3 years of meditation

[dalink]

Hi myselves.

I feel a bit confused and would really like some clarity in my meditation practise. Would any of you be willing to share some tips or ideas?

So, I usually observe the breath. Trying not to force it, but to simply let it arise spontaneously. But usually it takes up to 10-15 seconds between every breath/inhale. Is this normal or am I unconsciously holding my breath? 

I've been practising meditation for nearly 3 years now and I'm starting to feel a bit frustrated because I would really like to see some results interms of inner calmness/insights. Basically anything. This has been much like a sticking point for a very long time now.

 

 

 

 

[silene]

Slow breathing is perfectly normal, a sign you are relaxed. But faster breathing is perfectly ok too, whatever is your natural state. Your lack of results seems a bigger issue for you, have you considered varying your technique?  Even in where you focus attention on your breath. I usually have a monthly review to reflect on how it's going and what to change. 

[whatthefucksgoinon]

Your meditation is dependant on how you live your day to day life. Focusing on being mindful as you do your daily activities and trying to be calm throughout the day will help. I would recommend studying books like Yoga sutras or something on mindfulness. So when you sit for meditation you get that absorption quick due to the mind already in a calm state. Your lifestyle will have an effect on your meditation. 

[TrynaBeTurquoise]

I would spice up the meditation by turning it into kriya yoga. 

[pluto]

Meditation is about let go, you are holding onto the energy of getting something or achieving something, only by truly letting go we fall naturally into place where we are meant to be. Meditation should make you feel calm yet blissful and alive, maybe you need to find which form of meditation works best for you and meditation isn't always about sitting down and observing the breath, you must find which art, which craft is your meditation and where you feel calm, alive and blissfull and keep doing that, that's your mantra, that's your meditation.

[ivory]

10 hours ago, whatthefucksgoinon said:

Your meditation is dependant on how you live your day to day life. Focusing on being mindful as you do your daily activities and trying to be calm throughout the day will help. I would recommend studying books like Yoga sutras or something on mindfulness. So when you sit for meditation you get that absorption quick due to the mind already in a calm state. Your lifestyle will have an effect on your meditation. 

I concur

[Nak Khid]

dalink,

Can you describe the details on how you mediate and how often

[allislove]

> because I would really like to see some results interms of inner calmness/insights.

 

Looks like nobody suggested to you psychedelics yet. Even 20ug of lsd (which is a microdose) can allow insights, especially if you do it for the first time. 

[Buba]

14 minutes ago, dimitri said:

> because I would really like to see some results interms of inner calmness/insights.

 

Looks like nobody suggested to you psychedelics yet. Even 20ug of lsd (which is a microdose) can allow insights, especially if you do it for the first time. 

Are they temporary insights?

[Aeris]

I focus on 3 things.

Not focusing

Empty Space mind ( feeling on psychedelics )

The vibration of the ambiant song I m putting out. ( Into the soul. Not the ears )

 

After 15 minutes my mind 'shut down' and I enter 'deep space' with no thought or thinking of 'me'.

I meditate since 2 weeks for 30-60 min.

I use some nootropics aswell like lion's mane ( help the deep trance )

 

Some reflection on my practice ? I already had kundalini.

[allislove]

10 minutes ago, Buba said:

Are they temporary insights?

Any insight is temporal. It's just conceptualization of Truth. That's my understanding...

Edited November 5, 2019 by dimitri

[dalink]

@Nak Khid

2 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

dalink,

Can you describe the details on how you mediate and how often

Everyday, 1-2 times a day with a minimum of 30 mins per session. Lately I tend to sit up to an hour. Focusing on the breath is such an universal way of training the mind because the breath is always available. So it seems convenient to use the breath as an anchor.
I've got some inspiration from Vipassana after a 10 days retreat awhile ago, so the first couple of minutes I try to have my intention/focus on the sensations at the tip of my nose, feeling the air going through the nostrils. Let's say I have solid focus for 3-5 minutes, then however, my focus gets sucked away in thoughts and the monkeymind takes over for a couple of minutes until I recognize what is happening. 

This is the first half of my session.

