For this blog, you will report on your preliminary efforts to meditate. There are some links in the Course Resources tab, as well as I'd specifically like you to read these sections of our books: Hansen & Mendius Ch 11, pp 86-87; Dorjee pp 18-20, Nataraja Ch 1 & 7
In your blog response, please let us know generally your past experience with meditation (with none being completely acceptable), as well as insight on your effort to learn and practice meditation. What was it like for you? Where did you meditate? How "successful" do you think you were? What problems did you encounter?
Explore!
I.B.
Before this, the only time I tried meditating was for a high school history class when we were learning about eastern religions. Without having an understanding of what I was supposed to be doing, my meditation session turned out to be just sitting quietly and looking around the room. I started listening to speeches from a buddhist named Alan Watts about a year ago. I didn't meditate, but I listened to him and relaxed before I went to sleep. After our class on Tuesday I tried to meditate for the twenty minutes. My 'inner voice' or whatever would not go away. For a while I got stuck in a cycle where I kept telling myself to not tell myself anything. Focusing on my breathing was relaxing, and it felt nice, but I certainly did not grasp the full concept of meditation, or at least I didn't do it too successfully. A lot of random images came in to my head for some reason, like pyramids and elephants. I didn't dislike that, but my mind was anything but empty. I look forward to practicing this more.
My preliminary efforts to meditate went better than I expected. My previous belief was that there was no way I could get all my thoughts out of my mind, but the longer I meditated, the less thoughts I had. Some thoughts would ease into my mind, and I wouldn’t realize it at first, but then I’d remember to push it out and focus on my deep breathing in through the nose and longer, out through the mouth. I meditated close to my bedtime, so I kept feeling myself slouch more and more and tried to sit up straighter when I felt myself relaxing almost too much to have a band posture and perhaps fall asleep sitting up. I made it 15 minutes and then one thought took all my concentration and I couldn’t get back into the meditation state. The readings helped me to remind myself how the mind works and why posture is important. I like the thought of the gate and how it reacts to the need for simulation.
The closest I have come to meditating would have been in religion class back in middle school. We held a rock in our hands and sat listening to music and our goal was to take all the tension starting from the tips of our toes, all the way up, and down our arms and out through the fingertips in to the rock. I am excited to learn and practice meditation. I worry about not making myself set aside quiet time for me to meditate, but I will try to think of it as the reading described it—a meeting. Tonight I meditated in quiet on my living room floor, sitting up. I did well (mostly toward the middle was the best), but then I lost all my concentration. I thought I was pretty “successful” for it being my first time meditating.
My meditation experience in the past has been fairly superficial. It would last around five minutes, include using mantras and mudras, and not bring about much of a difference in my state of mind. I've done yoga for seven years and the final resting pose savasana/corpse strikes me as bearing resemblance to meditation (only it’s done laying down, which I now know is a big no-no). Previous to this class, I haven’t made too many efforts to learn actual meditation techniques. In my experiences, time moved slowly and my mind wandered while I chastised it for being unable to stay clear. My expectation of meditation was to feel extra calm and enlightened, so I never thought I was that successful. I would normally just meditate sitting on the ground, trying to imitate the experts while feeling very uncomfortable, both with the pretzel position I was sitting in and with nothing to occupy my mind. I am looking forward to learning techniques for meditation, so that I can see what differences they can make!
I have never actually experienced mediation myself however I have seen meditation in movies, books, posters, and more. After class Tuesday I hadn’t realized that one form of meditation is clearing the mind. Previously I had assumed that all meditation was deep concentration on a particular problem, subject, etc. therefore the idea of clearing my mind seemed fairly alien. Wednesday was my first attempt at meditation and it was rather difficult. I was able to clear my mind of thoughts but only for a few minutes until my mind began to wander. One issue with my mediation was my location. I decided to sit on my bed, back against the wall. The problem with this area was that I kept falling asleep as I was so comfortable. Something else I realized was that in a way, I almost meditate every night before I go to sleep. Usually I think of my day but, right before I fall asleep I usually don’t think of anything. Perhaps this is not meditation (I am laying down) however, I think a combination of muscle memory (not thinking of anything) and location (my bed) caused my drowsiness. Another issue with my first meditation was that after I was done (20 minutes) I felt more tired and exhausted than I had before. This unfortunately is probably due to falling asleep a few times during it, therefore I don’t think I was very successful at this first attempt. My second attempt yesterday however was much more successful. Although I was unable to maintain a clear mind/concentration for very long, I did not fall asleep and felt more alert. The difference this time was that I sat on the floor cross-legged and alert. In the future, I will use this position and location versus my bed and after more practice I hope to continue to improve my meditation.
