If you meditate, what was the book you read that really explained the concept an taught you how to it in a proper manner?
Also, how do you use meditation?
Does it in someway better your life?
dhammatalks.org
Of course it betters your life. It takes a lot of sitting doing nothing though.
>half-lotus
lmao @ that pleb
this is a reportable thread. not literature related.
>>>/adv/
Three Pillars of Zen
Sit in a comfortable position. Back straight. Tip of tongue on the roof of you mouth. Hands in your lap like the guy in your picture. breathe in and breathe out. Let your thoughts happen, do not engage them, whether they are positive, negative, or neutral. Don't force the thoughts away. Just let them pass. Start with 5 minutes a day and work up to 20. Profit.
>>7450415
Do you have to sit cross legged
And why do you have to put your tongue against the roof
>>7450433
>why do you have to put your tongue against the roof
Where else would be comfortable?
>>7450433
It's not required but you want to work up to sitting at least cross-legged if you're able to. You feel more grounded that way.
That's how I was taught. I was taught the tongue thing by that book. Chinese books say it's an energy thing but I find it's easier to snap into the meditation mind-set the more physical cues you have.
>>7450414
It is not in any way reportable, it is about meditation literature you imbecile
any books about advanced meditation techniques?
ive been doing breath meditation for the longest time and its not doing much for me anymore
>>7450453
Just relaxing it
>>7450453
<the obvious joke>
>>7450562
>it is about meditation literature you imbecile
>meditation literature
>you imbecile
reported for being this retarded
>>7450575
Second this
Some very pragmatic, step by step instruction, books on the subject are:
Focused and Fearless/Wisdom Wide and Deep by Shaila Catherine.
-Wisdom Wide and Deep is pretty much FaF Extended edition. In FaF she only goes into detail about the first 4 jhanic states.
Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond by Ajhan Brahm.
-Thai Forest Tradition nigga, disciple of Ajahn Chah. High focus on jhanic states. Solid book overall.
The Mind Illuminated by can't remember his name.
-Recentely released, in October. Guy who wrote it is also a neuroscientist. Very comprehensive book. Scientific look on things.
Good sites:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/index.html
http://swamij.com/
There are obviously thousands of books on this subject, and I could recommend dozens more, but these are some pretty modern, pragmatic books I would recommend off the cuff.
It also never hurts to do your own research.
Try to look for traditions/teachers with a high focus on the jhanas. They are a very important part of meditation, but completely overlooked by some traditions.
>>7450575
>>7450612
If you're not getting anything out of Anapanasati then you're doing it wrong.
There are no 'super sekrit advanced mediation techniques'. You could try do switch to a different object of meditation like a mantra, try some Trāṭaka, metta meditation, etc. but if you didn't gain anything at fall from mindfulness of breath, you probably need to apply yourself and do so more research.
As for the effects of meditation; happiness, contentedness, equanimity, etc.
On top of that Jhanic states are pretty cray cray, with the bliss and rapture and all that jazz but that's something you shouldn't get attached to.
I'm sure you also understand how highly improved concentration is beneficial in learning skills and what not.
Some people also speak of improved cognitive abilities and if you want to get real crazy there's Siddhis, which are basically physic powers, but that's a whole different topic.
>>7450433
The position is just so you don't accidentally fall asleep
>>7450874
>metta meditation
>metameditation
Brb, I'm gonna go completely misinterpret some eastern stuff and sell it to stupid westerners.
Meditation is slave tier to be honest.
>>7450966
Sure kid. Muh spooks and all that
>>7450971
Trying to make your desires fit your situation rather than making the situation fit your desires stems from powerlessness. Meditators try to tame themselves because they can't afford the alternative.
Start with the Benedictines
>>7450977
If being unconditionally content and happy makes me slave tier I'm fine with that.
>>7450997
Doesn't exist, lad.
