Meditation's Effect on You?

Wey

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How many of you have practiced meditation for any amount of time? What have the benefits been from practicing? Do you find it worth while to meditate?

Thanks in advance.
 

seasoned

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In self defense, it isn't thinking about everything that allows you to survive, but the ability to open your mind to all possibilities, by opening your mind to, "nothingness". This is my experience with Meditation's Effect on, me.
 

fireman00

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I find a good daily 10 minute self hypnosis works GREAT on stress reduction. When I can't sleep due to the BS at work I use a technique I learned when I was 16 - deep, slow breaths. Slowly relax your scalp, jaws, neck, shoulders, arms... feel the relaxation flow - like the flow of a river - down through your fingers, waist, thighs, knees, calves, ankles and feet. Feel like you're floating on a giant cloud, feel the relaxation flow through you like a river from your head down to your feet. Several times during the process I'll count backwards from 10 ... with each deep breath feeling more and more relaxed then move onto the next body part.

I reach the same kind of relaxation when doing yoga, running or flowing from one form to another. Live in the moment and concentrate on the moves - nothing else.

being able to temporarily remove yourself from the stress of life is fantastic!
 

oaktree

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How many of you have practiced meditation for any amount of time? What have the benefits been from practicing? Do you find it worth while to meditate?

Thanks in advance.

I practice sitting form 3x30 minutes however no set rule just let it take as long as it takes sometimes shorter sometimes longer.Morning-6am afternoon 12noon 6pm evening.
I also practice 10-20 minutes in the shower letting the water hit your head and hearing the water is ver relaxing.
Standing before I practice martial arts it is 15-30minutes of zhan zhuang.
After I practice one circle walk I will do Santi shi for 5 minutes each leg.
After second circle walk Ma bu for 10 minutes.

Also in daily activites I attempt to be as mindful as I can.
On top of all this are my daily activites,prayer and Qigong time.

I find it worth it yes considering what my goals and aims are.

These are some things I like to listen to when I am walking outside or somewhere.
http://www.thoughtaudio.com/titlelist/TA0010-Tao/index.html

http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video/Religion-and-Spirituality/Buddhism/The-Dhammapada/35200

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0BIVizaAiY&feature=channel
 

Xue Sheng

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I use to do a Taoist Seated Meditation (kinda sorta a brain daoyin) but it scared my wife so I switched to zazen and that was ok. What I was doing was just like what in in the book by John Daido Loori; Finding the Still Point: A Beginner's Guide to Zen Meditation. I have not been able to sit since I hurt the knee and I never got further than 30 minutes a day and never any music.

As to the feeling, hard to explain actually, just felt in the moment, relaxed, calm and aware.

I miss it, want to get back to it and yes it is very worth it.
 
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Wey

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Thank you all for the responses! Would anyone else care to share their thoughts?
 

Makalakumu

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Deep meditation is sleep for me. There isn't any difference.

Really? I find that there are other states of consciousness that can be explored during meditation that cannot be reached while sleeping. Do you do anything beforehand to prepare to sleep? Lucid dreaming techniques? Anything?

I practice regular meditation techniques to prepare for my day. I find that these techniques move me from being in the passenger seat of my life and into the driver's seat.
 

seasoned

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Deep meditation is sleep for me. There isn't any difference.
Meditation and martial arts do go hand in hand, if the sensei is open to it, and introduces it to the students early on. As far as martial meditation and sleep, I do know of some martial artist that appear to be sleeping while doing kata and sparring. Just a little fun, Bill.
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chrispillertkd

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How many of you have practiced meditation for any amount of time? What have the benefits been from practicing? Do you find it worth while to meditate?

Thanks in advance.

It depends on what type of meditation you mean.

In Taekwon-Do (as developed by Gen. Choi, anyway) meditation isn't of the zen variety. But it is specifically used to develop a student's peace of mind and is mentioned briefly in his treatment of Moral Culture (Jungshin Sooyang). According to Gen. Choi, meditation allows one to develop peace of mind by "emptying our minds of all petty thoughts and returning to the natural state of man. Unlike in Buddhism or Zen, meditation in Taekwon-Do does not mean a total divorce from the world, like a dead body, but rather an active moment to reflect on our past mistakes in silence and in the privacy of our thoughts, and through penitence, to continue our self-improvement toward becoming better men or women." This kind of active reflection in silence is called Jung joong dong. I usually reflect on how my behavior has conformed or failed to conform with the tenets of Taekwon-Do when doing this kind of meditation.

I have found this approach to be very helpful and engage in it after formal training sessions at my instructors' school with the rest of the students as it is part of the bowing-out ceremony. The emphasis on on active reflection and penitence dovetails well with the examination of conscience that as a Catholic I try to do on a regular basis.

I remember training with Grand Master Choi, Jung Hwa in a seminar and he mentioned doing the kind of meditation prescribed by Gen. Choi every night before going to sleep. In that context he mentioned "committing suicide everyday." By this he meant that after the time spent in meditative reflection he tried to "kill" the old man and commit again to living a better life. I have to admit his brief talk on the subject was really inspiring and affirmed for me what I had been doing and strengthened my resolve to continue practicing it.

Pax,

Chris
 

Bill Mattocks

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Really? I find that there are other states of consciousness that can be explored during meditation that cannot be reached while sleeping. Do you do anything beforehand to prepare to sleep? Lucid dreaming techniques? Anything?

I practice regular meditation techniques to prepare for my day. I find that these techniques move me from being in the passenger seat of my life and into the driver's seat.

My 'states of consciousness' consist of awake and asleep, pretty much. I used to drink Jack Daniels once in awhile, but that was before I got diabetes. So now it's pretty much just awake and asleep.
 

BlueVino

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What have the benefits been from practicing?

There are a couple of benefits I've gotten from sitting in a Tibetan Buddhist tradition connected with my kung fu. I don't normally like to talk about this, because I'm always afraid it'll taint someone's expectations, but here goes.

After practicing our ritual for six months or so, maybe less, I started to notice that I was having feelings of compassion that were out of character for me. It's a little hard to express because everyone experiences life in their own way, but for me, that experience rarely involved compassion for others. Now it does.

I asked sifu about it, and where I don't think he expected such a transformation, it didn't seem to surprise him.
 

Stealthy

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Some people should DEFINATELY meditate. I once flatted with an ex-Russian Spetsnaz guy. One day I was sitting on the balconey meditating and he came up to me and asked "are you meditating?" I said yes and he said "I think meditating is really great" and proceeded to show me how he meditates "I must not kill this person, I must not kill this person, I must not kill this person.....".

Needless to say I think it is best that he keep meditating.

__________

While I see the value of meditating to calm the emotions, personally I think if you are going to be meditating anyway then instead of just meditating on something neutral like breathing it is worth it to meditate on something positive like care for others or the elimination of delusions. Which is no-doubt what was meant by "committing suicide everyday" what you are killing is your misconceived sense of self. Mind you rumour has it there are advanced meditations along a similar vein which prepare the meditator for the cycle of death and rebirth.

I would say there is a real problem with using the word "suicide" as a descriptor though since it involves actively deleting something rather than actively verifying it was never there in the first place.

With Respect,
Stealthy.
 
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Chat Noir

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I wish I could learn this as I'm always stressed out with anxiety from my job. I just don't know how to relax - and according to my teachers, I also often forget to breathe. Can you imagine? Some people miss a step, don't move in the correct way or move too far this way or that - but me, I forget to breathe......I was born in the Chinese year of the Ram - and true to the description, I do have a lot of health related issues to stress and anxiety because I just can't control it.
 

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