I attempted meditating for the first time for 20 minutes at Kim’s recommendation. I decided to do it this afternoon because I was worried I would just fall back asleep this morning when I set aside time to meditate. I was more tired than I hoped this morning. I meditated in my living room in our recliner because I felt it would be a comfortable place since my roommates were not around. In retrospect, I probably didn’t have my spine as straight as the texts recommended. Perhaps that is why I had trouble at the beginning. Getting into the meditation was really difficult, but at the same time I feel like I did better than I expected. This is the first time I have ever attempted meditation. I had zero previous knowledge before taking this class. I’ve always had issues with being easily distracted so I tried several tactics to slow my mind down and block everything out. I think one of my biggest challenges to meditating this first time was being hyperaware of my body. Since I shut my eyes and tried not to think of anything, I felt every little twinge of pain radiating from places in my back, neck, and even my eyelids. Because I was feeling all this pain (and it wasn’t really bad pain by any means, just slight discomforts really), my inner voice was telling me all about how I wasn’t doing it right and how I wasn’t comfortable. Another issue I had I think comes from the unique situation of learning about meditation as I do it. My mind wanted to document all the experiences I was having as I was having them. I was basically planning out this journal entry as I meditated which was counterproductive to the meditation. Eventually, I think I fell into a meditative state (I say “I think” because I’m still not sure if I did it right or not) by focusing on my breath. Counting my breaths and using the “Om” mantra didn’t work for me, they just triggered memories of talking about those different ways people focus that we covered briefly in class. Focusing on the correct way to breathe was also a distraction for me. Being a singer, it triggered memories of my choir teacher discussing the proper way to breathe in order to hold out long notes. Instead, I ended up focusing on feeling my breathing: feeling the air entering my nose, the expansion of my lungs, the rise of my chest and shoulders, and finally the release of air through my mouth, like the texts suggested. I didn’t think about breathing, I just sat there and felt myself breathe if that makes any sense. Part way through, I started having almost dream-like images, just nonsensical things that don’t pertain to real life, things that don’t exist. It was almost like I was dreaming before I refocused. I think this is what chapter 11 in Hanson and Mendius was talking about when they said the brain is constantly looking for stimulation and that if none is available, it will start conjuring images. However, I know I never actually fell asleep because I was still aware of my surroundings the whole time. The reason I feel I was at least somewhat successful was because I felt that ‘flow’. Though the first few minutes of my 20 passed by slowly (so slowly it was agonizing), when I got down into it, time passed like nothing. I opened my eyes after what felt like 5 minutes and saw that 15 had passed instead. I’m kind of proud to have done it after only my first attempt at meditating ever, unless that’s not what is supposed to happen and I just screwed up. I haven't meditated a second time yet. Thursday mornings are full for me, so meditating in the afternoon is all I have time for now, but I will work on making a time for myself in the morning to meditate in the future.
I have tried meditation before but it was just my lying on my back and listening to a cassette tape of nature sounds and a deep voice telling me what to think about as I relaxed. I’ve also done yoga and you do a little bit of visualization, but not necessarily meditation in the sense of emptying your mind of everything. I’ve known about some helpful benefits of meditation but never really got around to practicing meditation.
