My one-step way worked great, which was to go on a retreat with this organization -- http://www.dhamma.org. It's suggested donation.
The challenge is the first time you go has to be for a full ten days. No reading, writing, or talking. The idea is you are a monk for ten days. I had never meditated before. I showed up with comfortable clothes and toiletries and they took care of everything else. Very challenging, but as rewarding and life-changing as anything I've done.
EDIT: copying from the first link to save a click (losing the formatting, sorry):
A reader emailed me about mindfulness and self-awareness. I mentioned to him a meditation retreat I did a few years ago and found an old post I wrote about the experience, answering another reader’s questions about the course.
I did a ten day Vipassana course a few years ago.
What it’s about: It teaches you a meditation technique and gives you the time and space to practice it. It’s based on buddhist beliefs. We meditated for 8-10 hours per day for ten days. That’s basically it. You aren’t supposed to read, write, gesture, etc, except to ask the instructor questions. They provide food and instruction on what to focus on.
Was it hard: Yes, it was hard. The first couple days were painful while getting used to sitting still for so long. I started getting comfortable by the second day. Ten days is a long time (the place I went in Massachusetts required your first session be ten days) so it’s a mental challenge.
Keep in mind, thousands of people have done it. It’s hard, but anyone can do it. You just have to persevere.
Main benefits: Some people had profound, life-changing positive experiences, understanding more about themselves and their perception of the world around them. Some people go regularly. On the other hand, some people left early. I found the experience positive.
The main benefits were a better understanding of my priorities in life, calmness, less attachment to things, more freedom. I haven’t meditated much since then, but I do sometimes, and I keep many of the benefits. I’ll probably go again for shorter sessions periodically.
I later added
By the way, I don’t like religion, so I didn’t like some of the buddhist stuff, but no one else I talked to had a problem with it. I guess I’m more sensitive to religion than most. You can generally ignore the religious part if you want and just get the technique. I did, anyway.
and
Regarding location, I don’t think it would make that much of a difference. My eyes were closed to meditate around ten hours a day, sleeping seven or eight hours a night, meals in an eating room. There is not much room for variation. Nor should there be. All one needs is quiet.
It's all about priorities. If your life really depended on it I'd bet good money you'd find the time to do it.
I went to a 10 day Vipassana retreat last august and I'm really glad I did. Sure, I got cold feet and the usual fears: the fear of failure, the fear of not being man enough to last the full 10 days, you name it... In the end I chose to get past the fears and the excuses and just to it and I encourage you to do also. I was worried that I'd be in pain because of some gastritis I was doing treatment for at the time but they have been extremely supportive and they've provided me with extra food for dinner (everybody else just got fruits for dinner) so my stomach wouldn't chew on itself. I'm sure I've tried to make some other excuses for not going but they don't come to mind right now. I plan to go to other retreats too. After you do your first 10 day retreat you are considered an old student and can go to retreats just for a couple of days if you want.
I now know that leaving my comfort zone is one of the best things I can do for myself.
I've talked to quite a lot of people who went to a Vipassana retreat, sometimes as an exotic break from, say, partying in Thailand, without any back info or experience, found it super amazing and intense and great — but then didn't keep up any kind of meditation habit.
And though I think the organization is quite impressive and obviously appealing to a lot of people, I'm quite skeptical about this approach to beginning with meditation.
Of course I appreciate that going cold turkey into a difficult retreat is in fact quite heroic, but I sometimes think that the glowing reviews and recommendations are not so much grounded in a sober assessment of the best way to start meditating.
And so I must play the boring guy and point out that there is a large number of smaller local organizations teaching mindfulness meditation in a simple and straightforward way. You don't have to go to Southeast Asia, and you don't have to go on a strenuous retreat the first thing you do.
I started meditating by myself, then joined a local group for longer evening sittings, then did some one-day retreats, then went to a temple for a weekend retreat, then a four-day, then a seven-day, and now I try to go to a four-day or seven-day at least a couple times a year.
This wade-in approach has been very nice and rewarding for me. It's helped me keep up a habit of (more or less) daily meditation for a few years. And yes, it is the most valuable and wonderful habit I know.
If it's the Shelburne Falls center, I recall the sitting being closer to 14 hours per day with no timed sitting; i.e. you're meant to sit from break period to break period, basically 4+ hours at a stretch. Of course you could get up to go to the bathroom (read: escape), but some of the experienced students just sat straight through, impressive letting go.
That kind of practice is a heavy duty biological restructuring, no matter how many times the instructor says, "No I, no me", the knees certainly feel like they have nails drilled into them ;-)
The group energy carries you through, I suspect not many could do a 10 day Vipasana retreat alone.