The second half of the session I try to witness how my breath is spontaneous. But doing so, it appears to me that the first half of the session I was consciously making an effort to breath because the interval between each inhale is 1-2 seconds. The second half as I mentioned is up to 10 seconds which is quite a difference. So I'm literally observing/waiting for my lungs/body to do the work. I notice this strategy is immensely boring and it sometimes feels odd like I really need air, but since I want to avoid making a conscious effort to inhale it sort of feels like, for example imagine you're caught under water and you really need air, then suddenly you reach the surface of the water and your body takes a massive huge and deep breath that goes all the way to your belly. It's somewhat scary and i'm a bit confused if this is right.

I've never had a profound experience meditating. The only thing I've noticed is that it's getting easier and easier to sit for longer periods. 

I've had insights while on Peyote, LSD, shrooms and even pot. Also tried Ayahuasca, but that wasn't too profound because I had trouble letting go - it was just scary.

 

 

Edited November 5, 2019 by dalink

[Aaron p]

2 hours ago, pluto said:

Meditation is about let go, you are holding onto the energy of getting something or achieving something, only by truly letting go we fall naturally into place where we are meant to be. Meditation should make you feel calm yet blissful and alive, maybe you need to find which form of meditation works best for you and meditation isn't always about sitting down and observing the breath, you must find which art, which craft is your meditation and where you feel calm, alive and blissfull and keep doing that, that's your mantra, that's your meditation.

Yes this is good advice. Remember that it's about letting go. I myself was more focused on doing the techniques correctly that I was on letting go. I was robotic and linear with my practices. I would say something I've realised is, the most important thing is remembering to forget (letting go). It should feel like your a sand castle on the beach, and the tide is slowly coming in. It should start to wash you away. 

Try lots of techniques.

Try talking to the Great Spirit. See if it talks back. If you want to know what your doing wrong, go buy some nice, clean DMT, test/weigh it, smoke it and ask the Spirit for yourself. Remember, the techniques are only templates...once you realise what this spirit is, the practices become more fluid and nonlinear...like a dance. Nearly, improvised intuitively.

[allislove]

Try different techniques. Nowadays I enjoy "do nothing" or guided meditation by Rupert Spira.

Also, you may try micro retreats, set apart 2 days and do 5-10h of different spiritual practices. You'll see the results.

[allislove]

For me meditation is about calming my mind, if I want profound insights I go straight to psychedelics.

[Consilience]

I would 100% look into the book The Mind Illuminated. It teaches you how to achieve states of samatha through a systematic meditation practice. States of samatha are essentially extremely advanced levels of focus, which are extremely useful states to have when doing something like self inquiry or contemplating the nature of reality. 

[Nak Khid]

10 hours ago, dalink said:

@Nak Khid

Everyday, 1-2 times a day with a minimum of 30 mins per session. Lately I tend to sit up to an hour. Focusing on the breath is such an universal way of training the mind because the breath is always available. So it seems convenient to use the breath as an anchor.
I've got some inspiration from Vipassana after a 10 days retreat awhile ago, so the first couple of minutes I try to have my intention/focus on the sensations at the tip of my nose, feeling the air going through the nostrils. Let's say I have solid focus for 3-5 minutes, then however, my focus gets sucked away in thoughts and the monkeymind takes over for a couple of minutes until I recognize what is happening. 

This is the first half of my session.

The second half of the session I try to witness how my breath is spontaneous. But doing so, it appears to me that the first half of the session I was consciously making an effort to breath because the interval between each inhale is 1-2 seconds. The second half as I mentioned is up to 10 seconds which is quite a difference. So I'm literally observing/waiting for my lungs/body to do the work. I notice this strategy is immensely boring and it sometimes feels odd like I really need air, but since I want to avoid making a conscious effort to inhale it sort of feels like, for example imagine you're caught under water and you really need air, then suddenly you reach the surface of the water and your body takes a massive huge and deep breath that goes all the way to your belly. It's somewhat scary and i'm a bit confused if this is right.

I've never had a profound experience meditating. The only thing I've noticed is that it's getting easier and easier to sit for longer periods. 

I've had insights while on Peyote, LSD, shrooms and even pot. Also tried Ayahuasca, but that wasn't too profound because I had trouble letting go - it was just scary.

I've been practicing meditation for nearly 3 years now and I'm starting to feel a bit frustrated because I would really like to see some results in terms of inner calmness/insights. Basically anything. This has been much like a sticking point for a very long time now.

