Learning to Meditate!

[glynis]

 

[Davey126]

Great tips! Thank you for sharing!

 

[TheDanishGirl]

I wish I could benefit from meditation but every time I try, I end up getting caught in this downward spiral of negative thoughts. I try several times to gently let these thoughts pass and get back to focusing on my breathing, but the negative thoughts are coming again and again and again, and it ends with me being frustrated and in a worse state then before the meditation session

 

[Sleaford Mod]

Although meditation helped me to habituate tinnitus (and I have continued to use it to deal with intermittent but chronic pain), I would be wary of taking a cavalier approach to what might now be called 'The Mindfulness Industry'.

Here is one of the reasons why:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/23/is-mindfulness-making-us-ill

In my case, I have occasionally experienced dissociative states of mind. However, I simply acknowledge them and move on. But someone less familiar with meditative practice could find something like this unsettling.

I am also dubious about meditation teachers. Quite a few appear have set themselves up as such without having what I would consider to be the requisite credentials. My reason for thinking this is because I am a schoolteacher and a couple of years ago I started to receive e-mails about Mindfulness courses. The idea was that the basic skills could be mastered and subsequently passed on to pupils to relieve teenage stress and anxiety. However, the whole thing smacks of bandwagon jumping as far as I am concerned, as there is a lot of money to be made if you are a facilitator of this type of training.

On the other side of the ledger, the number of studies that attest to the benefits of various types of meditation have now reached a point where the efficacy of at least some of the practices has been proved beyond doubt. For example, these studies are frequently referenced in publications like The Mindful Way Through Depression.

In actual fact, if I was going to seek out a meditation teacher, I would choose a Buddhist monk who has had years of experience of full-time immersion in the relevant practices. As cosmonauts of 'inner space', they will have been there and got the t-shirt, and so they are far better placed to help a struggling practitioner navigate the unpleasant thoughts and sometimes disturbing emotions that can sometimes arise from the pot-stirring that meditation induces.

I suggest this approach, even though I don't self-describe as a Buddhist and don't know anyone who is a Buddhist. I am also deeply sceptical about reincarnation and the adulation that is heaped on gurus of various ilks. A good meditation teacher should deflect a student from placing them on a pedestal.

So it's a matter of treading warily.

When it comes to books that describe meditative practices, there are several that I would recommend:

Mingyur Rinpoche Joyful Wisdom

Steveagen Meditation: Now or Never

The writings of Pema Chodron, Darlene Cohen, Steven Batchelor, Matthieu Ricard, Vidyamala Burch, John Kabat-Zinn and Brad Warner are also worth exploring.

Two accounts of personal experiences of the benefits of meditation written from the point of view of a novice are Teach us to Sit Still by Tim Parks, and Why Buddhism is True by the hard-nosed evolutionary psychologist Robert Wright.

Here's a link to an interesting article by Wright:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/opinion/buddhism-western-philosophy.html?smid=tw-share

TheDanishGirl, it's a matter of taking things gently and not being too hard on yourself when it comes to the early stages of practice. The book by Mingyur Rinpoche mentioned above should help you to overcome a tendency to identify strongly with negative thoughts. It's something that happens to me regularly too, as I am not much further along in this regard. For example, I have a tendency to catastrophise when I find myself thinking about the future as far as the other health conditions that I am dealing with are concerned. But it's a pattern that I am slowly coming to recognise and step back from.

Hope this post proves to be of some benefit to someone.

 

[John CC]

Hi Glynis, and anyone else. I have been meditating for over 10, 12 years or so (as you get more silver in your mane, things such as time tends to blur), and it has helped me tremendously. I must admit I really enjoyed your diagram, and the words and ideas it included. It was a great start. I also immediately thought of Julia Roberts in EAT PRAY LOVE, when she was first trying to meditate in India. If you saw the movie you will know what I am talking about.

Unfortuantely when I have talked to people about meditation over the years, I have found that people don't realize meditating is about a journey, a very long journey that can take a long time to complete, or that it goes one place, inside you (which is great because after a while you realize you can leave - mentally -, and your luggage is always there when you come back). The preconceptions about just sitting there for a hour, that they are failing it because they are thinking about other things in their mind, etc, actually blocks them. For beginners, I would suggest to them to try going online where you can find some directed, or guided meditation web sites that can help guide you at the start, and as you become more confortable with it, you can set off on your own course. They are free and you can easily shop around. Meditation does not always have to be for three days, 6 hours 47 min. and 5 sec.. It can last 10 min. and be very deep and rewarding, or 2 hours. Another place to look for guidence could come from a Reiki Master (reiki uses energy focused on the chakras). Reiki works for some, others are not ready for it. If you are curious, there is a lot on the web. Beginners can always talk to a friend, or ask for some suggestions on this forum, for there are a number of people who are familiar with it.

I do agree with Sleaford Mod above that some people startup meditation classes before they are ready to lead, and it is important to be open to, but not blind to, what works for you when you join. While Buddhism is a very open religion which uses mediation, it uses it to support a path of self discovery that might not suit everyone's personal journey. This is not to say I disagree with Sleaford Mod's thoughts on it, I just feel there are more paths up the side of the meditation mountain than one can shake a stick at.

I myself am new to the T World, less than a month in, but from what I have read, fighting anxiety and calming down are important aspects of the challenge, I emplore anyone who reads this to be open and think about how meditation is one tool that can not only help you with Tinnitus, but it can help you cope with this and so much more.
Best of luck to all who try.