Recommend some meditation practices for a noob

So I've been thinking about starting a meditation routine. I'm not especially into some of the relaxation-ish very non-religious guided meditations I've seen on youtube, but I'm not quite sure where I'd want to begin. Tips on methods and practical advice, or how to get started would be appreciated

Since you are a Christian, you might find it fruitful to look at Christian meditations. I'm not a spiritual director or meditation teacher so I am not going to suggest specific techniques. But my personal goal is to identify myself more and more with the divine so that more and more my thoughts, words and deeds are governed by the divine.

I think the wikipedia article is a good introduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_meditation There are books I found personally inspirational such as Practice the Presence of God http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13871

One other thought. I'm not a Christian but I find some ideas expressed beautifully in the Bible. One that I think applies here is from the Psalms: “Be still, and know that I am God!” To me the two parts of the sentence are evocative: How can I become more still? How can I know God? If you focus on those two questions I believe you'll be on the right track.

I used to medidate, but I had no specific goal in mind. Just really setting aside a period each day to clear my mind of all stresses, and thoughts.
Given that I have trouble simply not thinking (as I guess most would) I used a few very simple mental exercises.

First I would very conciously change my breathing pattern. Slow it down, occasionally play some relaxing sounds or music in the background if it helped, but generally not.
Just focusing on each part of my body in turn. Clenching and then deliberately relaxing each muscle in a very slow fashion, one after another, was useful. Each toe, each finger, each foot, each hand, etc. For me, the simple act of breathing properly, slowing down, and making sure in particular my shoulders were loose and relaxed was huge.
Also, focusing on something very simple, in a visual sense. A landscape, or fire, or whatever. Doesn't really matter, so long as that can hold your focus, and you can avoid focusing on daily stresses I guess.

Stable posture you can hold, easy breath and clear mind is a good start.

You can try the Headspace app. I hear it's very good. I have it installed but haven't tried it yet. The creator is Zen oriented, I believe.

Sikhs often use chanting meditation - where you pick a word and repeat it. At first you can say it out loud, then just in your mind. I've tried this and it is ok.

My favourite kind of meditation is contemplative. I like to pick a passage and really focus on it. Repeat it, feel it, ponder the meaning. In Sikhi, my favourite line is 'Aad Such, Jugaad such, Hai bhi such, Nanak hosi bhi such', which is translated as 'True in the primal beginning, True throughout the ages, True here and now, Oh Nanak forever True'. I think about the Great Reality that was at the very beginning, has always been, is here and now with every breath, and will be for eternity. I get lost in that phrase. Here is some audio, just the first minute or so. <3
I know Christians have similar techniques:

http://wccm.org/content/what-meditation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_meditation

The Catholic rosary is another example if Christian meditation, as is the Anglican one. The Anglican version usually just focuses on one phrase around the rosary, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican_prayer_beads

I do think proper body posture is quite important, if for no other reason it keeps you more alert and not fall asleep. I for one can't lay in bed and meditate as that triggers me to go to sleep. My routine is to wake up sufficiently in the morning with a cup or two of green tea. Coffee or black teas for me make my mind too active, which is something you really notice when you begin to try to meditate, fight against the 'buzz' going on in there.

It is also helpful to create a certain ritual space around the practice, as it helps set the mind's intention towards the practice and helps facilitate a certain preliminary setting aside of extraneous thoughts demanding our attention. I turn on certain music I reserve for only meditation time, setup a few candles, place a singing bowl or two which I use to help focus the mind through sound, place my meditation cushion on the floor in front of them, dim the lights, light the candles, then sit to begin the practice.

This is an important first step. If I just race through this and sit down, I have a harder time bringing myself into attention. Do everything in this "creating the space" step slowly, deliberately, and with intention. I think that step will help enormously.