> I don’t like religion, so I didn’t like some of the buddhist stuff
I don't think of Buddhism as a religion, but as a lifestyle or philosophy instead. (I may be wrong, but I don't think the Buddha ever claimed to be a God. I also do not consider myself a Buddhist.)
religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power.
So his definition that Buddha never claimed to be a god seems to have led him to that idea. I don't know myself if buddhism is completely void of supernatural ideas.
But your consternation seems a little exaggerated.
The problem I have with meditation is that I get too relaxed. If I clear my mind and let my muscles go limp then my heart rate drops very rapidly. I decided to experiment with it when I was waiting to have my wisdom teeth removed. They hook you up to a heart monitor to make sure the general anesthetic doesn't cause your heart to stop, and within a few minutes of meditation I managed to set the heart monitor's alarm off.
Through years of practice I've gotten faster at it, and now I can get into a reasonably deep meditation in less than 30 seconds. The problem is that after about a minute my eyes start to very painfully roll back into my head. It hurts like hell and is completely involuntary. Trying to keep them from rolling back prevents me from meditating.
I've looked around on the internet, but I've never managed to find an explanation of why that happens to me. Seems like I'm a pretty severe outlier on that one. Has that ever happened to anyone else?
I have not had this problem, but I might suggest not trying to relax at all in your case. You are likely able to "relax" your heart well enough that you are actually causing yourself to start to pass out.
Relaxing your body as part of meditation is intended to help you quiet your mind, but if that in itself is a barrier, then you should try not doing that part.
You could instead practice allowing your thoughts to float away, and with your eyes open allowing yourself to "see" without perceiving. Let the goal of your meditation be simply being with the world where you are, without trying to judge or affect it.
A dropping heart rate is a sign that your mind is calming way down. The same thing happens to me. Heart rate and blood pressure both drop. It is connected to the breathing rate. If you can reduce your breath rate down to 1-2 times a minute you can feel extreme calmness but it will greatly lower the heart rate. Just do some vigorous yoga or exercises after the meditation session to get the blood pumping again. Not sure about the eye issue. Maybe try open eye meditation. Example of a yogi practicing open eye meditation: http://www.yogananda.com.au/galleries/py1/images/py1923.jpg
My sister does this, using 'biofeedback'. She has some health issues, and when she's hooked up to the monitors, she'll play a game of controlling her different monitors. She also uses biofeedback to manage pain and some other health issues when meds don't work.
I've taken to meditating while running. I've tried many of the techniques described here but I find myself most able to work with while running is 'follow your breathing'.
Sometimes I've 'come round' after a 20 mins or so and I've literally run miles. By 'come round' I mean I am able to manage about 20 minutes.
Of course always be aware of your surroundings and this is often better on trails and tracks where there are no cars.
I used to meditate while running (at least for some definition of meditation) - but the downside is you have to be exceptionally fit to do it. Can't imagine me being able to do that now!
I tried and failed to get into running on my own for years, until one day I went running with a colleague, who was also a seargeant in an Asian national army, and regularly ran two marathons in a day.
The first thing he said is, you are running too fast. You should run slowly enough that you can breath regularly, or you will never last. So, I slowed down, and I can do 12k an hour or so, which is pretty fair, but I only ever go for a max of two hours at a time.
I find it incredibly meditative, and use it as my creative problem-solving time.
One tip though, NEVER run on your heels. Get some barefoot shoes or just concentrate on not doing it. You lose the spring in your angle and knees, and just bang the hell out of your joints.
shrug. placebos are pretty powerful. it's a useful tool. since starting meditating regularly i use it quite practically. it helps when you're in an environment with screaming kids, for example. i don't really care if it's placebo (which would be what? working only in my mind? you don't say...?) or not (but what else could it be?). it helps.
Meditation in the context of these bobo articles is just prayer for westerners who hate Christianity. It's a warped solipsistic form of prayer, however. Of course if they knew a damn thing about real Buddhism or Hinduism they'd avoid using terms from those religions, too.
You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about Westerners practicing Eastern religions. If your practice is Christianity and you are happy in your practice, why does it bother you how other people find the same relief?
I'm not christian and I have no chip. I just think the social dynamics of this meditation stuff are highly noteworthy and important. It is absolutely rooted in western self hatred and rejection of tradition.
Anyway, these people aren't really practicing eastern religions. They're simply remaining ignorant enough about the faiths that their PC sensibilities aren't triggered.
