How to meditate deeper?

[Asia P]

Hi there, when i meditate my mind often gets distracted by other thoughts, and i'm not very able to force it to do meditation properly. (Also if i meditate for long times.)

I can see the difference between a good meditation and a bad one, because when i do psychedelics, meditating becomes SO deep and effortless. Then when im sober, meditation is often frustrating. 

Do any of you ever had the same problem? How do you cope with an easily-distracted mind? Any advice or thechnique is welcome here. Thanks ❤️

Edited August 18 by Asia P

[r0ckyreed]

Play the guitar. Music is my favorite meditation. 

[Salvijus]

It's not about how still the mind is. It's about how aware of the mind you are even if tsunami of thoughts is happening. If the mind is going crazy but you're still able to observe it. That's what counts as a success of the meditation. 

Edited August 18 by Salvijus

[AncestorOfAisle6]

Keep practicing and minimize distraction. It will become better.

[Vibroverse]

Let the trippy thoughts flow, don't resist, and meditate after the mental tornado slowed down. 

 

[Asia P]

1 hour ago, Salvijus said:

It's not about how still the mind is. It's about how aware of the mind you are even if tsunami of thoughts is happening. If the mind is going crazy but you're still able to observe it. That's what counts as a success of the meditation. 

That's so inspiring 

[Ayham]

Hey, so, I have, like you, asked this question too, I got into a deep rabbit hole of searching different traditions and teachers and asking experienced people for real practical answers.

in the Buddhist map, there is 3 things you must master

1. Morality: basically just act right, you probably know those intuitively, don't say wrong stuff, don't lie, don't gossip, don't kill (), don't hate on people, don't steal, etc.
2. Concentration: just developing your ability to focus
3. Insight: using the focus you attained to gain insight into reality and hopefully get  

Now the Buddhist maps get confusing, but I will give you a Buddhist practice that really worked well for me, it focuses on radiating love and kindness, on soft gentle concentration rather than pushing yourself to focus, the technique is called TWIM (tranquil wisdom insight meditation), and in my own experience this practice is transformative.

here is video instructions (I also have a post from a few days ago on this forum explaining it):  

 

 

You can try to find a guided meditation for the first few times, this technique makes meditation really enjoyable (my top recommendation for you)

 

I won't recommend diving into insight or Vipassana meditation on your own, at least for now, save that up for a retreat if you do go one.

 

Teachers to explore if you are ambitious: Shinzen Young, Culadasa, Daniel Ingram.

 

In the yogic path, I would recommend Kriya or Kundalini yoga, but I don't think that suits you right now, it is a bit hardcore.

Finally, there is non dual practices, things like self-inquiry, or choiceless awareness, or do nothing, those are the highest techniques once your mind is calm.

basically in summary:

1. Find a meditation object, draw a smile on your face (gentle turning of the corners of the mouth upward)
2. Focus on it, not intense laser like focus, but calm gentle focus, are you aware of the fact that you are breathing? that's enough, no need to focus extra hard, it will bring negative results.
3. whenever you notice yourself distracted, drop whatever that is distracting you.
4. relax your mind and body (mind by relaxing wants and cravings of thoughts and future, body by physically relaxing tensions)
5. Re-smile
6. Focus again

and shift your mindset, the more you get distracted the better, because that means you have better chance of catching yourself, it is the act of catching yourself distracted that makes meditation work, it is like one rep for the brain every time.

At some point you will be able to notice yourself getting in thought loops during the day and let go just like that, it becomes second nature.

 

Be aware

When a distraction happens: let go, relax, smile, and focus again.

 

 

What are you hoping to achieve from meditation? I am giving general tips  

[Ishanga]

It comes with practice, some minds are more easily quitted, others need more time... Another approach is too turn down the volume, observer/observed sort of stuff, where You have a distinct space btwn what is Observing (You) and what is Observed (Not You).  The contents of our Mind is not our choice, most of it is garbage, some of it is very useful and its working overtime in this day and age where mind identification is very high, so once a distinct space is created it won't bother You anymore and naturally Your Practice and the sense of Presence gets more intense, the thing is to stay on Track, don't keep going in different directions and starting/stopping, just stick with the practice and/or incorporate other practices that delve deep into different aspect of Yourself a bit better...