Next, "close the circle", part of ritual practice. Sound the bell, center the mind, follow the breath, etc. There are many different techniques that one can use. Experiment. What works well one day, may not the next. Don't feel you HAVE to do it this way or that, or that you are "doing it wrong". I may use a mantra, sounding the bell, focus on breath, visualizations, etc, or a combination of them. I'll come back and spend more time on some of these techniques in a later post, but want to just cover the high-level overview here.

The other 3 parts of the ritual practice, which meditation is, is "doing the work". That is the next step which is where you actually meditate, following what arises, and a long list of what is entailed in that can be discussed also. Following this is "grounding the energy", and then opening the circle or the ritual space when you take what was done in practice and carry it with you into the day. Understanding that an effective practice is not just plopping down, counting breaths, than skipping out the door will be much more beneficial and healthy.

I'll come back around to some of the details later.

well named said:

So I've been thinking about starting a meditation routine. I'm not especially into some of the relaxation-ish very non-religious guided meditations I've seen on youtube, but I'm not quite sure where I'd want to begin. Tips on methods and practical advice, or how to get started would be appreciated

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What do you want the focus of your meditation to be (if you don't mind me asking)?

JRMcC said:

What do you want the focus of your meditation to be (if you don't mind me asking)?

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I think that's a good question. What is it we are seeking? With that in mind, we tailor the practice.

Thanks everyone

JRMcC said:

What do you want the focus of your meditation to be (if you don't mind me asking)?

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Good question! I suppose to me the ultimate aim is a more steady and constant experience of the presence of the divine (I'm not using explicitly Christian terms because I don't really see it as an exclusively Christian thing...) and more practically a routine that helps cultivate detachment, equanimity, peace, self-awareness, or etc. I suppose in terms of the forms employed i'm going to end up having to figure out something that suits my somewhat idiosyncratic/syncretistic tendencies. I've been quite drawn to more nature-mysticism-esque forms lately, and especially some of the older Vedic traditions

I'm quite familiar with traditional Christian ideas and methods regarding contemplative prayer, and have always been fond of the idea that is found in some of the older monastic traditions that at anything done with mindful reverent attention is a form of prayer, and I think I have experienced the truth of that idea in my own practice, but i've always struggled with a meditative practice that is more silent or focused, so it just seems like it is time to give it a more serious effort. If that helps make where I'm coming from a bit clearer.

well named said:

I'm quite familiar with traditional Christian ideas and methods regarding contemplative prayer, and have always been fond of the idea that is found in some of the older monastic traditions that at anything done with mindful reverent attention is a form of prayer, and I think I have experienced the truth of that idea in my own practice, but i've always struggled with a meditative practice that is more silent or focused, so it just seems like it is time to give it a more serious effort. If that helps make where I'm coming from a bit clearer.

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I think as one enters into these states of consciousness, that lends itself to being more focused by being more aware, by being more silent. In other words, our minds become so opened, that busy discursive thought, active dialogs, etc are relaxed and unimportant to what is seen before you in the moment. What you learn through practice is to hold that attention to that for longer periods of time, and in so doing, there is an actual, active participation of your being with that reality before you, and you experience that in yourself. The net effect is that it shifts how you see the world and yourself in it, and how you experience yourself and the world.

You can try a single focused meditation, a concentrative practice where you focus on a single thing and by brute force you learn to concentrate and control the mind this way. Sometimes, I do this briefly if I find myself just way distracted with my thoughts skipping around, but not that often. For the most part I practice a defocal approach, where I relax the mind to be opened, to just be aware without focusing on any single thought. I find the use of sound to be of most use to me, where music allows me to just open myself into experience of the moment. You do pay attention to the mind, you do have to be self-aware that you are in fact engaged in this and not back in your thoughts and out of meditation. It's very typical to move in and out of meditation, open and aware, and then back into some internal dialog in your head.

The key to the process when you begin is to not beat yourself up. You are not trying to "achieve" anything. This is not something you can produce. It's natural. It's a natural state. All you are doing is setting aside all that which distracts you from it. You learn how to see and hear and listen to that which is always there at all times, and you are aware off as well, albeight not with your active awareness. What you are doing is setting aside the distraction of the busy chattering mind to see what is there, to know it with active awareness. You do this by removing judgments about it. You simply let it be. You simply let yourself be. You really cannot brute force that too well, I find. It is you training your mind to cooperate with your will to experience the divine, as it were. You goal is to connect. You do this by simply getting out of the way and letting it be.