At least in the community of practitioners that I am a member of, that doesn't ring true. Many people, including myself, did not connect with the faith they were born into, yet found something that spoke to them in Zen practice, which is deeply rooted in tradition (albeit one novel and unfamiliar to most Western practitioners). To say that 'these people aren't really practicing eastern religions' is a sweeping statement. Again, it may apply to some folks, but not generally to members of the communities I have experienced.
I'm curious about your connection of self-hatred to 'the social dynamics of this meditation stuff.' Could you expand on what you wrote?
OK, I'll bite. Meditation allows you to gain an otherwise impossible level of control over somatic functions (heart rate, pressure). That's why it's often used by freedivers to learn to hold their breath for example, and, to a greater extent, it's used in static apnea to help you hold your breath for a ridiculous amount of time (see Jacques Mayol).
That doesn't mean it's only useful to static apnea champions, though. The potential uses are wide-ranging, perhaps stress control and introspection is what most people can get from it.
You repeatedly see deep breathing recommended, which is exactly wrong. Do not take deep breaths to calm down. Instead take shallow breaths as slowly as possible. You want to boost blood CO2 levels. This is how bag breathing works to reduce anxiety.
Overbreathing/hyperventilation induces anxiety. A high breathing rate is correlated to disease and illness; the healthiest people breathe the least.
Different traditions recommend different breathing techniques, but the most common teaching (that I've come across) is to not make any conscious effort to modify your breathing, instead concentrating on simply observing the breath as it is.
I care. Vipassana meditation is about observing reality as it is and accepting it. Trying to control the breathing would defeat the purpose. Other forms of meditation are based on controlling the breathing and in those cases the purpose and outcome would probably be different but not trying to control the breathing has definitely its uses.
IMO Deep breathing is not the same as Overbreathing/hyperventilation. Deep breathing should be done in calm and controlled manner. There is no tension/stress involved with Deep breathing as in hyperventilation. Deep breathing increases the amount of oxygen in the blood and brain. In my meditation practice I do 10-20 mins of Deep breathing and than the breath gets extremely shallow very easily after that. There is no need to hold or restrict the breath at that point. It naturally slows to 1-2 breaths per minute. Which induces great calmness.
I've been trying to find a no bullshit guide to meditation for a long time now but I can't. None of this energy, chakra bullshit. Just a proper guide to relaxing your body and calming your mind through breathing exercises, positive thoughts and maybe some external stimuli (like music). But almost every guide I read has to do with how the stars channel their energy through your heart to make you feel one with nature.
Try instructions from the Theravada Buddhist tradition, or zazen. Though Buddhism itself is enormous and diverse, these traditions of meditation instruction are in themselves rational, unsuperstitious, and useful. I particularly recommend Gil Fronsdal's introductory series on http://audiodharma.org/ -- which comes from a U.S. tradition of secular mindfulness meditation inspired by Theravada and Zen.
Very good advice. For an excellent primer, I recommend Mindfulness in Plain English[1], which has been around for 20+ years and remains one the best and most recommended books. There is a little mystic stuff! but it's easily ignored.
This is a mindfullness meditation guide in disguise. It is clearly geared toward "down-to-earth" readers (being written by an early google engineer), and stocked with references to neuroscience and psychology studies.
That still leaves open the debate about the validity, relevance, variety and trustworthiness of the sources - which I'm unfortunately quite unequiped to tackle. I don't know if the book has had to be debunked.
And I would not blame anyone for the "Google Kool-Aid hipster zealot fad" gut reaction ;)
Note that the current evidence for chakra and "subtle energy" teachings is inconclusive, which means it has not been disproven. So it is not unscientific to work with them as a tentative hypothesis.
I do understand it can be annoying when they are presented as some kind of absolute truth though.
I can recommend the material in "Mastering Your Hidden Self" by Serge Kahili King (1) as a very good way of working with various unproven-but-reported-effective-by-some techniques without being required faith.
I ask this fairly often - Can anyone show me some decent studies (with significant sample sizes, good controls etc.) that show any benefits of meditation worth the 30-60 mins a day that you need for it?
Alternatively, can I get the same benefits from just lying on my bed or listening to music for the same amount of time?
How would those studies benefit you personally? I haven't researched such studies but for me they don't provide any benefit. How would it help me if a study existed that suggested that 98% of people who practice meditation are happier if I'd be in the 2%?
My point it: try it for yourself and see if _you_ get benefits from it. The rest is mostly irrelevant :)
>How would it help me if a study existed that suggested that 98% of people who practice meditation are happier if I'd be in the 2%?
I am way more likely to be in the 98% so I will put more effort into it and try it for real in this case.
>try it for yourself and see if _you_ get benefits from it.
