Guided Meditation: Stop Practicing Mindfulness! To Meditate, No Need to Concentrate.
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- It's not about focusing. It's about being completely open.
Related Dialogue: The 5 Essential Rules of Meditation - It's much simpler than you think! • Video & True Meditation is Asana Agnostic-sitting with a perfectly straight back is not necessary • Video
(From Online meditation with Francis Lucille 2020 10 12)
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I used to do this ‘no goal’ meditation for well over a year. I found it difficult unless I was actually listening to a guided meditation otherwise I would get lost in thinking and almost ‘forget’ I was meditating. Over the last two years I’ve found that gently bringing back attention to the in and out breath has transformed things for me - a kind of grounding - it doesn’t mean that I don’t also receive perceptions thoughts etc. After a 30 min session it seems for me I get more out of breathing meditation. When I go out for a walk I also love breathing meditation.
Even if there is no agenda one still has to remember to watch/observe - to not get sucked in and identify with thoughts. For me having a subtle concentration on breath (that I don’t find a hinderance) is the best way that I can remain in the witnessing/present moment. 🙏
Just to add - I find that if I’m listening to a guided meditation then you are just listening to the guide much of the time. The acid test to see if you get it is to meditate without it. I think the crutch of the guided meditation has to be dropped after a while to truly reap the benefit of the practice. When I go for a jog is the time I love listening to Francis’ talks (I have received so much from them) but for meditation I prefer silence nowadays.
Has any one else found this? For example I used to do some headspace for a while but then it felt like I ‘needed’ that to be able to sit for half an hour. I find it liberating now that this is not needed anymore. It doesn’t mean that I don’t still sometimes enjoy listening to guided meditations - for example I’m listening to this whilst gardening 👩🌾
Ramana Maharishi used to say that meditation and self enquiry had the same outcome and meditation was something you do if you can’t do self enquiry. At the same time he actively discouraged single-pointed concentration practices. The idea is to open up not close down; return to source in whatever way responds to your heart’s desire. Good luck.
The progression of guided to silence seems natural...from doing to just being, if you will. But regarding attention on an object, that style of 'shamatha with an object' meditation, my experience is that it can't take you all the way to the experience of being=awareness. And as Francis has said, it's when Sat=chit that you then have Ananda, the peace.
I cam so relate to this… I think to outline a path, no matter how well-meant and how well it has worked for someone, and then try to use the same for others to follow not always works. Many have reached enlightenent through different paths.. we each need to find our own. As much as I love Rupert Spira’s books and videos, I used to feel lost and sort of stranded when doing his meditations. There are losts of
little steps for most of us, and using the breath, guided meditations or not are all valid in showing us something to either keep or discard, both are learning. Rupert came to Francis with a lot of ecperience behind him. To use objects as a stepping stone to quieter states can be a doorway to experiencing awareness. Letting go of desires and judgements can follow from there.
How about focusing on the pain-body? If you relax there is always some form of boredom or pain or discomfort in the body. It is preciseley this that makes you get lost in thinking, that makes your mind overactive. Why not focus your attention there and let it be and possibly integrate it and heal?
Sounds like mindfulness to me. No harm in starting with paying attention to something like the breath as a portal to presence.
concentration practices are just the first stage for mindfulness meditation. for very busy modern minds this can be a good place to start and foundational as scales are for a pianist, developing a type of dexterity , strength and familiarity with sitting, giving the mind something to do in these early stages.. we then move to open awareness practice where we first become the witness and then move beyond the witness... dissolving into a unity with all of our experience - the teachings for beginners are very subtle with this instruction, much is implicit rather than explicit in the early stages..
Sweet 😊 thanks 🙏
Without a mind that can acheive strong Sanadhi/ concentration, it is impossible to attain the “direct path” insights derived from “ discovering” awareness.. And without also cultivating the other “factors” of enlightenment, again, followers of the “direct path” will be disappointed.
How do you dissolve into the unity with all experience?
So well said, and exactly how I would describe my understanding…
Thank you Francis. This did it for me having already seen the truth and being in the last 3 years stabilizing myself in consciousness. These words: When we allow all phenomena/ activities to flow without getting attached to them…that is meditation. Hence… by eliminating at least temporarily the pursuit of any goal we are free of the doer we are free of the seeker. I am home. I thank you I thank you I thank you…
Yes! I understand. If not here, where is it you want to go? Thanks!
The mystic, the late Bernadette Roberts, advocated being constantly aware of the light within. Surrendering to the light, as I understand it. It worked for her.
(For some reason, I find Francis Lucille hard to listen to! Was hoping someone might explain the main point in the comments!)
@@sohara.... So how does one "surrender to the light?" All I can say is that Francis' precision in conducting the investigation into the question of "What am I?" is deeply experiential. Add to that his yoga that address the vasanas in the body and both the rational and irrational basis for separation get extinguished.
@@egerton_dan9728 I don't know the answer. She does talk about it briefly in one of her later books: if I find the passage, will type it here, her pointers. John Siegfried, above, asked a question. Maybe you can help him.
Thank you!
ThankYou My Friend~
thank you and lol 💙
Francis Lucille points to our inner truth... that is my experience. I am happy to listent to his generous and educational videos.
I read Rama Ramana Maharshi's "Who Am I" and found myself very judgemental about # 12. when he wrote "... Therefore, when the mind becomes quiescent, the breath is controlled, and when the breath is controlled the mind becomes quiescent. But in deep sleep, although the mind becomes quiescent, the breath does not stop. This is because of the will of God, so that the body may be preserved and other people may not be under the impression that it is dead..."
Please someone help me answer the following question: I found the idea in the last sentence above absolutely ridiculous and contrary to science? Why am I having such a reaction?
Science does not admit exceptions to the law. When such exceptions are seen the science evolves ( sooner or later ) to refine the law. I suppose that is the case here. One day science itself will explain . The exception i allude to is the following.
Ramana himself has been reported to have stopped breathing for many minutes on multiple occasions and persons around him thought he was dead.
🙏
We can always ask why are we scared of simply seeing where the attention is right now without trying to manipulate attention--in the seeing body can breathe freely and help itself non interfered by my personal manipulation behaviours. Because to be in manipulative or forcing to concentrate on breath or anything I must be blind to what I am doing.
Stop practising bad spelling...
So you should call it something else, that's not meditation. Meditation means "concentrated thinking".
what could you suggest for us?