All the rest is simply learning how to do this. The practice is a lesson about knowing yourself and the way your mind works, and then learning to get it to cooperate with you. This is why working with it, finding what works, is far better than the brute force approach. Eventually, you simply just 'flip the switch' with ease. There is not the resistance to letting go you first encountered, and then you truly begin to become a master of your own mind, rather than being mastered by it which most humans are. I like the way I put that. It's learning to master your mind, rather than being mastered by it. Most aren't aware they are mastered by it. But you soon enough find that out when you can actually see the mind doing it's thing, when you become the Witness and observe yourself. Most of time, we assume we know what's going on by the way we've learned to categorize stuff. But this is something altogether different. This is learning how to not do that, to let that all go. It's learning a new language, and new mode of awareness altogether.

Sorry if this is a bit stream of conscious thought here, but I feel understanding what we are aiming for, and basic understanding of what goes on is helpful. The actual practice itself will of course inform way beyond what the mind tries to understand about it. Basically, I leave it for the moment with this. We are all already Enlightened. We just don't realize it. The practice is learning how to allow that to be realized. You do not attain or achieve Enlightenment. You learn to open yourself to who you already are. You just have to let go of all that we look to and cling to that is not who we truly are. You find the Self, when you die to the self. And then, you know the self as the Self.

If you've not seen this that I like to share now and then, this may be a good high-level overview about some of the points I've made, and then from there we can look deeper into the various stages he describes. https://www.integrallife.com/integral-post/stages-meditation

well named said:

So I've been thinking about starting a meditation routine. I'm not especially into some of the relaxation-ish very non-religious guided meditations I've seen on youtube, but I'm not quite sure where I'd want to begin. Tips on methods and practical advice, or how to get started would be appreciated

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I want to swing back around to this as I was thinking you are looking more for specific practices that once you sit down in meditation you can engage with that may work for you. Earlier I talked about the importance of having some ritual surrounding the practice; creating the space, raising the energy, doing the work, grounding the energy, opening the space. Those are the structures that support the practice and should not be overlooked, IMO. But how to do those, and what is done to "raise the energy"?

I wanted to talk about the power and use of symbolism first. Let me take a step back though and ask if you have ever had any sort of peak experience? Have you ever touched the divine in any sort of manner that opened you to see the Goal? If so, that can be helpful, initially. If you have tasted this, infinite love and compassion, freedom, illumination, and so forth, you can hold this as an image in the mind that you are trying to reach to, to reconnect with, to realize again in yourself. If not, then there must be some deep intuition of the Absolute present enough that would compel you to seek to Unite with the divine. You did say you are uninterested in the simply "relaxation-ish" forms of meditation. That is true of me as well. So at the outset, there is some Goal of transcendence compelling you. Correct?

Now to symbolism. In the creation of the space, in the practice of raising the energy, in the practice of doing the work, etc, that Goal is the focus of one's intention. Intention is no small matter, but rather is center stage. Anything that symbolizes that intention aides in bring the mind and body and heart into focus on that Goal. A symbol can be made out of any object. You could uses a milk bottle, if that had some sort of associated value to you; such as that milk bottle was part of your peak experience. Typically though, something that carries some immediate meaning on the level of intention to the divine is useful. Or you can just create something unassociated with anything previously, if there is too much confusing baggage with previous religious artifacts, such as a cross from childhood, a rosary, etc. In that case find something new, that you then imbue with meaning coming from where you are now.

