy. The opposite of "don't think of a pink elephant" causes you to think of a pink elephant. When you have "no thought" you just let the thought come and go without trying to process (consider, internalize, whatever) it.
But I haven't compared notes with others, gurus, whomever. YMMV.
Thanks for the comment, I can definitely concur that stopping the mind is not easy.
When I started running, I would have told you that for me, running a 5 minute mile was probably impossible. After training a bit, I was able to achieve it consistently. But a key thing to keep in mind, is that I had a coach and other teammates to train with. This helped me believe I could reach goal and gave me the tools to do so.
I think you can probably get the analogy here.
Meditation is a state, where the mind is completely silent, the breath slows waaaay down, the heartbeat slows waaaay down. Slowly ever so slowly, some bliss starts to bubble up from within. It is the climax of one pointed attention. Few people who say they "meditate" are reaching that point since it requires years of sincere effort. In Yoga, meditation is known as Dhyana, or the state resulting from the mind becoming one pointed for 100 seconds. Samadhi, which is considered a state of deep bliss is considered reached when the mind becomes completely still for 1000 seconds.
Mindfullness, is the act of being more aware during daily activities. Like watching actions and interactions. There is a gradual tendency to modify behavior to being more calm, collected and centered which helps to go deeper when attempting to meditate. The mind is still active during mindfullness, but it is being directed or corrected as needed throughout the day.
Meditation helps to develop deeper Mindfullness and vice versa. Meditation is like taking a shower, whereas Mindfullness is avoiding rolling in the mud and getting dirty. It is important to keep in mind that Meditation is literally a state where the mind is free from thought and that all the "meditation practices and techniques" are just different paths of reaching that same place.