Discussions

DAna is there any chance that you could make meditation podcasts and post them on the homepage like you do a text?

If you could them in real time it would be nice.

Though one thing i would say as a request. Some people when the lead a guided meditation talk almost constantly with no space between instructions or ideas. To give time to hte listener/meditator to absorb the idea, or try out the instruction, it is really important - in my view - to give them plenty of time between sentences - unless the idea being shared requies a few sentences.

One of the best guided meditators that i have ever experienced was a yoga teacher i had for a short while. he was excllent at that too but unfortunately i stopped going because of some dodgy mental fabrication that i had.

Anyway at that time i had never done meditation before. In his talk he told us how to breathe - as they do in yoga and i am not suggesting you do this. He also would tell us to do things like "relax your tongue" "relax your jaw". BEfore he did this it had never ever occured to me in my life before to do some thing like that. I learnt a valuable skill from these 10 minute sessions at the end of his class. I still regret leaving. Alas his retreats which are far away cost a fortune now. .

so anyway that was just blather - reminiscence - but what i'm getting at is timing is important. and i would really appreciate it if you were able to do some meditations in podcasts for us because i have trouble doing it from reading a text. I have trouble internalising this approach which i like and which my zen teacher uses but i just haven't been able to take it in.

I know the theory. I just know the questions to ask or how to look at htings when they happen during meditation. I can never think of what i should be doing so i end up just going back to the breath without having done anything else of interest or value when i get distracted.

No its not dana. When i clicked on meditation, i got taken to the podcast talk page. That's not what i was asking for. I was asking for podcasts of the meditations that you have written about. REcordings of guided meditations along the lines of your texts. Podcasts that one could meditate to.

Its too hard what you are asking me to do. I can't do it.

And it doesn't matter if one listens to a guided meditation occasionally. My thought is that a combination of text and guided meditaiton with clear instructions will teach best.

I can't do the text version. Did you have to learn from a text when you learnt? How did you learn?

In a guided meditation if the guide talks too much its a problem. What works well is for some verbal instruction then some silent time to try it out. Then some more talk or a gentle reminder to look at htis or that as you go along. It doesn't matter if whilst listening the meditaiotn is interrupted. Its about learning how to do it. Its a learning tool, not an ongoing practice tool.

Look i'm only raising this as a suggestion because most meditaiton instruction i've been exposed to isn't teaching me what to do.

The only person i've been able to learn anything from is goenka. And that's because his instructions were clear, well timed, simple and straightforward.

The texts you are writing are similar in content to what my zen teacher is giving us when we do a group meditation (we haven't had any since last year though as he's away for a few months). I like his timing but he tells us to do too much all at once and i never remember anything. If i had them taped i could learn. Same for you. If yours were taped, I could learn. I believe.

The texts are important. But it requires painstaking effort and a lot of time.

I've got mindfulness in plain english which is a veyr good book. Its pretty good but i think i am ready for the next step up. Certainly i have no problem ever wtih the breath and concentrating on my breath. Taht much i can do.

Its the questioning techniques that i am having trouble with. I can't seem to make myself understood. Is everyone else that much smarter than me? Does everyone forget what it was like to learn or did they just have a different type of learning context (ie such as monastery wiht regular one on one instruction from a teacher, or goenka's highly clear and perfectly timed incremental instruction. )

Look i understand the theory (though i think i'm fast forgetting it ) but i can't think of any questions i should be forumulating to interrogate my experience of the kind that you are writing in your texts.

I know you wish you could thump me right now. But i am telling you how i am experiencing this problem. maybe most others on here already knwo how to do all this. Or maybe they have other supports.

Re goenka - i have noted elsewhere that i don't like his technique so i don't want to do that.

You are not understanding me. Nevermind. I'll let it go.

Candol, if you haven't found it yet, dharmaseed.org, has lots of guided meditations that, in my experience, are totally woo-free. Quality varies but they have so many I'm sure you'll find a teacher who paces things right for you. I've also been enjoying the guided meditations on the Insight LA website -- Christina especially paces things so there's plenty of space between instructions.

Candol, one thing that may help is the understanding that we have no interest in making money from this effort. It is not about making money, it's about helping others find this practice. So when the talk goes to things like marketing and business ideas -- it's lost me. This just isn't the place for that topic, we're not about that. Fine if others want to pursue it, but it's not what SBA is for.