Types of meditation

[Fuku]

See title.
I'm starting to get used to the "quiet the thoughts, relax, be everything" type of meditation.
I want to go further, explore other things.
What other types of meditation exist, and what specific purpose do they serve?

Edited October 4, 2018 by Fuku

[Consilience]

Here’s a list:

• counting: you count 1 as you breath in, 2 as you breath out, 3 as you breath in, 4 breath out, ect., until you reach 10. Then start back at 1. Reallt good for building focus and quieting the mind.
• Mantra: pick a word and repeate it to yourself as you breath. Similar to counting but it requires a bit more focus to maintain total focus on a single word. Great for building focus.
• breath awareness: literally pin-pointing your focus on the breath for x amount of time. One of the more powerful focus techniques but it also is harder to remain in the focused state comapared to the other two listed. Great for again, building focus. 
• Open-awareness: try to simply let the inner awareness that you fundamentally are radiate and permeated the entirety of your direct experience. With each breath focus on spreading awareness to every macro and micro aspect of your direct experience. Very powerful stuff if you can maintian this state (which happens via building focus). 
• Do-nothing: similar to open awareness but your not trying to dictate what the mind does. You surrender all control and allow whatever happens to happen. This is particularly focused on building equanimity and is great for getting feedback on how active or inactive your mind is. Again, DONT control anything or attempt to. The point is to sit with yourself literally doing nothing. Ive found this only really works well if you’ve achieved a sufficiently quiet mind, otherwise you might just sit for an hour lost in thoughts.
• Metta: Really powerful for giving compassion the space it needs to flourish. Focus on loving everything. If you cant love everything, visualize loving everything, imagine what it would be like to radiate with unconditional love and compassion. This is an extremely important practice because even if we’re building awareness with other practices, if you arent radiating with love, your ego is still alive and well. Egos have a problem with unconditional love, TRUTH is unconditional love and acceptance. Contemplate this and practice letting that space grow. 
• Kriya Yoga: Kriya has various meditation techniques which are possibly more powerful for building focus and awareness than the previous types Ive mentioned, and it also taps into becoming mindful of our bodies and the various energectic channels which influence our direct experience. You’ll focus on opening up your chakras which then in turn makes normal meditation more effective. Im not an expert on Kriya though so maybe Im mistaken, but this has been MY experience.
• Self Inquiry: you keep returning your mind to the question: “Who is this witness? Who is aware? What is witnessing all thoughts? What is witnessing these thoughts?” Question the hell out of what is IT that is actually aware. WHO is aware of the sense of self? It’s a very contemplative meditation technique but it trains your focus and mind on the truth of your existential nature and is extremely powerful. However it’s only powerful given that you have the focus to maintain your direct questioning.

 

I hope this list helps!

[PsiloPutty]

@Consilience  What a great post.

 

To the OP, try 30 minutes of mantra meditation and see what you think. Or see what you don't think. I haven't experienced any other meditation that stills my mind to the same degree of total quiet as that does. 

Here's a video describing what and how:

http://www.meditationplex.com/how-to-meditate/deepak-chopra-mechanics-effortless-mantra-meditation/

[Consilience]

@PsiloPutty Thanks you! 

I can 2nd the mantra meditation. It's very effective at stilling the mind.

[Fuku]

@Consilience
That's great! Exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. Thanks man.
 

[Consilience]

@Fuku Awesome!

[Flammable]

@Consilience Thanks!