 

[ChrisZoZo]

@Asia P try all these steps first if you are still struggling u can message me. Yes Most people have this and is not great way better use of time to do better mediations with high concentration on the objects. 
 

now before I say the points understand mediation gains in all manner are usually  wavy (having peaks of good and quickly moving to bad) with hard to see slow trend upwards. 

 

1. Make a determination. — Prayer worked well for me and many others. Also u can pray/ make a determination  at mutable times int eh day this is more relevant hearing next points.  
 

2. Do concentration practice before meditation plus also at intervals in the day.

This works well in really showing the mind how you should be during meditation in a way unattainable by just half ass-ing meditation. 
 

3. Do present practice all the time u can. This is an extra determination added to when u do meditation. 
 

4. spend a 1 minute thinking of what is required to be processed. mediation is partly a process of the un-seen mind. 

5. do very long hours this is unfortunately one of the only way to really get large breaks in monkey mind. 5 hours a day would definitely make a huge difference giving you 5 minutes with no monkey mind. BUT you have to do all the steps here. 
 

6. Accepting the state of mind that’s you go Into. This is against the idea of you (ego) thus you have to acknowledge that which you want to reach. With a part you you “dieing”. Of course in reality nothing real dies. 

 

[ChrisZoZo]

Also not spending long times annoying over the fact it’s not great. 

mediation on the breath is not meditation on the breath with the occasion thinking that thinking is not ideal for mediation. While in meditation ALL (well almost all) thoughts should be silenced either in a soft way or in a hard way. Both have advantages u have to determine a which works for you. I fined hard works best to start in a mediation retreat but soft need to be introduced when the determination is there. 

Edited August 18 by ChrisZoZo

[Davino]

@Asia P It takes time to develop, its like a muscle. You may need to train your mind over long periods of time for acquiring meditative skills:

A good theoretical foundation for Meditation is the book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

When you take psychedelics it's like using steroids, you get temporary super powers. Also, I would recommend more Ketamine use for learning classic meditative skills rather than psychedelics, maybe also low doses of 5-MeO-DMT.

Your meditation habilitites when developed over time will drastically change your moment to moment experience as well as your trips. Your Consciousness has evolved and now, new Mind tools are being used to navigate states of consciousness.

Fascinating! Isn't it so?

Edited August 18 by Davino

[Chadders]

@Asia P when you’re sober getting out in to nature is a tried and true method for connecting more deeply with the divine 

[Davino]

@Chadders Agree

Most optimal barefooted and walking with a wooden stick

[Water by the River]

Tibetan Mahamudra Meditation "Pointing out the Great Way"-style, see the book by Daniel Brown. In my opinion the by far most sophisticated and efficient system on the planet. That is one of the reasons why Ken Wilber uses Brown and Pointing out the Great Way in one of his latest books "The Religion of Tomorrow" to detail the higher states (causal, nondual).

The Tibetans have continued to develop the basic Buddhist meditation techniques they imported around 1000CE for the longest time with the biggest man-power, and a quite unique dedication. The whole country basically gave a unique focus for 1000 years. Although there was also a lot of "less than serious practice" in the monasteries, there were also places of intense practice and innovative development.

The Thai Theravada Tradition (Mindfulness-meditation Theravada style, pretty dominant nowadays if one looks at Frank Yang and Ingram) was not in a good shape as a working lineage in the 19th century (for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Forest_Tradition)

"Though all of these local flavors of regional Thai Buddhism evolved their own customary elements relating to local spirit lore, all were shaped by the infusion of Mahayana Buddhism and Indian Tantric traditions, which arrived in the area prior to the fourteenth century. Additionally, many of the monastics in the villages engaged in behavior inconsistent with the Buddhist monastic code (Pali: vinaya), including playing board games, and participating in boat races and water fights."

