ok, so whenever I meditate have have this feeling that i don't have to (shouldn't) breathe, why is this?

thanks =D

Perhaps you're aware of the stillness, and in a way if feels like your own natural movements disrupt a very much natural stillness.

I think you're going the right direction~ I'm still experiencing that

Encountering energy blockages. Changes in the breath that occur amid stillness are directly connected to the flow of energy through the body and consciousness. Breath is the connection between the mind and body. Breathing is slow and even = energy flowing freely. Breathing deep and rapid = pent up energy rapidly unwinding. Breathing rapid and shallow = energy stuck in a 'loop'. Breathing slow and shallow = energy ebbing, usually you'll alternate with periodic deep breaths naturally, in a definite rhythm, like waves against a shoreline.

Not breathing = energy not moving, usually because there is a disconnect or a blockage between mind and body that is being encountered. Conscious rhythmic breathing should be reasserted, either basic 4x4, or other specific patterns depending on the situation, but that's getting into relatively advanced material not relavent at this stage.

The stillness of nature is the stillness of perpetual motion, the unending current of life that inhabits even the most 'motionless' aspects of nature. If the breath stops, life stops - that is not natural, it's an obstacle.

But, if you're encountering obstacles, then yes, you're probably headed the right direction.

peace

I have had this feeling as well but breathing is essential and helps the body try concentrating and watching your breath. I like to just not breath as well when i first started meditation but realized that breathing is needed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Hum, well I guess I am the odd man out here. Although I am trying for something more than most people when I meditate. So, not sure what relevance this post has to GreenChase's question, but it might be useful to tossed it up.

When I meditate for long periods, up to 3 hours, there is often a point where the meditation goes so deep that people watching me say I stop breathing for a short time. During those times I progress into different forms of stillness. At the apex of meditation, I am past the point where thoughts enter my mind and I have no conception of a physical body. During this time I am aware of a great stillness around me, and while no visions appear during my comparatively short visit, I do have a notion that they would.

While I do think that VD's description of disconnected mind body is right, there are times when it is useful. In my case I think that energy leaves rather than becomes disconnected.

This post has been edited by fatherjhon: May 15 2010, 09:19 PM

What do you advise people at that level of meditation do?

ah, the stillness of the void - it isn't really empty, you know - try listening for laughter beyond the sound that ears can hear

breathe in 5 heartbeats fills the pump
breathe out 5 heartbeats sends it through the body
hold breath 5 heartbeats to journey through the body with the blood
repeat until you touch the void

from my '5 steps to freedom', once you reach the void:

"...you are now sitting in a cave behind a waterfall, and listen to the sound the water makes as it hits the other water in the pond at the bottom, then flows away downstream.

Repeatedly go over the walls and the scene, adding details and textures until it feels as real as anything in the real world, and you can feel, hear, touch, taste and smell the place.

Listen closely to the waterfall hitting the pond, see how it isn't always the same, as some parts of the water are denser than others, and make a harder splash.

See the ripples and small choppiness it makes in the pond. The choppy water has standing waves that don't move, but just vibrate in one place. Scientists now recognize these waves and call them scalar waves, but they have existed for eternity, and even longer than eternity.

Open your mind to the waterfall and the scalar waves. The waterfall is alive!. And its not just one sound, but a combination of many sounds. Experience the waterfall and let the sound just pour over you without analyzing it, or judging it. Just experience it, for as long as you want.

Soon the water noise will fade away, and other noises will come, colors even, and random thoughts will begin to pop into your mind, carried to you by the waves of the waterfall. Don't analyse it or judge what comes, it cannot hurt you, just experience it as if you were watching something through a nice sturdy clear window. That window is your shield, its even bulletproof.

Let all thoughts come, but do not call them or follow them or analyze them, just be aware of them, like watching birds fly and noticing their sounds, colors and motions.

See what comes, and open your mind to experience all new thoughts.

You may stop here, or continue on, your choice. There are always choices, they come with our existence, the biggest one whether to come into, and stay in existence. We control our fate. Some choices come with a sacrifice attached, and not some easy sacrifice either.

The 5 heartbeats are the four elements of Air, Earth, Fire and Water, surmounted with the Source from which they flow and congeal into the physical elements.

The flow is pure energy, and the waterfall you are feeling is the flow.

The four elements are the base of a pyramid, and the Source is from the capstone at the top.

You can view it as a fountain if you wish, a fountain of super-water.