A bunch of meditation practices suggest that you get benefits only after doing it for a while. I've personally tried some stuff and never got enough benefit to make up for the 30-60 mins of lost time but if there was more evidence for the benefits I'd try harder.
I would suggest starting a yoga practice which would encompass meditation as one of the practices. Asana, the physical practice of yoga, is a great way to prepare the body and mind for a meditation or sitting. There's a wide range of meditation practices as well, it's a term similar to fitness - whereby there are many forms of fitness available, taught and practiced in different ways for different purposes.
64 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 29.4 ms ] threadThe challenge is the first time you go has to be for a full ten days. No reading, writing, or talking. The idea is you are a monk for ten days. I had never meditated before. I showed up with comfortable clothes and toiletries and they took care of everything else. Very challenging, but as rewarding and life-changing as anything I've done.
I wrote up my experiences -- http://joshuaspodek.com/vipassana-meditation, http://joshuaspodek.com/goenka-10-day-meditation-retreats, and http://joshuaspodek.com/jumping_for_joy -- for more background.
EDIT: copying from the first link to save a click (losing the formatting, sorry):
A reader emailed me about mindfulness and self-awareness. I mentioned to him a meditation retreat I did a few years ago and found an old post I wrote about the experience, answering another reader’s questions about the course.
I did a ten day Vipassana course a few years ago.
What it’s about: It teaches you a meditation technique and gives you the time and space to practice it. It’s based on buddhist beliefs. We meditated for 8-10 hours per day for ten days. That’s basically it. You aren’t supposed to read, write, gesture, etc, except to ask the instructor questions. They provide food and instruction on what to focus on.
Was it hard: Yes, it was hard. The first couple days were painful while getting used to sitting still for so long. I started getting comfortable by the second day. Ten days is a long time (the place I went in Massachusetts required your first session be ten days) so it’s a mental challenge.
Keep in mind, thousands of people have done it. It’s hard, but anyone can do it. You just have to persevere.
Main benefits: Some people had profound, life-changing positive experiences, understanding more about themselves and their perception of the world around them. Some people go regularly. On the other hand, some people left early. I found the experience positive.
The main benefits were a better understanding of my priorities in life, calmness, less attachment to things, more freedom. I haven’t meditated much since then, but I do sometimes, and I keep many of the benefits. I’ll probably go again for shorter sessions periodically.
I later added
By the way, I don’t like religion, so I didn’t like some of the buddhist stuff, but no one else I talked to had a problem with it. I guess I’m more sensitive to religion than most. You can generally ignore the religious part if you want and just get the technique. I did, anyway.
and
Regarding location, I don’t think it would make that much of a difference. My eyes were closed to meditate around ten hours a day, sleeping seven or eight hours a night, meals in an eating room. There is not much room for variation. Nor should there be. All one needs is quiet.
I went to a 10 day Vipassana retreat last august and I'm really glad I did. Sure, I got cold feet and the usual fears: the fear of failure, the fear of not being man enough to last the full 10 days, you name it... In the end I chose to get past the fears and the excuses and just to it and I encourage you to do also. I was worried that I'd be in pain because of some gastritis I was doing treatment for at the time but they have been extremely supportive and they've provided me with extra food for dinner (everybody else just got fruits for dinner) so my stomach wouldn't chew on itself. I'm sure I've tried to make some other excuses for not going but they don't come to mind right now. I plan to go to other retreats too. After you do your first 10 day retreat you are considered an old student and can go to retreats just for a couple of days if you want.
I now know that leaving my comfort zone is one of the best things I can do for myself.
And though I think the organization is quite impressive and obviously appealing to a lot of people, I'm quite skeptical about this approach to beginning with meditation.
Of course I appreciate that going cold turkey into a difficult retreat is in fact quite heroic, but I sometimes think that the glowing reviews and recommendations are not so much grounded in a sober assessment of the best way to start meditating.
And so I must play the boring guy and point out that there is a large number of smaller local organizations teaching mindfulness meditation in a simple and straightforward way. You don't have to go to Southeast Asia, and you don't have to go on a strenuous retreat the first thing you do.
I started meditating by myself, then joined a local group for longer evening sittings, then did some one-day retreats, then went to a temple for a weekend retreat, then a four-day, then a seven-day, and now I try to go to a four-day or seven-day at least a couple times a year.
This wade-in approach has been very nice and rewarding for me. It's helped me keep up a habit of (more or less) daily meditation for a few years. And yes, it is the most valuable and wonderful habit I know.
Trappist and Benedictine monasteries have been running retreats for many centuries, but the hip kids are christo-phobic.
That kind of practice is a heavy duty biological restructuring, no matter how many times the instructor says, "No I, no me", the knees certainly feel like they have nails drilled into them ;-)
The group energy carries you through, I suspect not many could do a 10 day Vipasana retreat alone.