Vajirañāṇo Bhikkhu, later King Mongkut of the Rattanakosin Kingdom, founder of the Dhammayuttika Nikaya

In the 1820s young Prince Mongkut (1804–1866), the future fourth king of the Rattanakosin Kingdom (Siam), was ordained as a Buddhist monk before rising to the throne later in his life. He traveled around the Siamese region and quickly became dissatisfied with the caliber of Buddhist practice he saw around him. He was also concerned about the authenticity of the ordination lineages, and the capacity of the monastic body to act as an agent that generates positive kamma (Pali: puññakkhettam, meaning "merit-field")."

Zen in Japan didn't look much better (Van Schaik, The Spirit of Zen).

"Meanwhile, the scholarly writings and strict meditation practices expounded by Dogen and his successors remained a minority interest, and by
the seventeenth century, rigorous meditation had largely been abandoned in Zen temples, as Griffith Foulk has shown: The typical Zen temple thus became a place where a resident priest or abbot and a few assistant monks performed funerals and memorial services for their lay parishioners and perhaps engaged them in other Buddhist practices as well, such as receiving the precepts or repentances or celebrating the Buddha’s birthday or his nirvāṇa.24").  - Van Schaik, The Spirit of Zen

The techniques of both Zen and Theravada look pretty similiar to the historic meditation (concentration and insight) techniques. 

Not so in Tibet with Mahamudra for example, or Dzogchen.

Here my summary of Mahamudra Pointing out the Great Way which I practiced for a long time:

On 13.5.2023 at 8:49 PM, Water by the River said:

Concentrative Meditation:

• I would recommend starting with concentrative meditation, the Elephant Path (all Tibetan schools use it). There are several stages of concentrative meditation that must be mastered, and tools learned doing it. They are very well described in Pointing out the Great Way, and "The Elephant Path: Attention Development and Training in Children and Adolescents", in the chapter of Daniel Brown. Here is explicitely stated what one learnes while learning concentrative meditation. By the way, that system is in my humble oinion more sophisticated than Zen or Vipassana, because it includes techniques like easing up and intensifying. That is essential for making it efficient, and these techniques are just not there in Vipassana and Zen. These aspects (easing up and intensifying) one learns there by conincidence, or not at all. 
• In the beginning, you don't stay long on the meditation object (breath, stone, candle, not so important), but just catch yourself when you have wandered off, your monkey mind taking you on a ride and elaborating something else. Now: Don't put negative reaction/feedback on that, but move attention/focus back. You can only control focus/attention, you can't force what thoughts emerge.
• So meditation is always moving attention back from wandering off, and the more you do that, the more pliant the mind becomes: Less wandering off, and if wandered off much faster to move it back.
• And when that goes quite well with a little bit less wandering off or loosing attention. Then, when its more automatic, you "ease up", which means you use less energy and focus, and see if you can stay on the object. If yes, good: Ease Up. Easing Up brings more clarity to what else goes on in the mindstream. Which lets you notice more of the subtler arisings of the mindstream emerging. When you drift off more than, then intensify: Inhale strongly, increase focus, energize. And see then if you stay more on the object. If you do, ease up. Find the optimum energy balance you need to stay on the object. One balances easing up and intensifying then....
• Then your clarity will increase, your energy will become nice, joy can start to arise. 
• And then you do that for a few months, a year....
• Meditation Experiences of Clarity, Lucidity, Bliss and Non-conceptuality (silent mind) can occur, but also go again. They are just experiences passing in you.
• This way, you train your focus and make your mind pliant.
• When you can stay on the objects for a few minutes without totally getting lost in elaborated thoughts, and keep some focus on the object while wandering off in thought a bit, you have partial staying.... at some point you have pretty good staying on the object for a few minutes.

Meditation without an object:

• Then comes a big change, that you can start doing then: Change to the Mindstream of thoughts itself as meditation object. And try to stay mindful of the mind watching that mindstream. 
• If you can keep doing that (which takes a long time), you can start taking the meditation into daily life.