What happens with these objects is that you reserve them for your practice, take them out when preparing for meditation, and put them away when done, or you have a dedicated altar with them on it where you go to practice. In other words, you need to treat them with respect, as they represent that practice to you. This way, when you pull them out, or engage with them, they greatly facilitate moving you into that ritual space. Eventually, with meditation practice, they can become simply triggers that take you immediately into that space. It really is how much of your own intention you imbue them with, and how you allow them to become psycho-spiritual triggers for you. The same can be with sounds, a chime, a gong, a bell, etc.

To briefly relay a personal story. Like you, when I was first looking for ways to begin a meditation practice I felt having a singing bowl might be a good tool for me. So I went to this Tibetan gift store in town to look at maybe getting a bowl, depending on how expensive it was. The owner, a former Tibetan Buddhist monk, let me look at this one modern machined bowl with pretty decorations on it which I liked, with its pure clean tone. Then he decided to show me an old, hand beaten antique singing bowl. He said, "Here, meditate while I play this." I really hadn't meditated before, but I closed my eyes and just listened to the sound. It was deep and rich with many complex layers of harmonics rising from it. I listed for a couple minutes, then we talked about the price, which was about 8 times more expensive that I was thinking to spend. So I left the store and began driving home, but I felt this incredible sense of my mind being opened, that sense that I wanted to try meditation for. Within ten minutes I couldn't pass this up as I knew it worked for me, went back and bought it without hesitation. I am a musician, so sound like this is something I connect to the soul through. This was like the piano, but much, much deeper.

So here's my point of this story. When I got home with this, I shared it with my partner who found it to be beautiful. I kept in on a shelf behind the couch and would periodically pick it up and playing, trying to listen to the sound and follow it to try to meditate. It was good, and it helped me feel very calm, and my mind more opened. But I would also pick it up to just hear the sound at various times of the day with my partner in the other room. Much to my consternation, she asked me if I would stop playing it! Her reasons for saying so was because she was trying to work in her office, and would hear the sound of this bell which would snap her out of focus on what she was working on and pulling her into "ritual space", is how she put it, which is not where she could allow herself to go while working on a technical problem for a client. She suggested to me that I should take downstairs where I had a meditation cushion I had bought, but never used yet and set it up down there and actually do a meditation with it.

So I did. I sat crosslegged on the floor with the cushion supporting me, and tried meditating as I rang the bell to help quiet the mind. I did this for 20 minutes. When I finished and went upstairs, then walking outside, I felt like St. Francis of Assisi in the garden. It was incredible. What I had done was to move into a dedicated space for meditation, sat properly, with intention and focus, then entered into quiet spaces with the mind, which opened me to the experience of the world around me. She was absolutely right, I needed to take this ritual object into a dedicated created space and do an actual practice. Then what unfolded from there was to move very fast, and very deep into meditation, where within a matter of a few days I was smack into the midst of that luminosity that had begun my search to come home from many years ago in my peak experience of the Divine. I said to myself, "Now I begin where I began". And it's been all deeper and wider ever since.

When I pull out my singing bowls and use them this way, not only do they create the sort of sound that aides me in mental relaxation, they are associated with the practice itself, they become "sacred" ritual objects. So when you touch them, play them, sound them, perform them, use them in practice, they also benefit through symbolic association with the practice itself. I can sit down, invite the sound of the bell, and immediately enter into meditative states now. You become very familiar with going there, and it becomes much easier. Then once you have "raised the energy", and entered into meditation, then the work begins. The whole part of techniques, mantra, sound, dance, prayers, offerings, etc, is the raising of energy to put you into the place of receptivity where the work of transformation begins. At this point, the sound, the mantra, the offering, take on a different dimension, that of communion with the divine, the part of the work of transcendence and unity with God.

Ok, so I didn't get to actual things you can try in this post, but I'll leave it here for you to chew on.

Thanks windwalker, I appreciate your posts immensely.

