I will continue practicing his enlightenment meditation techniques in an attempt to try to foster these experiences without the use of drugs. Has anyone here had experiences with psychedelic drugs or transcendental meditation? If so, could you tell me about them?
I don’t have drug experience but I do have experienced plenty of different mental states in meditation. Do you have questions in need of answers?
What forms of meditation do you practice? What are your techniques?
How long have you been practicing meditation, how often do you meditate and how long do your sessions last?
What altered states have you experienced? Could you describe them in detail?
What do you think of DavidM’s post? Do the four states of consciousness he mentioned seem familiar to you? How much truth do you think there is to his articles?
How has meditation affected your life? What are your ultimate goals with meditation? Are you close to reaching them?
Ten years I read a book and started meditating based on what I understood the book to say. Only in the last 2 and a half years I had a decent teacher. I follow the framework laid out by Danis Bois who these days calls his method perceptive pedagogy.
What altered states have you experienced? Could you describe them in detail?
Those aren’t good questions to answer, because I don’t know how you will understand the words I write well enough:
To get back to what DavidM wrote:
The distortions these processes produce are so severe that, without training, it is unlikely that one will even be able to conceptualize what they are, or what it would mean for the assertion that one’s cognitive processes are distorted in this particular way to be true or false.
A year and a half ago a teacher spoke about how one can feel present and how one can feel that one exists. I asked for the difference between feeling present and feeling that one exists. The answer that I got was, that I probably never strongly felt that I exist and therefore at this time there no way to tell me the difference.
What do you think of DavidM’s post? Do the four states of consciousness he mentioned seem familiar to you? How much truth do you think there is to his articles?
I do agree with stage one. I would also recommend a beginner to focus on the breath and to feel it in the belly.
As far as stage two goes, I understand what he’s talking about but I’m personally more interested into things that much slower.
If you could I would still like you to try to describe the altered states and cognitive distortions you mentioned, either here or in a PM. Even if I might not understand the context behind your descriptions I would at least like to hear them, especially given my recent experience.
I’ve made this recommendation before on LessWrong, but you should check out The Relaxation Response. It’s not specific to anxiety, but it takes a very scientific approach toward mediation and its health benefits. The technique he describes is also not very hard to do. I find it very relaxing and even find it effective at mitigating acute anxiety.
In the last week I felt a lot of anxiety because I procrastinated an important task. As long as I consider that task to be important and don’t do it I will feel anxiety and meditation won’t solve the issue.
To get rid of the anxiety I have to either completely the task or make a decision that I don’t consider it to be important. The task itself won’t get done by sitting down and meditating. It actually requires action.
What meditation can do is that you get aware of the reason why you feel anxiety and give you awareness of yourself. If you want you can let go of all goals and sit all day in meditating in some monastery without any anxiety. If you are on LessWrong that’s probably not your goal.
When I’m waiting in the train station for a train than I often practice my Salsa dancing turns. I don’t feel anxiety if someone watches me because I’m not attached to impressing a random stranger. There no unconscious desire to impress the stranger that causes me anxiety because I don’t fulfil that unconscious desire.
Most of the anxiety that I feel is due to not living up to standards that I set for myself.
I don’t have drug experience but I do have experienced plenty of different mental states in meditation. Do you have questions in need of answers?
What forms of meditation do you practice? What are your techniques?
How long have you been practicing meditation, how often do you meditate and how long do your sessions last?
What altered states have you experienced? Could you describe them in detail?
What do you think of DavidM’s post? Do the four states of consciousness he mentioned seem familiar to you? How much truth do you think there is to his articles?
How has meditation affected your life? What are your ultimate goals with meditation? Are you close to reaching them?
Ten years I read a book and started meditating based on what I understood the book to say. Only in the last 2 and a half years I had a decent teacher. I follow the framework laid out by Danis Bois who these days calls his method perceptive pedagogy.
Those aren’t good questions to answer, because I don’t know how you will understand the words I write well enough:
To get back to what DavidM wrote:
A year and a half ago a teacher spoke about how one can feel present and how one can feel that one exists. I asked for the difference between feeling present and feeling that one exists. The answer that I got was, that I probably never strongly felt that I exist and therefore at this time there no way to tell me the difference.
I do agree with stage one. I would also recommend a beginner to focus on the breath and to feel it in the belly.
As far as stage two goes, I understand what he’s talking about but I’m personally more interested into things that much slower.
If you could I would still like you to try to describe the altered states and cognitive distortions you mentioned, either here or in a PM. Even if I might not understand the context behind your descriptions I would at least like to hear them, especially given my recent experience.
How effectively can long-term meditation cure anxiety?
I’ve made this recommendation before on LessWrong, but you should check out The Relaxation Response. It’s not specific to anxiety, but it takes a very scientific approach toward mediation and its health benefits. The technique he describes is also not very hard to do. I find it very relaxing and even find it effective at mitigating acute anxiety.
In the last week I felt a lot of anxiety because I procrastinated an important task. As long as I consider that task to be important and don’t do it I will feel anxiety and meditation won’t solve the issue.
To get rid of the anxiety I have to either completely the task or make a decision that I don’t consider it to be important. The task itself won’t get done by sitting down and meditating. It actually requires action.
What meditation can do is that you get aware of the reason why you feel anxiety and give you awareness of yourself. If you want you can let go of all goals and sit all day in meditating in some monastery without any anxiety. If you are on LessWrong that’s probably not your goal.
When I’m waiting in the train station for a train than I often practice my Salsa dancing turns. I don’t feel anxiety if someone watches me because I’m not attached to impressing a random stranger. There no unconscious desire to impress the stranger that causes me anxiety because I don’t fulfil that unconscious desire.
Most of the anxiety that I feel is due to not living up to standards that I set for myself.