Investigating the Nature of thoughts:

• See Pointing Out the Great Way for that.
• Thoughts are no different than consciousness, which is empty/nothing, yet has clarity/awareness, so its not a nothing at all.
• If you look into a thought, you don't find it, it disappears. Is cut off. One can never see or find a thought. Looking into a thought, an experience of un-findability arises. Empty, nothing specific. But with clear alert awareness of consciousness. Empty and aware. Nothingness, yet something that is not nothing. Nothingness. Emptiness. Consciousness. And more important: When really looking into the nature of a thought, it evaporates. Is cut off. Disappears. Reveals its nature of emptiness.
  • With exactly that phenomenon is worked in the "Skill of Recognition", see below. Doesn't that effect appear as very useful to get thoughts and the mindstream under control? Of course! That effect of the thought evaporating, revealing its nature as Nothingness/Consciousness when looking into it, and generalizing that oberservation and understanding on the whole mindstream and all events it contains and can contain. That is understanding the continuum of the mindstream. The nature of thoughts.
• You don't control the thoughts which arise, that is why you/the person is also empty, a concept. Because what are you, if you don't even control your thoughts, and what thoughts arise?

After having mastered Concentrative meditation, and having understood (contemplation) the nature of thoughts as consciousness/awareness/emptiness/suchness/Nothingness, you can put that into practice:

Skill of Recognition: (1. Yoga of Mahamudra system)

• Now it gets interesting. That was the decisivepoint for me once I understood that, and implemented it. Afterwards, it started to get nondual pretty soon...
• If you look HOW the thoughts emerge,
  • (1) out of what they emerge,
  • (2) what they are,
  • (3) in what they move
  • (4) into what they disappear
    • ALL of that (1)(2)(3)(4) must be present. Thoughts DO appear. From "something". Stay in "something". Consisting of "something"
    • All of that is Emptiness, or Consciousness, or Nothingness. Thoughts are made of "that","move in that", "dissolve into that".
    • and you will never SEE that, or can say what it is. Nothing. But not a blank nothing. An aware Nothing. Actually the essence of all world-appearances, but that comes later, when it gets nondual, at the Yoga of One Taste.
• What happens if you investigate into emerging thoughts this way, is that they get FASTER. VERY FAST. Like 20-30 emergent thoughts/feeling arisings per second, most of them rudimentary. The mind does this to keep the illusion going. To make it too fast for you. But at some point, you learned to get that fast also...
  • Basically, looking into a thought, one sees its Emptiness/Nothingness (one doesn't find the thought, it evaporates). It is cut off. Dzogchen calls this cutting off "Trekchö".
  • Daniel Brown called this stage a "High Speed Search Task into the unfindability of the nature of thoughts". A High Speed Search task into their emptiness, into their nature as consciousness, as Nothingness.
  • So the emerging gets fast, very fast. Daniel Ingram also mentions that. But at some point, with enough practice and familiarity, YOU get faster. You spot and cut off every very fast, subtle, fragmentary thought arising. None of them "grips" you anymore, since you have seen them all, and their structure. Just thoughts arising very fast.
    • You don't control which thoughts arise. Depended origination, they are just emerging by themselves.
    • You can focus on just their arising (of thoughts), just their staying, just their going away.
    • At some point, they just emerge, looking into their nature is automatic, and they immediately dissolve. No duration. Just emergence, and poof gone. And when you are fast enough, you get a continuance of staying mindful. When that happens its pretty clear what happened. Your attention got so fast that you can stay mindful even through the high-speed thought emergence.
    • At the end, they come very fast, they don't get "elaborated out". Thinking, or elaborating the thoughts out, is slower than their emergence. They emerge already fully complete with their content, and then slowly get "talked/elaborated" in your mind. 
      • Natural reaction: So WHO the f*** am I (pardon my french) when I
        • don't control what thoughts emerge and
        • if they appear fully with their content in a fraction of a second, and get elaborated later in a hypnotic show over several second?
        • good question... to be answered later.
• Outcome is: 
  • You know the nature of every possible thought (Consciousness-Emptiness-Nothingness), of the whole mental-continuum of thoughts, all that there can be. Their nature.
  • you can cut off or transcend/just watch your normal mindstream in most daily situations without getting caught up/hypnotized by it, which already here leads to a lot of bliss. Not sufficient bliss to get ones separate self completely handled, but already quite wonderful. That is the start of real freedom.
  • You know how your mindstream hypnotizes you, and gets faster when you actually look into each thought arising and its nature.
  • At some point you get fast enough to cut off every arising, or let it elaborate in a controlled aka mindful way.