So I’ve tried it two times now since class has started. I sat in my room with the lights off except for one small desk lamp. I did this so my eyes weren’t so stimulated by light (my eyes were closed). I had ambient music playing very quietly in the background and sat on the floor, on top of a pillow, with my legs crossed. I started with my hands in my lap and moved to having my hands on my knees. The first time I did it was Wednesday morning and I wasn’t successful at all. I was too tired when I did it so I because quickly frustrated and quit after about 5 minutes. But Wednesday night was completely different. I set a timer for 20 minutes and started to relax. I focused on my breathing and decided to really think and visualize the number of the breath that I was on. My inhales were odd numbers and exhales were even numbers. I would repeat the number over and over in my head during inhale/exhale and visualize a big, white number flashing in my head. It worked really well! That lasted for about 12 minutes and the time flew by.
I went to check my phone to see how much time was past, but couldn’t get back into a relaxed state after that. Partly because I was so excited to see that I had just meditated for 12 minutes. One of the difficulties I had was controlling my own visualization. The second attempt to get back into meditation Wednesday night was horrible. I couldn’t control the numbers that I had previously used, and sometimes they would “float off” and I couldn’t keep track of what number I was on. Overall I would say I was pretty successful.
My meditation experience is extremely limited. I first tried it in my Intro to Psych class and tried to use it to focus before tests. These attempts were feeble at best and didn’t result in any feelings of clarity, mindfulness or focus. I have known about the stress and health benefits of meditation but have always said that I was too busy to find time to meditate. I am hoping that as the semester progresses I can make meditation a habit and regular component of daily life.
My first attempt at meditation for class was on Wednesday night. I had just finished the reading and had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do. To start a put down a pad on the floor of my room, sat cross-legged, and placed my hands in my lap. I went through the process of relaxing my face, head, and body then began to focus on breathing. This first attempt was a complete failure. I found that I was bombarded with extraneous thoughts and could not get them out of my head. It felt like I had been struggling to clear my mind for an hour when in reality it was about 6 minutes. At this point I felt like I had failed and this just motivated me to try again. I proceeded to get up, move around a bit and refocus my efforts. This second attempt was much more successful. This time I went through the body relaxing then began to count each inhale and exhale as 1 and 2. The simple counting allowed me to focus my attention and drastically reduce outside thoughts. In the end I had “meditated” for about 20 minutes with this attempt.
My past experiences with meditation started with the Introduction to Psychology class. Dr. Butler had us participate in a small guided meditation with a video. I found that experience to be incredibly relaxing and then began to pursue meditation further. I often tried to set up a schedule of meditation with a goal of meditating every day but I failed to stick to it. I was able to clear my mind of most intrusive thoughts when I did try to meditate but maintaining that focus was very difficult.
I meditated in the morning for twenty minutes after I woke up on Wednesday and it went very well. I sat on my futon with my legs crossed and focused on my breathing. I eventually added the mantra of “bird” on my exhales. I felt rejuvenated after this experience. On Thursday I meditated in the morning again, but it was a lot more difficult for me to focus on it. I kept getting caught up in my intrusive thoughts and generally feeling bored during the process. I tried to maintain focus for about 15 minutes before I continued on with my day. I think I was fairly successful on Wednesday but not at all on Thursday. On Wednesday I was still fairly tired when I woke up so I think that may have helped me slow down my mind.
Prior to this class, I have only tried to meditate once, excluding the mediation we did today in class. I am currently in the McNair Scholar Program. Last semester during finals week the director decided to bring a massage therapist in our senior’s seminar in order to relieve some stress. We all met in room 35 at the ITTC building. The massage therapist was great! She taught us how to give relaxing hand massages and she also talked about the benefits of mediation. After we were done with the hand massages we sat down and did a breathing mediation exercise. The therapist told us to close our eyes and maintain an up-right body posture. Then she said to take a deep breath and to hold it in for a moment. She told us to exhale very slowly and try to focus only on your breathing and nothing else. We did this exercise for about five minutes. After we were finished, I was very surprised in effectiveness of the mediation. The mediation made me more relaxed, I also noticed that my muscles were less tense. I felt a sense of balance in my mind. Before we did the massages and mediation, I was really stressed about my final examinations. I was really restless, which made my thoughts unclear. With this said, I believe that the mediation was a huge success. Before I never really thought much about mediation, I thought that it was only used for religious purposes like praying. Now, I understand that it can be used to relieve stress and improve health. I have done research on stress and psychological and physical health so I know the detrimental effects stress causes the body and mind. I am interested in researching more about the correlations between mediation and psychological and physical health.
