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Comment by egypturnash | Hacker News Reader

1. sit down somewhere, a relatively quiet and dark place is nice but you can do it wherever, maybe set a timer, maybe don't

2. close your eyes, pay attention to your breath

3. when thoughts appear in your mind, note them but attempt to keep your attention on your breath, not on your thoughts

4. when you notice that your thoughts have wandered away from your breath, congratulate yourself for noticing this, and go back to step 2

important: do not berate yourself for getting caught up in your thoughts, do not worry that your head is too full of thoughts to ever be able to "stop thinking" - your brain has been thinking for most of your entire waking life and disengaging from this is hard at first! it gets easier.

"the mind illuminated" is a nice book on the subject IMHO.

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Back when I used "The Relaxation Response" I believe. Taught myself in 7th grade.

- Go some place with no distractions.

- Lay down, and let your muscles go limp.

- Close your eyes, and just focus on your breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth, nice and slowly. I'd often hold at full breath for a few seconds just to let everything settle.. this is not a hurry.

- Focus on relaxing your toes, then your feet, ankles, calves, etc up through your chest, now focus on your arms... let all the stress run out your fingers like rays. Finally focus on your head, and push the stress out through the top of your head, or fingers, which ever feels easier. I'll also push stress through my toes too. The key is to release the stress from your body and visualize it... visualize getting rid of the knots and stress.

Some days, you'll get up to your calves, some days with practice you can get your whole body. But even your toes is an accomplishment!

- Your body will tell you when you are done. It is hard to explain, but you will know, "I'm done." When you are, don't rush to sit up, let your body rest a moment eyes closed, then open your eyes, wait a moment, then sit up. (if you were actually well relaxed this may stop a faint.)

But much of this comes from listening to your body. The noise of life isn't what matters... just listening to your body, and helping it relax....

I use relaxation, as a way to force other things out. So if work comes up, out it goes. Relaxation gives me a central focus, which helps with the whole experience.

That seems to be what all the meditation people say. I've done it many times, and it goes like this:

Ok, lie down. Relax muscles, sinking down, good breathe...

Bored.

Bored bored bored OMG this is so boring!

Breathe, breathe, try not to think of how boring this is!

Bored bored bored oh a bird is chirping. Chirp chirp chirp and gone.

Bored bored bored bored bored holy shit when does this end?

My fingers are flicking now. Bored bored bored bored fuck it I'm done. Waste of an hour.

My friend: wasn't that awesome?

Uhh.. let's just go build something.

I know, right? You've tried harder than me. I don't think I've tried more than a few times and probably didn't crack 15 minutes! I can clear my thoughts of everything except how bored I am and how long a minute feels with this level of boredom.

Love how well you articulate these notions. They are truly valid for most of us. It also means you're doing it right. The point then is to stay with the practice until you can stop fighting the notion of boredom and instead be "friends" with it. Just be fine with the boredom. Learn to relax in it. Hope you'll try it again.

As someone who taught meditation, this is very common. It’s kind of being like addicted to action (to put it bluntly , sorry for that)

Boredom is just one perspective of the mind. For you it might be more beneficial to approach meditation in other ways before sitting still or lie down. For example : when I do indoor climbing I almost get into this meditative state where only the next step matters. Some friends report surfing does this for them.

Observation is the key word, or experience of mind as it goes through different processes (say boredom, sleep, happiness, concentration, building something)

And of course no one ever says this. It's always presented as a "if you do it the right way, and do it enough, then it just works", which is definitely bullshit and even starts to trigger my cult response.

After a month and a half of intensive study that made no difference whatsoever, I'm pretty much done. The marginal benefits don't at all seem worth the extreme effort.

Now I just write instead. It's far more relaxing.

This is absolutely fine, I think of the hundreds of people I taught, I would say 5-10% simply didn’t not catch on at all, no matter my angle of teaching. In those cases I would focus on relaxation above all, like you already gathered yourself.

That said the different pathways to the experience you would call deep meditation is very diverse, and sometimes it’s also a phase/station of life people need to be in. In old texts these things are often described as different temperaments, so I doubt it’s a new thing :D

That’s a solid introduction to the most well know type of meditation but the specifics can vary quite a bit and people disagree on the specifics. Many groups consider meditation in a religious context though that’s far from universal. There’s also many ideas around what you should be doing while meditating from simply being in the moment to reflective thoughts.

Still meditation is basically get enough sleep then get in a comfortable position sitting, lying down, or even standing just so long as you can hold it indefinitely and focus on something for long periods. Breathing is always available but options vary wildly from something specific like smoke from a stick of incense, to the environment such as trees blowing in the wind, ripples in a stream, or even the sound of someone leading a meditation. Though in general people follow something similar to what egypturnash mentioned.

Moving meditation allows for some representative action like walking, dance, ritualized prayer, juggling, or even some repetitive factory job where you can do it indefinitely without thinking. Just be careful it’s easy to lose focus on what you’re doing so don’t try this when driving etc.

Some see meditation as a means of contemplation, in that you focus on a single topic to focus on while sitting. Please consult you local Buddhist/Zen temple for a Dharma talk or Koan as an example.

But others feel that can be restrictive in that it doesn't go into a deeper state. But that goes to the whole truth of zen and the misleading of the student and the one thinking they need to be there - it gets complicated.

Some people might find closing their eyes and focusing on breathing to be a bit intense. In that case you could try:

2. Relax and just be in the room.

4. When you notice that your thoughts have wandered congratulate yourself for noticing this and come back to the room.

For those who need a structured intro, for me it was through mastering buoyancy control in SCUBA diving [1]. You’re watching and controlling your breathing and multiple environmental variables. Once you’ve felt what that’s like it’s much easier to recreate it on land.

[1] https://www.tdisdi.com/sdi/get-certified/advanced-buoyancy/

Mind Illuminated is what finally got me into (a more stable) meditation practice.

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