 

For more on Mahamudra Pointing out the Great Way - style:

https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Pointing out the Great Way&author=Water by the River

 

Edited August 20 by Water by the River

[Cosmic-Resplendence]

I discovered a simple technique that has helped me, try it, perhaps it might help you…

I for a while would get distractions while meditating in the form of an itch, or scratchiness on my face or shoulder or something similar… I used to just itch it, but each time I’d do this… It would set me back for a bit of time, and it would take me a little while to get back to where I was before I moved my arm. 
 

Instead of scratching it… I started to imagine myself lovingly embracing the distraction… Literally noticing the itch, and visualizing myself embracing the itch like hugging it as a form of acceptance. Sometimes I’d even say in my mind that I accept this distraction. Not sure exactly how or why, but this changed my meditations very quickly and now I rarely ever have a distracting itch or scratch anymore. 
 

I try to use this technique now if I have any sort of distraction that appears while meditating. 

Edited August 20 by Cosmic-Resplendence

[Cosmic-Resplendence]

Instead of fighting against your distractions, give them a little love and acceptance, and they’ll cease being distractions.    

[BlueOak]

Allow the thoughts for a while. Be present with yourself, don't need to run, or resist. Feel what's there, go through what is in your mind or body, and allow it to fully be expressed.

Realise you are allowing these thoughts and feeling, and your focus determines them, so focus on letting go, acceptance, love, supporting, being a friend to yourself, or breathing (other examples: whatever you need - want - can learn from - assist with - reassure -  help or be helped by). Bring your thoughts and focus to this, don't fight it, surrender to it.

Get in a peaceful environment free of distractions, or at least a peaceful space. - Eventually, this matters less, but I still like the back garden as it is pleasant, anything remote near water, or the clean room with no electronics indoors.

It is mostly allowance, and surrender. Giving the self to the selfless. Experiencing more of your infinite self, and feeling/experiencing/being that. It can start as simple as bringing the mind to your breathing, and allowing whatever happens to happen. Some days I have a lot on my mind too, and that's okay, I am there with it. Infinity is there alongside the bill I have to pay, the emotion I feel, or the thing I wish had gone differently. Peace is there too and you become the peace, the stillness, and surrender those thoughts, those feelings and stresses to yourself.

Don't fight it though, or else you'll experience fight, the stress of resistance to what is.

Edited August 20 by BlueOak

[Sugarcoat]

I remember when I used to meditate. It would help actively focusing on something , your breath for example, that I used to do. So any time a thought tries to pull attention away you bring it back to the breath over and over. It’s easier than simply observing thoughts imo

[BlueOak]

I will say that if you meditate regularly and you have a busy mind-day, you can have thoughts and be peaceful at the same time, its almost like you have two minds at that point. The small chatter, but I can also feel the peace and my mind filling with an energy that feels like space or harmony which often stays with me through the day. 

I don't know what it is like for others, I tend to like to reach the color vortex, my mind's eye tends to be blue or purple when my focus is there.

[shree]

@Asia P

if your elbow had a fan club, I would be the first to join! 

I want to share two guided meditations that really helped me:

1. https://youtu.be/67SeR3LxtdI

2.

 

You could test them out for a while, then try meditating using these principles without guidance.

Edited August 20 by shree