>>7450997
>muh hedonism
>>>/reddit/
>>7451003
existence and metaphysics are spooks :3
>>7450404
>learning about meditation from a book
>not by kidnapping a monk
>>7450433
I've read that it reduces the need to swallow
>>7451017
Kek
>>7450977
>Being a slave to your desires
>Calling it master mortality
K
>>7450977
Yes, one of the basic implications of Buddhism is that you do not have full control of the world around you, and hence you cannot always make your circumstances fit your desires. Even those who have money, power, and fame will eventually suffer because those things are impermanent and will be lost in time. And even more disconcerting is that, often we think we want something, but once we achieve what we desire we are left still feeling unsatisfied, and perplexed that we are not happy after working hard to achieve what we desired. This is usually partly because we do not know what we truly value because we've never examined our mind at a deeper level, and because as humans we have a default inclination to seek out desire habitually.
If anything, desire is the REAL spook, Mr. Stirner.
>>7450977
>having the equanimity to accept the inevitable frustration of your desires is slave-tier, not to mention suffering, sickness, and death
>existing fully in the present moment instead of being pulled a dozen different ways by a shitflinging baboon of a mind will never make you as cool as le spooky bespectacled german man
>conquering your base animality and hyperactive, superfluous mental activity is slave-tier
back to reddit friendo
should i meditate the entire winter and never work or do anything but sit?
>>7451020
>>meditation
>>hedonistic
Misunderstanding this hard.
>>7450404
This is enough.
>>7451095
I haven't graduated in memespeak so sorry for misunderstanding.
>>7451055
There's nothing spooky about hunger, family.
>>7451112
>Unconditional happiness literally isn't possible.
Says who?
Some random scrub on a Croation Genocide Forum?
>>7451112
>Unconditional happiness literally isn't possible.
Says you breh
is buddhism transhumanist technology?
>>7451112
>Unconditional happiness literally isn't possible
pure ideology, my god
>>7450404
Mindfulness in Plain English.
It's free online.
>>7450404
This is by far the best book on meditation there is.
http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Complete-Meditation-Integrating/dp/0990847705/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449872763&sr=1-1&keywords=the+mind+illuminated
>>7451128
>science
Must be for plebs.
>>7451127
>he thinks happiness means not being affected by anything instead of just a state of being that persists regardless of external conditions
>>7451127
I think the idea is that by meditating you can become aware of the phenomena arising within your realm of experience. Once you are aware of what is happening, what is stopping you from disengaging with the phenomena? If you can master this ability then you could be absolutely free from suffering because your mind is no longer conditioned to be agitated by things that arise within its experience
>>7451127
Couple of thousand of years of tradition mixed without my own experience.
Reading about monks, yogis, sadhus, etc.- meeting people like that even - reading and understanding the material associated with these traditions, and my own direct meditative experiences leave no doubt in my mind that the attainment these people and traditions plead for aren't just airy fairy concepts but things that can be actually achieved.
The great thing about all these traditions, unlike most Western traditions unfortunately, is that that they encourage direct experience. You don't have to have faith and hope that you won't end up in hell after you die.
You can start doing very pragmatic things(meditation being an obvious one), and get very tangible results.
This is slightly off topic, but have any of you read Saltwater Buddha? I'm excited to read it but I haven't had a chance yet. Buddhism seemed to have a really positive effect on Jaimal Yogis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA5rIC74HwY
>>7451177
You may get benefits from meditation, but that doesn't mean you're certain to expect some utopian bliss waiting for you at the end of the line.
Stories and myths about great enlightened sages don't do much to convince me either to be honest.
>>7451185
It sounds like it is but the difference is you let yourself feel grief and pain but there's a background of pure peace to these emotions that nothing can touch
>>7451150
look it up and find out for yourself
your meditation must not be working if you are still this angry and agressive
this is the real deal right here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=697OSC6BgTs
>>7451203
You don't need meditation to know that science is garbage.
>>7451222
why is it that science is garbage? i mean to ask genuinely, if it can be explained easily
>>7451200
How is the peace pure if you feel grief and pain?
