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Hi there! I've dabbled in Meditation, but I've never really had the motivation or time to do it. Your class (hopefully!) can be my reason to start! I have multiple books that recommend meditation once a week if not daily, and also I need to work on my concentration. I'm looking forward to this class, thanks for taking it up!
Thanks for creating your workbook thread!
In the later lessons, I'll be encouraging students to start a meditation schedule which will help you if you start to lose motivation. It's not a magic formula for motivation though, you need to be motivated by the rewards meditation offers in your life. If you keep at it, your concentration certainly will improve over time.
ShockWave.
Today, I attempted void meditation. I sat down at 6:10 in a cross legged position on my floor. I closed my eyes and did my regular breathing excersizes. I counted to 5 inhaling, held it for a slow 5, exhaled for 5, and held that for a slow 5. After 5-10 reps of that, I felt very deeply relaxed, but I couldn't focus inwards, I was focused on my eyelids, because I thought that they were slowly raising. Although I did reach a state of void, I couldn't hold it for very long, and I ended the meditation at 6:25
That's good, keep practicing and you'll get better at keeping your mind clear. You should try not to deliberately think about anything, and this will eventually be easy to do, as you reach the deeper states of void meditation.
ShockWave.
Afrer I took a nap, I woke up, wrote down my remembered dream, then sat down on my floor cross legged. My mind was already clear, and I decided to do some concentration exercises. I counted backward from 100 down to 0 without missing a number, 10 times. After this, I realized it was raining outside, and it sounded very peaceful. I focused inwards, and asked a single question, "How do I raise my awareness?" I got a reply, "You have to go where you always go."
The mind works in mysterious ways.
Interesting :). And well done on the concentration exercise. I'm posting the focal meditation lesson today (really this time!).
ShockWave.
I started by sitting on my bed with my legs crossed, a blanked draped on my back. I started focusing on a green totem glass in my room. My mind being completely clear, and sitting on my bed with my eyes open, I began to concentrate. I had songs that would randomly pop in my head, such as "Leave It" by Yes. I passively observed that the sheets on my bed would 'twitch' every time I inhaled. Now after 5 mins, my eyes easily stayed open, unblinking. The lighting in the room would occasionally pulsate to a darker color, and then return to normal. It also seemed like everything was 'breathing'. The glass became boring, so I focused on a book that laid on my bed, and then a pen. I attempted to move the pen to the left with my mind (out of curiosity) then finally ended it, my thoughts becoming louder and louder.
You didn't do badly on your first try :). The next time you try, you should pick one object and stick with it for the whole meditation unless you have a good reason not to. Also, embrace the sensations you experience while meditating, like everything going dark, and be curious about where it will take you, like what you will experience as everything gets darker and darker. I experience the dark effect, and after allowing it to happen, things start to go light again but other weird stuff happens which didn't happen before the darkness.
ShockWave.
Yeah, it was like the neurons (i think they're called) were becoming more present in my vision, and were putting splotches of color in my field of view, almost like when you poke your fingers into your closed eyes.
I did a void meditation today, and I sat down in my regular meditation spot, and did my breathing exercises. As I was doing the breathing exercise, I visualized white positive energy being inhaled, and dark grey energy being exhaled. While this is going on, the voice inside my head is saying "Stop! Wait! Shut up!" so after I finish with them, I visualize a broom sweeping away all thoughts, making my mind completely clear, and locking them away. I now proceeded to continue with the concentration exercises, and started at 100 and counted down to zero, this time going backwards in increments of 2.. I messed up twice, once on my 4th time through, and once on my 3rd, each time I had to start back again. I managed to do it 10 times in a row though, and my next exercise is to count down in increments of 3. After I completed that, I sat in silence for a few minutes, and I asked the same question that I asked last time. Again, the same reply. I stopped because my grandparents had come to our house, and I wanted to talk to them :D
The way you do void meditation is interesting, in that you visualize doing things to make your thoughts go away. I'll have to try it and see how it goes for me :). And you're doing well, keep it up. I'd recommend trying focal meditation a few more times to see how it goes for you.
ShockWave.
After taking a 2 hour nap, I decided to do a focal meditation. I was searching for something to focus on, and I decided to use my Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" poster. It's really quite large, so I'm not sure if I did it right. Anyways, at first, I tried to focus on the whole picture. My mind is basically empty while I'm slowing down my breathing, and I've decided to adopt my new technique of "sweeping away" all unwanted thoughts and locking my mind. It really does work. While focusing on the whole poster, the room got darker, to the point of where all I could see was the triangle refracting light. The outlines of the rainbow were very bright, comparable to when you look at a lightbulb, or the sun, and the image is still there when you look away. Now, there are black spots swimming in my field of view, and removing whole portions of the triangle, 1 or 2 edges at a time. Now, instantaneously, I receive a moment of inspiration where I feel a deeper understanding of the concept of light. It's hard for me to describe the feeling I got, it was like an epiphany.
Now, I focused on the top of the triangle, and I blinked a few times. The rest of the picture went out of focus, and then went blank. The outline of the top of the triangle got blurry, and it started to sway a bit. I decided after 10 minutes, that I had had enough, went to my bed, picked up my journal, and wrote this :)
That sounds great, don't worry about focusing on things too big. It doesn't matter what size it is, what shape it is, whether it's physical or not (to an extent of course), as long as you focus on it. I think I know the feeling you got, but as you said, it is hard to describe. Keep at it :).
ShockWave.
I did a 15 minute focal meditation today. I decided to put my half full glass of water on my small table and placed it in front of my eyes as I sit in my usual spot and position. I proceeded with the breathing and mind-clearing exercises, and began to focus solely on the water in the glass. It was actually pretty difficult, because I had no lights on in my room, and it was nearly dusk. It got to the point, where I could only see the water and a faint outline of the glass, and the water turned into a subtle rainbow of color. Then I heard some classical music playing, but it was extremely distorted and almost alien-like. Besides that, nothing really interesting happened to the time where I ended the meditation.
You heard some classical music playing? Out of nowhere, or was there any playing in your house as you were meditating? It could have been a song that you were thinking of, surfacing to the top of your head, but I'm afraid I can't relate, because I've never had this happen to me before. It does sound interesting though, keep it up :).
ShockWave.
Like... Just out of nowhere! I don't listen to classical so.. >.> It was so unusual xD
That's interesting, haha. Anyway, keep up the meditation, and I'll be posting the final lesson in this class tomorrow :).
ShockWave.