 

You are getting mentally hung up on the breathing.  This could be due to feeling you are not benefiting from meditation and getting neurotic about the breathing is an excuse to stop.  Don't get me wrong meditation may not benefit you.   Or it may.
I am going to give you some exercises you might find helpful to help determine this.  So try each of these on separate days and each will be a different approach. The first method is most important. Not physically but mentally. The other two are physical but will  lead to mental states.

1.  stop judging your breathing.  Don't count or anything. Focus on observing  what you body does naturally and on accepting it. So let any irregular thing happen.  If you keep doing this it will become boring and your breathing will stop bothering you.  They say focus on breath. There is also over-focusing.  So when you say it sometimes feels odd like I really need air, like you're caught under water, just accept that.  Your body knows when to breathe automatically.  So let it go down to very little inhaling, that feeling of being underwater, slow everything down.
After you breath out, without willing anything let it stay there for a minute and WAIT for your body to want to breathe in. Think of your lungs as a machine attached to you and you are just watching what it does.  So any irregularities or feeling like you are not breathing enough just say to yourself
" these feelings are just feelings, my body will breathe the way it wants to and when it wants to take in air it will. If I feel like I'm not even breathing don't worry about it. The body will slow down to what ever pace it wants to and that is fine"

2. Repeat this: Breathe in to near full lung capacity. Hold for 3 seconds. Breathe out slowly, restrain the exhale. At the end use your stomach muscles a little, not too much but so that you let out the air completely. Hold for a second.  Repeat for 15 minutes or more.  Quit or revert to method 1.

3. Wim Hoff method.  Breathe in to full lung capacity fairly quickly and with power.  Then breathe out with no intention so that  it just collapses quickly like a deflated balloon.  There is no holding just in an out with a powerful inhale to lung capacity.  Do this 30 times.
This technique is based on Tibetan methods. It builds up oxygen in the lungs.  So at the end of it your body won't need air for a while. You will feel very still.  People sometimes do high numbers of push ups afterwards without breathing or go underwater for long periods of time.
You can get a high from this. Sometimes a prominent tingling in the arms.   This can be interesting but realize it is only a physical reaction so don't get addicted. Just notice the stillness at the end.  This more physical method can relive stress quickly. At the end of it revert to method 1. and continue sitting there. 

 

Quote

I've been practicing meditation for nearly 3 years now and I'm starting to feel a bit frustrated because I would really like to see some results in terms of inner calmness/insights. Basically anything. This has been much like a sticking point for a very long time now.

I've never had a profound experience meditating. The only thing I've noticed is that it's getting easier and easier to sit for longer periods. 

Try the above methods but stop expecting inner calmness and insights or anything profound for now.  I find it odd that you are expecting something profound, disappointed in not experiencing it and at the same time finding it easier to sit for long periods.
Anyway I would not do longer periods unless you like doing them. You said you did the Vipassana 10 day so you know the result of marathon sessions.  I assume you have tried long sittings like 3 hours.
Certain special breathing techniques can lead to altered states including hallucination and also if you remain in total darkness for a few days or take a drug.  I recommend reading "Hallucinations" by Oliver Sacks.
A hallucination my feel very profound when your are experiencing it.  
But it may or may not be profound to you if you were in a sober state.   And how useful is it?
I recommend this:  For the moment do not expect anything more from meditation. Consider it just a physical exercise.
Continue to do it for 30 minutes periods and longer only if you feel like it.   Then as far as profound thoughts read or listen to famous philosophers and spiritual thinkers.  Secondly do something creative like, creative writing, making art, making music, dance. Third also acquire new experiences, traveling to a new place, or doing something you have never done before.
Maybe you already do this but what I'm saying is devote more time to doing things which could have "profound" aspects instead of relying on meditation to do it all.
So for the next month continue the meditation and do more of these other things.  Don't expect anything more from the meditation just do it as a routine.  Something profound may occur spontaneously or it may not.   The body will do that if it wants to but don't try to trick the body into things that may feel profound.    Just put your attention elsewhere.  And when sitting in mediation just sit for the sake of sitting.  Do this for a month and then judge if you want to continue meditating.  If you find it to be of no benefit quit for a while. If you need it it's still there
 

 

 

 

Edited November 5, 2019 by Nak Khid

[King Merk]

Sounds like you’d benefit from switching up your meditation technique. Try mindfullness meditation. Try the do nothing technique. Try self inquiry. Try body scanning. Try observing a particular object with your eyes open. Etc.

You can only get so much from a single technique.