I don't think of Buddhism as a religion, but as a lifestyle or philosophy instead. (I may be wrong, but I don't think the Buddha ever claimed to be a God. I also do not consider myself a Buddhist.)
What on earth lead you to that idea?
So his definition that Buddha never claimed to be a god seems to have led him to that idea. I don't know myself if buddhism is completely void of supernatural ideas.
But your consternation seems a little exaggerated.
Don't be surprised, it's not an uncommon belief. Start typing "is bud" into Google and look at the first result.
Through years of practice I've gotten faster at it, and now I can get into a reasonably deep meditation in less than 30 seconds. The problem is that after about a minute my eyes start to very painfully roll back into my head. It hurts like hell and is completely involuntary. Trying to keep them from rolling back prevents me from meditating.
I've looked around on the internet, but I've never managed to find an explanation of why that happens to me. Seems like I'm a pretty severe outlier on that one. Has that ever happened to anyone else?
Relaxing your body as part of meditation is intended to help you quiet your mind, but if that in itself is a barrier, then you should try not doing that part.
You could instead practice allowing your thoughts to float away, and with your eyes open allowing yourself to "see" without perceiving. Let the goal of your meditation be simply being with the world where you are, without trying to judge or affect it.
Sometimes I've 'come round' after a 20 mins or so and I've literally run miles. By 'come round' I mean I am able to manage about 20 minutes.
Of course always be aware of your surroundings and this is often better on trails and tracks where there are no cars.
The first thing he said is, you are running too fast. You should run slowly enough that you can breath regularly, or you will never last. So, I slowed down, and I can do 12k an hour or so, which is pretty fair, but I only ever go for a max of two hours at a time.
I find it incredibly meditative, and use it as my creative problem-solving time.
One tip though, NEVER run on your heels. Get some barefoot shoes or just concentrate on not doing it. You lose the spring in your angle and knees, and just bang the hell out of your joints.
On the other hand, it has been proven that taking breaks can enhance concentration and endurance. Meditation should be no exception.
Anyway, these people aren't really practicing eastern religions. They're simply remaining ignorant enough about the faiths that their PC sensibilities aren't triggered.
I'm curious about your connection of self-hatred to 'the social dynamics of this meditation stuff.' Could you expand on what you wrote?
Prayer is communication with a God(1), while meditation is simply quieting of the mind(2).
Therefore, one is not a warped form of the other. The two are distinct.
Finally, meditation is a etymologically a western term(3)
(1) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prayer (2) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meditation (3) http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=meditation
That doesn't mean it's only useful to static apnea champions, though. The potential uses are wide-ranging, perhaps stress control and introspection is what most people can get from it.
There copious amounts of solid empirical evidence on the effects of meditation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_on_meditation
Overbreathing/hyperventilation induces anxiety. A high breathing rate is correlated to disease and illness; the healthiest people breathe the least.
More powerful is vagus nerve stimulation coupled with reduced breathing. Hold your breath for a minute at a time with your face in cold water.
Read about the Bohr effect. Deep breathing lowers CO2 levels and consequently reduces tissue oxygen uptake.
1. http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html - links to buy, or scroll down to read first edition PDF for free.
http://www.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-Unexpected-Achi...
This is a mindfullness meditation guide in disguise. It is clearly geared toward "down-to-earth" readers (being written by an early google engineer), and stocked with references to neuroscience and psychology studies.
That still leaves open the debate about the validity, relevance, variety and trustworthiness of the sources - which I'm unfortunately quite unequiped to tackle. I don't know if the book has had to be debunked.
And I would not blame anyone for the "Google Kool-Aid hipster zealot fad" gut reaction ;)
I do understand it can be annoying when they are presented as some kind of absolute truth though.
I can recommend the material in "Mastering Your Hidden Self" by Serge Kahili King (1) as a very good way of working with various unproven-but-reported-effective-by-some techniques without being required faith.
(1) http://www.amazon.de/Mastering-Your-Hidden-Self-Guide/dp/083...
Alternatively, can I get the same benefits from just lying on my bed or listening to music for the same amount of time?
My point it: try it for yourself and see if _you_ get benefits from it. The rest is mostly irrelevant :)
I am way more likely to be in the 98% so I will put more effort into it and try it for real in this case.
>try it for yourself and see if _you_ get benefits from it.
A bunch of meditation practices suggest that you get benefits only after doing it for a while. I've personally tried some stuff and never got enough benefit to make up for the 30-60 mins of lost time but if there was more evidence for the benefits I'd try harder.