Meditations for a Kind Heart

[draconadancer]

I will be starting a new series in my meditation class tonight entitled “Meditations for a Kind Heart.” We’ll be spending the next six weeks working on eliminating our self-cherishing by learning how to cherish others. The meditations we will be doing include cherishing others, taking away suffering, and giving happiness.

Comments

[shooman]

Interesting meditation. I've never thought about focusing on something significant. I've always zoned out using some form of repetition. Doesn't help with getting to sleep though.

shooman out

[draconadancer]

Actually, focusing on "something significant" as you put it is the point of meditation. Real meditation is not "zoning out" at all. True meditation is single-pointed concentration, training our mind to focus on one virtuous object for a while and thereby becoming very familiar with it. Once we become familiar enough with the object of our meditation (right now we're focusing on cherishing others), the object becomes more ingrained into our nature and transforms our mind in a positive way.

[shooman]

Ahh. But when I'm that focused on something everything else becomes blurred out... so zoning out for me is when your mind focuses on something so much that it blocks out all other things and then you lift yourself having zoomed in so much that you're not seeing anything at all.

I don't know if that makes sense as I've never studied mediation formally before... It's what I think it should mean. For me it's a kind of tunnel vision. I just wish it helped me sleep more. I typically imagine a leaf, focus on the leaf floating and falling until it hits the water and then it becomes just a bead of water suspended in the air. I know the leaf is just right below the bead of water but it's suspended and I float around the bead examining the reverse tear drop.

But in the end, it's meaningless and never helps me get to sleep which is my main purpose when I try to do that.

I guess the question is-- what am I doing wrong when meditating?

shooman out

[draconadancer]

Meditation is not a form of daydreaming. And it's really not supposed to put you to sleep :P It should be relaxing and bring you a sense of inner peace, but the goal during meditation is to stay alert through the whole thing.

If you're looking for something that will help you go to sleep, there are relaxation CDs out there (I have one and it put me to sleep). Or really relaxing music, like new age music.

Have you considered getting a guided meditation CD or going to a meditation class? Either of those might help.