My experience with meditation prior to this class was slim to none. The only thing that I had ever tried out was on Wii Fit where you have to stay still for three minutes straight. I have done some yoga before, but it was not really for me. I have always had an issue of becoming relaxed. So when I decided to meditate this morning I used the example that Kim gave us in class about counting breaths. I found that I had a very difficult time remembering what number I was on and my thoughts would always wonder. I would think about what else I had to do today and where certain things were at like my keys, phone, etc. I find that even when I am in class settings I have difficulty staying focus and begin daydreaming. One of the other problems I ran into was I found myself constantly checking the time to see how long it had been. Sometime three minutes had gone by. Other times it was more like thirty seconds. I believe I did this because I was worried that I would not have enough time to get ready afterward, or I was afraid that I would go way over on time. I will set an alarm next time to help with this. Also, I neglected to tell my husband what I was doing so when he woke up he decided to just stare at me which was very awkward. So finally I had to kick him out of bed, but then my cats started bothering me, so I kicked them out as well. Overall this was not a very good first experience with meditation. I really need ideas of where else I can attempt this without being distracted by my cats or husband.
I have had no previous experience with meditation or yoga. I tried a Pilates workout video this summer but then it disappeared from Netflix. I spent about twenty minutes during my first attempt to meditate. I have terrible posture to being comfortable in an upright position was kind of difficult and uncomfortable. I counted my deep breaths and whenever a different thought came to mind I said “go away.” At times it was difficult not to keep thinking about that other things. After about twenty minutes I stopped and I’m not sure if I did it all correctly. I didn’t really feel any differently than before I meditated. I always thought people sort of lost touch with reality when they meditated but that wasn’t the case for me. When I picture meditation, I see Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender entering his spirit world and becoming unresponsive to anything happening in the physical world. One of the readings said people can meditate anytime anywhere, even during meetings and places where you’re supposed to pay attention to what other people are saying so that was kind of confusing to me. I guess I don’t really know exactly what correct meditation feels like.
I've always thought of myself as a grounded person, with foundations in logic. Trying to meditate has always been somewhat of a displeasing venture for me due to these natures. I usually get ambivalent towards the lack of progress I make, and see, from meditation; therefore, I have not really put much effort into it. My first attempt to meditate was yesterday in the morning (10). While I feel like I was marginally successful for my first attempt in a long while, I was slightly let down. I found that my measurement of time was somewhat accurate, although a little over estimation occurred. My main downfall was that every noise, typically a car driving by, pulled me out of any successful "flow" state I had obtained. I used a non-alytical form of meditation and I tried to visualize a blank T.V. screen, counting my breath and displaying them on the T.V.. However, the numbers began to appear as Sesame Street numbers, and then all I could think about was Count Dracula. Cutting my losses I refocused and tried to visualize my breath entering, and leaving my body. This is where I saw the most success, I was still hyper-aware of my body position, and any movement that occurred outside, but I was more concentrated on my breath, and slowly saw some "flow".
Hopefully I will see an increase in successful meditation experiences as the class progresses.
Before reading the chapters, I thought I had very limited exposure and experience with meditation. However, the reading illustrated that I actually had a limited experience as during my Honors Human Identity and Relationships class, we did a few different mindfulness activities. For example, one of them was a progressive muscle relaxation. Beyond that class, I had little to no experience with meditation, but have always been exceptionally interested in beginning and learning more about it.
