meditation

My third spiritual practice is meditation.  The following paragraphs are from a comment that someone posted on my blog last year: 

Recently I read something from physicsforum.com that seems to agree that Michael Singer's idea that the mind        (the "roommate") isn't the one to turn to in meditation: 

"In athletics they say it is good to practice. I play racquetball, and it is interesting to see someone reserve a court to do drills, and then watch them spend an hour actually practicing how to hit the ball incorrectly! I know and used to play with people who play several times per week, and who haven't budged an inch in years in terms of their skill level. Me, I got bored never getting better, so I took lessons and moved on. The moral of the story is, if you practice bad habits, then you will just make things worse, so it is important to learn how to practice in ways that lead to constant improvement. 

When you say you "find it impossible to clear my mind of all thought and I have yet to attain the blissful, spiritual feeling that is said to come with a quieted mind," and that you want to achieve the "no thought" experience, I believe I know exactly what the problem is. People who teach themselves to meditate, or who are taught by someone who thinks meditation is merely a calming of the mind, often believe something about how their own consciousness works which is inaccurate. This belief determines how they practice, and consequently why they get stuck.

The inaccurate belief is that consciousness is primarily mind. By “mind” I mean, the collage of images, feelings, desires, aversions, beliefs, thoughts, attitudes, biases, etc. that dominate most people’s awake moments. When someone decides they’d like to quiet that, they rely on what they are most familiar with. And guess what that is. Yep, it’s the mind itself. How is an unremittingly moving mind going to quiet itself? It isn’t, which is why so many people give up on meditation. Whatever slight benefit they get from sitting quietly in a room and doing nothing (and that does have a calming effect), along with the fact that one’s practice never goes much deeper, eventually bores one and usually convinces one the benefits of meditation have been exaggerated. 

So what’s the solution? There is a huge secret in all this. In my opinion, if you find it, you will progress, and if you don’t then you will never get anywhere. The secret is, mind is not the primary aspect of consciousness. There is a bright, ever-so-subtly pulsating place inside at the foundation of consciousness, which is already perfectly still. Fortunately for us, there are inward-turning techniques that can help consciousness merge with that brilliant tranquility. When we join it, the power of it automatically stills the mind. That’s how inner peace is achieved in meditation practice, and not by trying to stop one’s mind with the mind.



Some "inward-turning" techniques that I find helpful are focusing on the breath and breathing into the heart and out through the 'third eye.'  When I am having a really hard time focusing on anything but my noisy mind I find it helpful to do the following:  Inhale into my chest filling it with air and holding it there for the count of 10, then slowly exhaling through the third eye.  Then inhaling into my belly and holding the air there for the count for 10 and slowly exhaling.   Repeat several times alternating between breathing into the chest and the belly.  Always exhale through the third eye.


I welcome any meditation techniques that you find helpful and would like to share.