more on meditation
You may remember I wrote about meditation a little while ago.
Having continued with meditation since then I thought I might write a little more now. I aim to cover difficulties and doubts, and striking experiences.
I'll start with those difficulties and doubts. For me perhaps the hardest aspect is emptying my mind of thoughts - even knowing how to go about doing that. Usually I find myself in a cycle of struggling to clear my mind, somehow achieving it briefly, then becoming aware that I have no thoughts and starting the process again.
One specific problem is whether to approach emptying my mind of thoughts by a deliberate conscious process or by focussing on a little thing and allowing awareness to retreat.
The deliberate conscious process has mostly used a kind of analogy. Thinking about a sky emptying or a flower opening. Largely images of things opening or of cluttered visual fields clearing.
Focussing on little things has generally meant concentrating on my breathing to the exclusion of other information and as mentioned above allowing my self-awareness to retreat. This can often be most effective.
Typically in a single session I will tend to go back and forth between these two approaches.
Another question that sometimes worries me is what I'm doing. This is threefold. As mentioned in my previous post I'm suspicious of spirituality, religion and woo. Secondly as I haven't even observed any anecdotal differences in myself I'm not sure what the effectiveness of meditation might be - and if I did notice any differences how far they would simply be down to cognitive bias. Finally I am not entirely certain what I hope to achieve through meditation.
The first concern is easily dismissed. I'm not approaching meditation from a religious/spiritual direction and I have no false expectations of what it might deliver. I know that meditation won't make my life better, make me more relaxed or a nicer person, I know that it's not a magic bullet for anything. Any benefits that might seem to come from meditation may well be due to another cause and I will in any case have worked for outside of meditation.
I worry most about the first concern when I write about meditation. I would hate to come across as an unthinking adherent of something utterly unevidenced. It is not my intention to proslytise for meditation, rather to describe my experiences.
The second concern worries me less. I'm not sure for a start what I mean by 'effectiveness' of meditation if I'm honest. If it means becoming more relaxed, more focussed or whatever then I can't say it concerns me unduly whether that's due to meditation, to another cause, or whether it's simply imaginary.
Both of the other concerns in some way relate to the final concern of what I hope to achieve through meditation. That remains unclear. Primarily it's something I'd wanted to try for a long time but never got round to. It's also a good way to take some time out of the day to relax and stop thinking, which I believe (I have no evidence for this) may be beneficial in itself.
There are other minor difficulties and doubts but I won't cover them here.
The striking experiences may actually be less interesting since they're really personal anecdotes that may have no relevance for anyone else. I'm going to concentrate on three experiences.
I've already described the first experience which has been repeated in less intense ways subsequently. This was that sensation of being pulled out my body or out of my seat into the air. This happened the first time I meditated and was quite a shock.
I'm of course well aware that I'm not actually leaving my body but the sensation is very striking. It feels distinctly physical. The challenge is to allow myself to 'ride' the sensation and not suddenly drop back into awareness of my own thoughts and body.
The second experience is harder to describe. I lose awareness of my body and to a lesser extent of self. This is more gentle. It feels like floating suspended in space - although I'm not certain whether this is how it feels at the time or whether this is a feeling I retrospectively apply as I come out of the experience.
Last, and feeling more closely related to the second experience than the first, is an experience that's only happened once. While meditating I lost awareness of sitting in the chair and seemed instead to be standing by the chair looking at my bed. A quite large moth-like insect was jumping on the bed. I immediately opened my eyes and turned to look at the bed.
What's interesting is that I was not asleep - I only meditate for 20 minutes at a time - and that while I was convinced I was stood by my chair looking at the bed a part of my consciousness was still aware that I was sat down meditating.
These are just some thoughts on this ongoing process. I don't yet feel any different through meditation and I don't expect any radical changes. It's simply interesting to reflect on what happens.
Next time I write on this I may do some research. I remember a mention from a documentary which suggested that studies of the brain had suggested a reduction of activity in the parietal lobe - which governs movement, orientation, recognition and perception of stimuli - in people engaged in prayer or meditation.
After a little searching I think this from 2003 may be the source of that information. I've only read through the abstract so far but it seems to be more complicated than my understanding of it from the brief mention on the programme. I'll see if I can find more information, and make an effort to understand it before the next time I write.