>>7451244
All of it's conclutions are either uninteresting or unoriginal.
>>7451199
That's the thing though, 'utopian bliss' doesn't come at the end of the line.
The first jhana can be achieved relatively quickly with diligent practice.
Relatively being in a matter of months.
First jhana is full body bliss/rapture that's way better than an orgasm, to compare it to something that everybody has experience, and last as long as you can keep it up pretty much. When you come out of the jhana you're sense of awareness is greatly improved and you'll be in an elevated mood, for hours to days depending on the duration of the meditation, etc. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The rapture and stuff is something to be 'overcome' in the higher jhanas, but that's a different story.
Honestly, you don't seem to be well read enough on the subject to form a decent conclusion. (Which is completely fair, so don't take that as an insult. This isn't really common knowledge material.)
You really need to read up on this stuff, or better yet take up meditation and feel the effects for yourself.
>>7451279
So it's relatively easy to achieve a state where you don't mind people killing your family and torturing you and remain happy throughout within months?
>>7451304
That's not what I implied, and that's not what you were talking about so it's pretty obvious you're just shifting shit around here, struggling to keep your position afloat, but to answer your question;
The family killing stuff is probably more insight related.
Truly realizing the impermanence of phenomena, and so on. You're not gonna get that just by achieving the first jhana. That's some probably some Arahat shit.
As for the torture, yes something like that could be achieved. See that Vietnamese nigga from the 60's that self immolated without showing any physical response.
But that's not really first jhana shit either. Withdrawal of the senses comes around the 5th jhana.
Pain can also be dealt with through insight, where you still feel the pain, you just deal with it by changing your perception of the pain. That's some fakir type of stuff, but I don't really know about that shit.
Either way you obviously aren't going to change your mind.
All I tried to get across is that there's more to your experience, and that higher states of mind aren't out of reach.
But if you're dead set on suffering, be my guest.
I'm off to bed now.
>>7451373
>That's not what I implied, and that's not what you were talking about
I was denying the possibility of unconditional happiness, so that is what I was talking about.
That Vietnamese nigga set himself on fire out of ideological motivations, he's about as disengaged as an ISIS suicide bomber.
I'm sure there's a lot to be done to influence one's own perception of things that makes you cope better with certain things though, I'm just sceptical about the more absolute states that transcend everything and are supposed to make you untouchable. To a degree we're all dead set on suffering.
Is "chasing the feeling of feeling itself" mindfulness meditation, or is it something else?
>>7451212
To me the eastern christian are in line with the indian tradition with emphasizing experience over knowledge and research.
experience of god versus knowledge of god.
Check out romanity . org
>>7452594
Mindfulness is simply being mindful of all phenomena. There is no 'chase'.
The wim hof joe rogan podcast
>>7450415
>Let your thoughts happen, do not engage them, whether they are positive, negative, or neutral. Don't force the thoughts away. Just let them pass.
This is the part I struggle with. I'm supposed to let myself think but not think? I really don't understand what I'm supposed to be doing when it comes to my thoughts.
>>7454132
You can think, just don't get engaged in thoughts.
If you sit down to meditate, the first couple of times, you will undoubtedly get completely wrapped up in thoughts and forgot you're meditating.
That's what you want to avoid.
When it happens, simply bring back your awareness to the chosen object of meditation. Repeat six trillion times.
If you keep that up you will reach access concentration which will lead to the jhanas which in turn will lead to samadhi and only then will you have reached complete mental silence.
Also, read a book nigger. Questions like yours are answered in any decent book on the subject.
>>7450404
>Does it in someway better your life?
I tend to be calmer. It's a bit easier to bring myself back out of thought-loops and be more "here".
There's some scientific evidence it helps with depression and anxiety. Which I've found to be true for myself.
>>7454046
Perhaps I didn't articulate my thoughts well.