My first experience was rather frustrating. I meditated in my bed directly after waking up. For the first few minutes, it seemed most of my energy was expended trying to stay awake (mornings are the bane of my existence). Eventually I decided to go have some coffee first and tried again. This time was a little better; my to-do list just kept interfering. I found it odd what I thought about; most of the time it were things that I really enjoyed doing, but couldn’t put as much effort into doing as I would like. For example, my thesis was one of the thoughts I had to push out of my mind most often as I love the research and designing the study, but it’s not something I get to spend a lot of time on, just a few hours here and there.
Finally, I was able to focus by envisioning a flame and keeping that the center of my attention. Most intervening thoughts I was able to push aside, though I found myself checking the time about every five minutes, fearing meditating too long and missing my first meeting of the day. I meditated for twenty minutes and then proceeded to go on with the rest of my day.
The second day I did the exact same routine, but I got the coffee first. It went much better and I tried the progressive muscle relaxation technique. I found myself thinking frequently about how my posture reflected the thoughts that were trying to interfere, but I got the hang of it a bit quicker this time around and am looking forward to seeing how my meditative practices change in the upcoming semester.
I don’t have a lot of experience with meditation. After going through the readings I realized that there are many more ways to meditate than what I have previously considered. Meditation to me meant just sitting quietly and clearing your mind of all thoughts. That is part of meditation but there seems to be a lot more. Meditation consists of yoga, reading scripture, and much more. I also wasn’t aware of the difference in “mindfulness-based stress reduction” and “transcendental meditation.”
I definitely don’t have a lot of practice with meditation. I know I haven’t ever officially tried it. I have done yoga a couple times but was never very good at clearing my mind and using it as a relaxing technique. To be quite honest the stretching was painful enough that clearing my mind was practically impossible!
Having said that, I am extremely interested in learning more about meditation. I have heard so many times that meditation can really help improve your health and relieve your stress. It gives you the chance to relax and give your mind and body a break.
I haven’t put much thought into where you would choose to meditate either. I know when I participated in yoga it was with my teammates and that certainly didn’t help my chances of staying focused and clearing my mind. I do however, read Bible scripture and that has always been a relaxing thing for me. However, I still struggle with clearing my mind and not continuing to stress about other things. I definitely want to learn how to go about clearing your mind as well as to learn different things that are involved in or considered meditation.
Meditation, I’ve never actually thought about it until recently (recently meaning this class), however I have thought about yoga, not sure how much relation they have with one another. So, since I’ve never really thought about meditation, it’s obviously no surprise that I’ve never attempted to practice it. However, since I’ve started reading the books as well as researching it on my own I have found myself becoming more interested in the term and have even started suggesting others to try it. Of course, as I would have in the past, I get some odd looks. Understandable.
The first time I had attempted to meditate was a complete disaster. I felt weird, and had no idea what I was trying to do. It honestly stressed me out more than it was originally tended to do which is calm one down. Another thing, is that the room was completely quiet. Complete silence gives me anxiety (weird, I know). So instead of continuing to fail miserably by practicing on my own, I began to search for something on youtube. Taking no time at all to get to the point I typed in, “meditation for beginners”, and I selected the first video that popped up. It was called, “Guided Meditation for Beginners – Entering the Formless”. This video helped me a lot to understand what I was doing and did a good job at helping to focus on my breathing as well as help to ignore the many thoughts trying to enter my mind at that time. It helped guide my thoughts on positive things, and left everything up to my imagination. There is a strange background noise to the video as well, not necessarily music, more like the sound of a recorder being played back. It counted for something, and obviously helped with the silence. I would/have recommended this video to any beginner wanting to try meditation for themselves. Since this experience I have found plenty of other videos that have served their purpose well, with me trying to stay completely busy, hearing new voices and different sounds help me to focus better rather than getting bored with the same thing and being able to predict where I’m supposed to go next. I have also tried to again to meditate by myself without the guided videos, it seems impossible because I can’t concentrate nor block anything from entering my mind, not sure if this is a bad thing or not. either way, I have so far found that meditating at least once daily has already improved my mood and helped me to take some control over my stress and anxiety. Understanding I have a lot to work on yet, I’m excited to see where this goes!