Proper Breathing Meditation

[Buba]

Hello dear forum members. I am new to the forum. I started to meditate 2 or 3 weeks ago and with a timer. I set a timer, sit on a chair and start to observe my breathing. In the beginning I meditated a 5 minutes session, then I extended it to a 10 minutes session, then two 10 minutes sessions, and finally to a 20 minutes session. So here are my problems:

I get bored during meditation;

I often wonder, how much time is left;

I think a lot, during meditation just some seconds go without thinking :)) ;

I always analyze how my meditation is going and when I notice that it is going well, I feel glad and excited like "yeah I do it" and immediately meditation gets ruined again. It is like carrying a precious thing and breaking it out of excitement;

I always instruct myself during meditation, like, when thoughts come, I say to myself, dont pay attention on it, these thoughts are not important and will disappear;

Two times I had a difficult session. Last bad experience was even worse than previous one.  In the last minutes of session I got bad feelings, anxiety. I sweat, I became very nauseous, dizzy. I felt like trapped in a small dungeon. As if my heart would collapse. I thought I might faint or vomit, so first time in my life I opened my eyes and ceased the meditation before timer rang. Actually as soon as I opened my eyes the timer ranged, so I opened my eyes on time, but this is not important. I see there is a limit for my meditation. Should I actually go on and not open my eyes, when I experience such things again?

I would like to know, taking into account above-mentioned factors, is my meditation still considered a proper meditation? Can I still meditate even if I am not able to solve above-mentioned issues?

Thanks beforehand.

[Heart of Space]

Good job, just keep it up.  I'd imagine your negative symptoms will naturally subside with more practice.  Do you think it's the anxiety that's the fundamental reason for the difficult session?  That's a pretty natural response, but it eases and disappears with time.  Don't worry about your "bad" meditation session.  Relatively speaking you will always have the "bad" days, even when you're meditating 5 hours a day.  Just do the best you can to get through it and don't give up.  

Edited July 19, 2017 by Heart of Space

[Max_V]

@Buba Well, a lot of things subside in the long run as @Heart of Space has already said.

For me though, after 2 years, my mind still guesses from time to time how much longer the session wil be  

Observe your mind, create space between 'you' and your mind. Then it won't matter what thoughts your mind will come up with, because you are unaffected by it.

Good luck with your practice, awesome you started meditating  This will change everything for you!

[Buba]

Thank you for your responses.  By the way, sometimes during meditation my mind mumbles. It does not say anything logic and I cant understand what I think. Beyond meditation it normally happens when I am in my bed and on the edge of falling asleep. During meditation it generally starts to happen in the middle of meditation. I hear my breathing, I observe my breathing and mind talks some things as always, but  not clear things. In such cases I somehow "wake up" myself. Should I let it be or "wake up" myself?

[Buba]

I have two more questions:

1. When I meditate I sit on the edge of my bed and I try to sit with a straight spine. But I cant hold it straight more than some minutes, so sometimes I bend a little or even lie on my bed when I see I cant handle. Is sitting properly crucial in meditation? Is meditating lying on in the bed decreases the quality?

2. How can I know if my meditation was fine? Should I feel something afterwards? Sometimes it makes me tired.

[Max_V]

20 minutes ago, Buba said:

I have two more questions:

1. When I meditate I sit on the edge of my bed and I try to sit with a straight spine. But I cant hold it straight more than some minutes, so sometimes I bend a little or even lie on my bed when I see I cant handle. Is sitting properly crucial in meditation? Is meditating lying on in the bed decreases the quality?

2. How can I know if my meditation was fine? Should I feel something afterwards? Sometimes it makes me tired.

1) Your posture is very important in meditation. You have to sit upright so that you don’t get sleepy and you have to find a position that you can stay in for a while without moving too much. For example:

-You could sit in a cross legged-like position on a meditation cushion or any other cushion that stays in place

- You could sit in a chair if you wish, but remember to keep your spine straight, so don’t sit in a lay-back kind of chair.

There are many different postures but I like these best and use them interchangeably.

2) There is not a certain way that you have to feel like after meditation. More so, you don’t even control how you feel. It happens spontaniously. 

Just do the technique you like and let everything happen as it occurs. Flow with the river’s current. Not against it.  

 

[Buba]

When I meditate sometimes my breath disappears. If it happens, should I look for breath to observe it again or just float in emptiness?

How can one attend no-mind state, when mind involves in anything? Even when somebody meditates he or she instructs himself or herself, like "this is just a thought", "be in present" and etc. All of this are done with the help of mind. How can one detect Truth from untruth without mind? Or are there two types of minds, from one of which we want to get rid of and to keep just another one? Or do we just want to control mind but not get rid of it?