You know how you can suddenly become aware of what you are doing, shifting into a less "automatic" mindset? What I do is try to repeatably shift beyond that. What is conscious of one layer is the automatic of a yet higher layer.
>>7454132
You always engage with a thought to the extent you "disengage" from the present moment. So when a thought pops up, recognize it, and immediately go back to your breath, and only your breath, not a running commentary of how you totally showed that thought whose boss, you're totally being mindful now etc.
You really, really need to just fully experience your breathing. I find it helps to focus awareness on a spot two fingers below the navel. The more you center your awareness away from your head the better.
Meditation is just sitting there and thinking about nothing except your breath. Your mind will wander. When it does, you don't get mad or upset at yourself, you just note that it happened and go back to focusing on your breath.
It's like going to the gym, except you're working on focusing your attention instead of working on your muscles.
Ignore all of the pseudo religious and spiritual bullshit around it. This is all it is, but it is still important and it works. A few weeks of daily meditation has proven to alter the amount of grey matter in certain brain structures.
Just do it and make a habit of it.
>tfw you stop meditating because you no longer feel like a person anymore when you do it regularly
>tfw you don't want to be enlightened yet
>>7451199
>You may get benefits from meditation, but that doesn't mean you're certain to expect some utopian bliss waiting for you at the end of the line.
what are stream enters
>>7450404>>7450575
>>7450612
Having those factors in place is not the same as being able to recognized that they are in place. Don't be too concerned if you are not able to recognize them just yet.
>
>Once you are able to become absorbed in an object, like the pleasantness of the breath or breathing, it should become apparent to you that you are absorbed in the object that you are observing. In the beginning, don't worry about not being able to recognize all the factors of the dhyana process. Just become used to being able to find it and relax into it. Recognition of the factors (which can be very subtle) can come later, once you become more experienced and your mindfulness develops.
>
>The first dhyana arises because you have to create the condition for it to arise. This is where vitakka and vicara come into play. Vitakka is directed attention and vicara is sustained attention on the object of contemplation (like the breath). So, in the beginning of the process, you create the condition for dhyana to arise by placing your attention on and sustaining your attention on the object of observation. This is why vitakka and vicara are factors in the first dhyana. See?
>
>As you transition into the second dhyana, it should become apparent that you are having to put no effort (directed attention or sustained attention) at all into maintaining in the dhyana condition. It happens all on its own because the mind is concentrated and absorbed in the pleasant activity. This is how you recognize that you have attained to the second dhyana.
>
>What the progressive levels of dhyana (first to fourth dhyana) teach you is that the mind is capable of reaching ever newer levels of calm and concentration. When the activitity in the mind settles down completely (little or no movement), you should be able to recognize that you are in the fourth dhyana. Movement can be as subtle as piti (joy or rapture) and sukha (pleasure or happiness). This movement needs to become arrested if the mind is to progress into the fourth dhyana. This is why in the fourth dhyana the affective agitation of piti and sukha have disappeared completely.
>
>When there is no agitation in the mind, it will settle down into the fourth dhyana automatically, which is a deeply sublime state. What you have to refrain from doing is destroying this state by becoming excited that you have attained it. Just equanimously observe and recognize that you are there, and without an emotional reaction enjoy it. It is from this state that insight meditation can proceed with tangible results.
>>7456080
When I first started to read about dhyana meditation, the very first thing I wanted to know about was: "What did it feel like when one had accessed a dhyana state." Because I knew that if I could answer that question, then I would be able to gain access to it AT WILL. I just needed to KNOW (from direct experience) what they were talking about. Then I could figure out how to get there.
>
>Oddly enough, one of the best clues as to what this state was like came from reading the Mahasaccaka Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya (MN 36). It told about the occasion when Gotama himself first realized that the dhyana state might be a pathway to enlightenment. But it also gave me a clue as to how that state was materialized, and just exactly what it was! An extract from that passage follows below:
>
>31. "I considered: 'I recall that when my father the Sakyan was occupied, while I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, I entered upon and abided in the first jhana, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion.[389] Could that be the path to enlightenment?' Then, following on that memory, came the realization: 'That is the path to enlightenment.'