Re: transcendence as a goal -- yes, absolutely

Re: symbolism -- it's very important to me. Part of what I'm puzzling over is finding the right sort of ritual environment for me right now. I'm thinking of doing something focused around the Gayatri mantra actually. More traditionally I have always found the Divine Liturgy of the eastern church very meditative, and I often listen to a particularly exquisite recording of it, but I'm trying to branch out a bit. In any case, it's probably the lack of symbology that explains why I don't find the generic guided meditations very compelling

I appreciated your story of the singing bowl. I figure at this point I've gotten plenty of good advice from everyone, so now I need to get started doing something and that will probably naturally lead to more questions to ask later

well named said:

Thanks windwalker, I appreciate your posts immensely.

Re: transcendence as a goal -- yes, absolutely

Re: symbolism -- it's very important to me. Part of what I'm puzzling over is finding the right sort of ritual environment for me right now. I'm thinking of doing something focused around the Gayatri mantra actually. More traditionally I have always found the Divine Liturgy of the eastern church very meditative, and I often listen to a particularly exquisite recording of it, but I'm trying to branch out a bit. In any case, it's probably the lack of symbology that explains why I don't find the generic guided meditations very compelling

I appreciated your story of the singing bowl. I figure at this point I've gotten plenty of good advice from everyone, so now I need to get started doing something and that will probably naturally lead to more questions to ask later

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OK, I'm sensing that. Now I know what direction to go. I for one am very much drawn to devotion in practice. The sounds of music that evoke that sense of devotion are important to me, at certain points. The Gayatri mantra is wonderful. Put this on when you are meditating sometime. I know the mantra and find it quite beautiful, both in its phonetics and its meaning.

well named said:

So I've been thinking about starting a meditation routine. I'm not especially into some of the relaxation-ish very non-religious guided meditations I've seen on youtube, but I'm not quite sure where I'd want to begin. Tips on methods and practical advice, or how to get started would be appreciated

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Well named, yours is an interesting topic. I remember back in my early twenties when I was a meditation noob. Now forty years and thousands of hours of meditation experience later, I am getting pretty good at this stuff . I have been doing it for so long that I eat, sleep, and dream meditations, so to speak. And ninety percent of my waking moments are in a state of meditation. Like others have said, "What is one's goal?" Because there are different meditations for everything that one could consider a goal.

But your OP question is the kicker. "Noob"? And how to get started? I went to Lord Jesus back when I was in my early twenties and asked Him the same thing. He said that I have to be able to focus my mind to start with and suggested that I gaze into the flame of a candle until I can do it without my mind wandering. So I spent three to four hours a day for two years gazing into a candle flame before I begin my meditation training. Now what is interesting about gazing into a candle flame is that it is very relaxing and it quiets your mind. And to do it right you really need a steady flame that does not flicker. The best thing that I found that works is a floating wick candle that burns vegetable oil with the floating wick and oil in a large brandy snifter. You can get a nice steady flame using that kind of setup. From there I went to practicing active meditations that light up/energize the seven main body neural nets that most refer to as chakras. My main goal from that time on was learning how to control my autonomic nervous system with my conscious mind. And from there to wake up the higher consciousnous chakras that are above one's head and the grounding chrakras that are below one's body. Ultimately my goal ended up to be exploring the physical immortality/life extension meditations. These meditations are basically ways to keep one's body life energy centers (pituitary gland, pineal gland, thymus gland, and the front and back parts of the cerebral cortex) lit up and energized. The main reason that we get old and die is because these different life energy centers start shutting down. So I suppose that from a "noob" stand point that one should know that there are meditations that slow things down and meditations that wake things up. And that what you place thought into is woke up and activated and what you do not put thought into eventually dies. Eventually medical science will come up with a little electronic gizmo that stimulates these life centers and extended life spans will be come a common reality.

So Well named, I guess that my suggestion to a meditation "noob" would be to spend some time gazing into a candle flame. It is relaxing and it quiets your mind if the flame is not flickering . And starting there sets a good foundation for exploring the wonderment that is the world of meditation. Or just get one of those Buddha chant CDs and sit and listen to it because they are relaxing and they contain the Om sound. And, the Om sound stimulates the heart center and back areas of the cerebral cortex, which is absolutely manditory when it comes to creating a lifespan extension neural net activity environment.