Having continued with meditation since then I thought I might write a little more now. I aim to cover difficulties and doubts, and striking experiences.
I'll start with those difficulties and doubts. For me perhaps the hardest aspect is emptying my mind of thoughts - even knowing how to go about doing that. Usually I find myself in a cycle of struggling to clear my mind, somehow achieving it briefly, then becoming aware that I have no thoughts and starting the process again.
One specific problem is whether to approach emptying my mind of thoughts by a deliberate conscious process or by focussing on a little thing and allowing awareness to retreat.
The deliberate conscious process has mostly used a kind of analogy. Thinking about a sky emptying or a flower opening. Largely images of things opening or of cluttered visual fields clearing.
Focussing on little things has generally meant concentrating on my breathing to the exclusion of other information and as mentioned above allowing my self-awareness to retreat. This can often be most effective.
Typically in a single session I will tend to go back and forth between these two approaches.
Another question that sometimes worries me is what I'm doing. This is threefold. As mentioned in my previous post I'm suspicious of spirituality, religion and woo. Secondly as I haven't even observed any anecdotal differences in myself I'm not sure what the effectiveness of meditation might be - and if I did notice any differences how far they would simply be down to cognitive bias. Finally I am not entirely certain what I hope to achieve through meditation.
The first concern is easily dismissed. I'm not approaching meditation from a religious/spiritual direction and I have no false expectations of what it might deliver. I know that meditation won't make my life better, make me more relaxed or a nicer person, I know that it's not a magic bullet for anything. Any benefits that might seem to come from meditation may well be due to another cause and I will in any case have worked for outside of meditation.
I worry most about the first concern when I write about meditation. I would hate to come across as an unthinking adherent of something utterly unevidenced. It is not my intention to proslytise for meditation, rather to describe my experiences.
The second concern worries me less. I'm not sure for a start what I mean by 'effectiveness' of meditation if I'm honest. If it means becoming more relaxed, more focussed or whatever then I can't say it concerns me unduly whether that's due to meditation, to another cause, or whether it's simply imaginary.
Both of the other concerns in some way relate to the final concern of what I hope to achieve through meditation. That remains unclear. Primarily it's something I'd wanted to try for a long time but never got round to. It's also a good way to take some time out of the day to relax and stop thinking, which I believe (I have no evidence for this) may be beneficial in itself.
There are other minor difficulties and doubts but I won't cover them here.
The striking experiences may actually be less interesting since they're really personal anecdotes that may have no relevance for anyone else. I'm going to concentrate on three experiences.
I've already described the first experience which has been repeated in less intense ways subsequently. This was that sensation of being pulled out my body or out of my seat into the air. This happened the first time I meditated and was quite a shock.
I'm of course well aware that I'm not actually leaving my body but the sensation is very striking. It feels distinctly physical. The challenge is to allow myself to 'ride' the sensation and not suddenly drop back into awareness of my own thoughts and body.
The second experience is harder to describe. I lose awareness of my body and to a lesser extent of self. This is more gentle. It feels like floating suspended in space - although I'm not certain whether this is how it feels at the time or whether this is a feeling I retrospectively apply as I come out of the experience.
Last, and feeling more closely related to the second experience than the first, is an experience that's only happened once. While meditating I lost awareness of sitting in the chair and seemed instead to be standing by the chair looking at my bed. A quite large moth-like insect was jumping on the bed. I immediately opened my eyes and turned to look at the bed.
What's interesting is that I was not asleep - I only meditate for 20 minutes at a time - and that while I was convinced I was stood by my chair looking at the bed a part of my consciousness was still aware that I was sat down meditating.
These are just some thoughts on this ongoing process. I don't yet feel any different through meditation and I don't expect any radical changes. It's simply interesting to reflect on what happens.
Next time I write on this I may do some research. I remember a mention from a documentary which suggested that studies of the brain had suggested a reduction of activity in the parietal lobe - which governs movement, orientation, recognition and perception of stimuli - in people engaged in prayer or meditation.
After a little searching I think this from 2003 may be the source of that information. I've only read through the abstract so far but it seems to be more complicated than my understanding of it from the brief mention on the programme. I'll see if I can find more information, and make an effort to understand it before the next time I write.
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