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Thread: Meditation

  1. #31
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    I've only felt that a coulple times. I can never let go and be in the now.
    Bless you

  2. #32
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    Who can? It isn't a decision that your conscious mind is able to make. Deciding not to decide is still deciding. As they say in Ch'an buddhism, you can't wash off blood with more blood.

    This is where meditating, especially meditative physical disciplines like T'ai Chi Ch'uan, come in handy. They engage the mind and keep it busy long enough for the heart and body to take over for a minute or two. In a perfect situation, over time, you'll get better at paying more attention to your heart than your brain and not only will you feel better, you'll get better at it and eventually understand it well enough to teach others how to do it.

  3. #33
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    Who can? It isn't a decision that your conscious mind is able to make. Deciding not to decide is still deciding. As they say in Ch'an buddhism, you can't wash off blood with more blood.
    Or in the words of Rush (the band, not the pill-popping conservative mouthpiece), "If you choose not to choose, you still have made a choice."

    Sorry, couldn't resist.

    The cinnabun palm is deadly, especially when combined with the tomato kick. - TenTigers

  4. #34
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    Greetings..

    Choosing is a mental process.. You can, with training and good intent, simply respond "naturally", even if "naturally" is also a product of chosen training.. thought separates us from the experience, the time spent thinking about the experience is also the time we miss other experiences.. We can all "choose" to suspend thought in favor of the direct experience.. we do it when we listen to our favorite instrumental musics, no words to engage the mind, we simply suspend the thought and let the music massage the spirit.. if we are thinking about the music we aren't truly listening, just like when others talk to us.. if we're thinking of our responses we are not fully there for the conversation.. good conversation is slow and gentle, we hear the other completely.. then, we let the spirit respond, with our "truth"...

    Anyway, i ramble too much.. Be well and Season's best to ALL..
    TaiChiBob.. "the teacher that is not also a student is neither"

  5. #35
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    Naturalness

    TaiChiBob,

    You really must stop criticizing yourself for talking so much, your ramblings are wonderful fun for my team of code-breakers to decipher! LoL!!! Just kidding pal!


    As far as naturalness goes, a true connection of the mind and the heart aids in making our actions natural. Often we think we are going to get what we want by acting on the impulse of the mind and forget to make the journey to the heart. There is a saying my father would say: "The longest journey some people travel in their lives is between the head and the heart." and its true. Try and make that journey with each major decission or impulsive decission in your life, and you will find that your decissions are more natural and true to who you are.

    Best of meditations to all =)

  6. #36
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    you guys, i get into meditative state when masturbating
    dead serious
    Volcano has removed himself from this realm
    Account is hijacked, email is fake, password is unrememberable
    No im not drunk or sad

    "cos im the TAXMAN!!
    yeah im the TAXMAAAN!!"

    __________________

  7. #37
    TaiChi Bob has broken the correct's neck with a punch. Excellent ideas. I practice a walking meditation where you breathe in for 4 or 6 steps , then hold for 2 steps , then out for 4 or 6 steps , hold for 2 , then breathe in again for 6 etc. When I concentrate on the meditation I am way more aware of all the sounds and what's going on around me , it's hard to explain. When I walk around regularly and conciously try to focus on things around me I miss most of what's around me and am unaware of alot.

  8. #38
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    Originally posted by backbreaker
    TaiChi Bob has broken the correct's neck with a punch. Excellent ideas. I practice a walking meditation where you breathe in for 4 or 6 steps , then hold for 2 steps , then out for 4 or 6 steps , hold for 2 , then breathe in again for 6 etc. When I concentrate on the meditation I am way more aware of all the sounds and what's going on around me , it's hard to explain. When I walk around regularly and conciously try to focus on things around me I miss most of what's around me and am unaware of alot.
    This makes sense. If we're walking, and we try to focus on each thing specifically, we enter into dualistic thinking.. for example, we focus on a branch, and we see the branch, not the tree. Focus on the tree, and we see the tree, not the forest. Focus on the forest.. etc.

    By relaxing and breathing, we experience all the senses in full bloom, and our awareness is heightened, which could be thought of as our sixth sense. Take care.

  9. #39
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    meditation

    Hi all, thought i'd join this forum by starting a thread -

    I've read (and heard) people from different styles relating the benefits of meditation / learning stillness from sitting etc when it comes to the surprise and adrenaline rush of an extreme encounter (read: fight / challenge match etc). The theory seems to be that if you can achieve real stillness in meditation, it will carry to your ability to retain some (or all) of the relaxation and flow that is so much easier to retain in training.

    I was interested in any first hand accounts of anyone experiencing this?

    I've only just started to regularly really test my reactions in a training situation and I can see the direct benefit of this sort of training - maybe there's an interplay between the both?

  10. #40
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    I seem to remember a study which found that monks who meditated heavily either reacted (via physiological events) less acutely, or recovered to normal much more quickly, than the controls.

    The mental discipline brought about by meditation undoubtedly assists in dealing with the overactivity of the cerebrum which leads to destructive self talk.

    The adrenal dump happens in the mid/reptilian brain. Whether you can control this with meditation, or whether you really would want to mess with your survival reflexes at that primitive level if you could, is IMO less clear cut.

    Better and more practical (and quicker) IMO is structured rehearsall in the Kwoon of situations which cause the adrenal dump, so the student becomes acclimatised to it.