Come out of your cave in the pyramid and walk around and up the sides of the pyramid. Feel how each element is accentuated over the others as you move between sides, and see how it forms from the Source.

Feel how the energy changes form as you climb higher on the pyramid, no different, just more solid lower down.

The Source is alive!

Thank it for maintaining all there is.

Perhaps at your next meal, you would offer thanks to the Source that provided it?

This is not exactly what the rest of the world thinks when they give thanks, but they just don't 'get it' like you do now.

All things are from the Source, and all that energy withers and dies and goes down the Drain.

The Drain is the shadow pyramid stretching down from the base of the upper, or Source pyramid.

This whole thing is more diamond shaped, like a fluorite crystal. Look up the shape of a fluorite crystal when you get the chance, and notice the resemblance.

Some refer to the upper pyramid as positive or light, and the lower pyramid as negative or dark, but that is because they are at the join of the two bases of the pyramids, and they see it coming at them and flowing away. Think about the Star Of David, with the two pyramids superimposed one over the other.

We are able to walk both the upper and lower pyramids, and we see that each has it strengths and purpose and function.

The elements turn back to force as they descend the shadow pyramid, culminating in a black capstone like a black hole, the opposite of the Source's capstone that is like what the scientists call a white hole, or an emitter.

We see that the capstones are the opposite, but they are also the same. Like a snake's head and its tail, they are both snake.

And then we realize they are really one, the snake is biting its own tail. There are not two capstones, but one thing, of unknown name, with the outward flow and the inward flow, both at the same time.

Stop here for now, and think on this awhile until you can see this in your minds eye and have a firm grasp on non-physical existence.

How could something exist as two things at once, occupying the same physical space and at the exact same time?

The world says it can't exist, but you are seeing it and you know that it is real.

You must see that it is not two objects at all, but one single thing that transcends space and time, inward and yet outward, a pyramid that is upwards pointing and downwards pointing too at the exact same time.

There are no words for this awakening, but it is an essential and necessary step to understanding our true place in the universe.

It is a huge thing to take in. The human mind rebels from such things. You must learn to use your true nature to contemplate these things."

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ac42.gif)


In short, that.

I have never heard it described that way before, but getting to the Source or the "one that begot the two" as I learned it, is what I am trying for. It is a good way of thinking about. Much easier than shutting down and opening meridian lines in the body, and moving energy to gates.

As to what that is useful for, not a lot other than gaining a profound understanding into the nature of all that exists. In around about way it provides power, though. Knowledge is power, and understanding is the battery that holds it. The more one understands the more power ones battery can hold.

It quite charming that every time I think I am bumbling off at something few people are into, I post at SMF and someone picks it up lake an old hat.


This post has been edited by fatherjhon: May 16 2010, 04:26 PM

Whoa hold on. I might clarify this really quickly~

The meditations I use are grounding meditations: zazen, walking meditations. I've been able to when I put my mind on it to maintain zazen while I continued my daily activities. Otherwise, it comes and goes whenever it likes.

I'm able to reach different forms of gnosis, allowing me to percieve different planes, obviously. One of the most intense ones i've ever experienced is best described by Wow's "emerald dream." Pretty much I have to be falling asleep when I enter gnosis and pretty much fall away and get torn to pieces by a vicious current of greenness. From there, I all conception of self, or rather I become all, and its pretty cool, you know, feeling the edges of existence.

The most commonly used state I access generally requires some foreign substances like baking chocolate (I can actually get intoxicated by by +80% dark chocolate), or a large amount of music. From there, I'm not actually anal retentive about energy and my ego sort of loosens its grasp upon everything, and from splashing water at the beach, tides shift.

The meditations that I want to achieve are being able to actually lose any concept of my body. Stuff you hear about from Diamond Vehicle monks only in whispers without the brutal existential breakdowns, you know only watered down a lot. Stuff hinduism talks about.

What I'm curious about is i've been multitasking with my spirit body and physical body performing different tasks that I don't disassociate from one to the other, rather I actively work through both. What I'm curious about isn't removing one or the other, but in a sense, more 'pointed' stuff.

From my understanding, one does not normally disconnect one body from the other- short of death that is. Even when travailing in the astral, you still have a connection to you physical form. Old master are said to send out their spirit body while they go about whatever it is that they where doing, as if they are in two place at once. There is no disconnect, only two parts of the same thing.

Not sure what you mean by “'pointed' stuff” though.

I also get this and for me it comes down to that I stop thinking about breathing and let my mind drift to what it wants. This is probably true for you also.