>32. "I thought: 'Why am I afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensual pleasures and unwholesome states?' I thought: 'I am not afraid of that pleasure since it has nothing to do with sensual pleasures and unwholesome states.'[390]
>Footnotes
>389. MA: During the Bodhisatta's boyhood as a prince, on one occasion his father led a ceremonial ploughing at a traditional festival of the Sakyans. The prince was brought to the festival and a place was prepared for him under a rose-apple tree. When his attendants left him to watch the ploughing ceremony, the prince, finding himself all alone, spontaneously sat up in the meditation posture and attained the first jhana through mindfulness of breathing.
>390. This passage marks a change in the Bodhisatta's evaluation of pleasure;now it is no longer regarded as something to be feared and banished by the practice of austerities, but, when born of seclusion and detachment, is seen as a valuable accompaniment of the higher stages along the path to enlightenment. See MN 139.9 on the twofold division of pleasure.
>
>>7456082
>I recalled experiences from my childhood when I experienced a pleasant sensation in my head when I would swing on those leather saddle swings in a park that allowed you a nice long back swing and a long forward swing. It gave the sensation of being able to fly through the air. There were other instances where I recalled just calmly watching something (some peaceful event or other, could be just about anything) which I became absorbed in and a tingling sensation would arise inside the top of my head. That was what Gotama was talking about. (You see what I mean about reading the suttas; there are little clues there that can help you put two and two together.)
>Similar experiences of concentration occurred when I would be reading an interesting book and became unmindful of the time that had passed because I had become so absorbed in reading the book. Just this is CONCENTRATION (also known as samadhi)! That pleasant absorption in an object of interest. Most people can point to having experienced similar occurrences.
>Of course you are correct in saying that you "can't force it," meaning dropping down into an absorption state, or a similar state known as appana samadhi or fixed concentration. Appana samadhi is what I practice now. It allows one to use contemplation (insight meditation) in order to examine and analyze any object (or mental subject, like the teachings of the Dhamma) that one wishes to observe in order to gather more details about it.
>
>In order to reach a state of appana samadhi, the best foreplay for that state is being able to attain to the fourth dhyana. The fourth dhyana is extremely quiet and profoundly peaceful and is the doorway to being able to attain to the four (or five, the fifth being the "cessation of perception and feeling" or sanna-vedayita-nirodha) immaterial dhyanas. Incidently, it is not necessary that one necessarily experience the immaterial dhyanas in pursuit of awakening. Being able to attain the first four are all that is necessary. Because they help one develop samadhi.
>
>In order to have access to these states, as a meditator, one just has to be patient and relaxed and allow them to come to you, then not become overly excited when they do occur because you might upset them if you allow the mind too much movement. Once a meditator has experienced the fourth dhyana, it may occur to him that this is a stable enough state from which to use contemplation (or insight methods of meditation). And he may grow weary of having to go through the previous three stages of dhyana in order to obtain that fourth state. That is when he figures out that he can go directly to appana samadhi at the very start of his sit, and be there within two or three breaths. And then he is off to the races!
>>7456083
>So you see meditation, in and of itself, does not guarantee anyone enlightenment. It is what one does (in terms of investigation into the Dhamma) with the condition that these states provide for the stable mental landscape of the mind as a result of a fruitful practice in meditation that makes the difference!
>>7456066
What a semen demon.
>>7450404
>>7456359
>>7456364
>>7456367
>>7456371
>>7456374
>>7456378
>>7456382
>>7456387
>>7456392
John Yates (Culadasa), with J. Graves, M. Immergut-The Mind Illuminated _ A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science (2015)
>>7456367
i want them pleasure jhanas
>all these meditation masters on 4chan
>shitposting is still rampant