    Structured breathing, rather than the mental aspect of meditation, is a conscious act which affects the autonomic nervous system and indirectly the viscera and hormonal systems, and thus this may be the more useful aspect at the mental level which IMO is more relevant.

    Some people say your mental state during combat should equate that of meditation, but IMO this is wrong. Meditation requires an internal focus, and a fairly narrow one. Fighting requires a broad based external focus. If you are thinking about or viewing your own performance or state during a fight rather than the actual external events, you have added another opponent (yourself) to the fight and are headed on a downward spiral.

    Not knocking meditation, it has loads of benefits for a martial artist or anyone else, and I practise it myself, but IMO a more direct approach will pay better dividends in a shorter time for the particular situation you discuss.
    Last edited by anerlich; 02-22-2004 at 08:24 PM.
    "Once you reject experience, and begin looking for the mysterious, then you are caught!" - Krishnamurti
    "We are all one" - Genki Sudo
    "We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion" - Tool, Parabol/Parabola
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  11. #41
    Andrew:

    You said that fighting requires a broad based external focus - not the fairly narrow internal focus that meditation requires and gives.

    But in my understanding of meditation - the narrow focus, ie. - the concentration on the sound om (aum), for example - can and eventually SHOULD lead to a state of consciousness wherein the focus becomes more broad based...

    The narrow focus (or conscious attempt at one-pointed concentration) is like a DOORWAY to pass through...and on the other side is the "free-flow"....

    Like a jazz musician who memorizes the the notes in the solo (through memorization)...so well...and understands it's structure so well...that he eventually will be able to IMPROVISE on the theme without much conscious thought.

    Likewise with fighting...as you know, in TWC the "focus' while fighting or sparring is on watching knees and elbows - but after MUCH experience with this...to the point where your defense is so good that getting hit, kicked, or grabbed becomes less and less likely...then the focus can become more all-encompassing than just watching these four points.

  12. #42
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    Fighting requires a broad based external focus.
    I think it requires a broard focus starting from inside yourself.

    For some poeple meditation can help find the inside... then expand the focus from there.
    S.Teebas

  13. #43
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    focus

    i agree with the above-

    Andrew - I find direct training is 99% of my slowly growing ability to retain my form under pressure

    Victor - as a guitarist/saxophonist I have direct experience of your musical analolgy - concentration on good basics can expand your mind (a bit like the process described by phenix in another thread) so you see beyond the musical patterns and improvise around them.

    I'm definitely a beginner when it comes to meditation but from some reading I've done it seems that you can treat it as a way of getting in touch with the moment, not searching for patterns (e.g. in an opponent's movements) rather reading moment to moment. as you have said the focus you learn in meditation is helpful too.

  14. #44
    Ji----gly-puffs, Ji---gly-puffs, ..........

    If you can stay alert effortlessly without a set expectation for out come in this instant or now. and dont have a sleepy mind, a dull mind, a drift mind, a self conversation mind, an absent minded mind.....

    Then, you are in meditation . You dont need to create a scene to make believe you are meditating. or chanting ommmmmmmming.


    Ji------gly--puffs, Ji-----gly---puffs,

    Oh dont expect magic for fighting too---
    just stay alert effortlessly without a set expectation for out come in this instant or now. and dont have a sleepy mind, a dull mind, a drift mind, a self conversation mind, an absent minded mind.....
    you will see magic there but not the expected magic.

    a magic is not wonderfull when it appears as expected.
    But you need to train you body and limbs well, otherwise they will not bring the magic to reality.

    Last edited by Phenix; 02-22-2004 at 10:23 PM.

  15. #45
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    I'm definitely a beginner when it comes to meditation but from some reading I've done it seems that you can treat it as a way of getting in touch with the moment, not searching for patterns (e.g. in an opponent's movements) rather reading moment to moment. as you have said the focus you learn in meditation is helpful too.
    Undoubtedly this is true. But all of this is cerebral, rather than the visceral, mid-brain reaction that comes in the face of a threat to one's life. Hence my argument that meditation is not the total or necessarily the best way to learn to handle the adrenal dump, which was at least one focus of your first post.

    .
    Andrew - I find direct training is 99% of my slowly growing ability to retain my form under pressure
    Sure. But I would argue that the best way to do that is by training under pressure, as you are, not in the practise of meditation. The second may help the first, but it will never replace it.

    The above posts indicate that there is a difference of definitions regarding what meditation is. I also would venture that there is a "practice of meditation" and a "meditative state", which are not the same thing, and I am interested in the first, but not in achieving the second in situations where IMO it is not necessary, appropriate or helpful (viz. while under attack). The practice of meditation is a means to an end, not the end itself.

    I think it requires a broard focus starting from inside yourself.
    I don't. Fighting IMO is done with pre-conscious processing without reference to one's internal state. Dwell on what's happening to you rather than what they are doing and your environment, you *will* lose.

    Referencing the internal state is good for practise and training. NOT for fighting.

    There are no points given for being in a meditative state, even in a sporting contest, let alone a life and death struggle. Survival is the relevant concern, anything else a dangerous diversion.
    Last edited by anerlich; 02-22-2004 at 10:45 PM.
    "Once you reject experience, and begin looking for the mysterious, then you are caught!" - Krishnamurti
    "We are all one" - Genki Sudo
    "We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion" - Tool, Parabol/Parabola
    "Bro, you f***ed up a long time ago" - Kurt Osiander

    WC Academy BJJ/MMA Academy Surviving Violent Crime TCM Info
    Don't like my posts? Challenge me!

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