Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

General discussion of issues related to Theravada Meditation, e.g. meditation postures, developing a regular sitting practice, skillfully relating to difficulties and hindrances, etc.
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DNS
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by DNS »

[Sitting] meditation is like a concert pianist practicing scales.
The 'performance' is life.

(I think it might have been Shinzen Young who used this analogy first)
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by Buckwheat »

Meditation is like going into a cocoon to transform self identities into thin air.

About two years ago I went through a phase where I felt like I was mourning my own death. Shortly afterwards, I thought of meditation as returning to the womb, waiting to be reborn, and eventually (hopefully) realizing there is no more birth.
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
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Travis
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by Travis »

Just thought of this:

Meditation is like digging a well. You have to remove the dirt and break up the stones before it will fill with water.
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rowboat
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by rowboat »

Meditation is like this:

Image
Rain soddens what is covered up,
It does not sodden what is open.
Therefore uncover what is covered
That the rain will not sodden it.
Ud 5.5
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings David,
David N. Snyder wrote:[Sitting] meditation is like a concert pianist practicing scales.
The 'performance' is life.

(I think it might have been Shinzen Young who used this analogy first)
It's a good one... and it's a reminder of what the purpose of the meditation is in the first place, and where its benefits will come to fruition.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by Cafael Dust »

The sea gathering waves.
Not twice, not three times, not once,
the wheel is turning.
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Ben
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by Ben »

Apologies for butchering a Magnetic Fields song...
Meditation is like a violent crime
If you do it wrong - you'll do time,
But if you do it right it is sublime
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by zavk »

To borrow the writings of a French philosopher, for me meditation "unfolds in the pureness of the wait. Waiting is directed at nothing: any object that could gratify it would only efface it. Still, it is not confined to one place, it is not a resigned immobility; it has the endurance of a movement that will never end and would never promise itself the reward of rest; it does not wrap itself in interiority; all of it falls irremediably outside. Waiting cannot wait for itself at the end of its own past, nor rejoice in its own practice, nor steel itself once and for all, for it was never lacking courage. What takes it up is not memory but forgetting. This forgetting… is extreme attentiveness."

:anjali:
With metta,
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by Chi »

Meditation is like purposely putting myself in fire so 'I' burn faster.
Do Good, Avoid Evil, Purify the Mind.
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by pegembara »

Meditation is life.

Meditation can get up off the cushion, can open its eyes, and can travel with you constantly. But remembering to meditate is a skill that must be learned through vigorous intention, attention, and never giving up. Anything, you do daily, can become a meditation.

In this way, everything in your life is there to help you, to teach you, and not seen as some kind of an obstruction to meditation…even ‘the terrible routine violence of jail meditation’ can remind you of calming breath. Perhaps even ‘fighting for your life meditation’ can work to strengthen your resolve to be free.

The Buddha's final admonition to his disciples on his death bed is this: "Transient are all component things. Work out your deliverance with heedfulness!" (vaya-dhamma sankhara, appamadena sampadetha). And the last words of the Venerable Sariputta, the foremost disciple of the Buddha, who predeceased the Master, were this: "Strive on with Heedfulness! This is my advice to you!" (sampadetha appamadena, esa me anusasana).

In both these injunctions the most significant and pregnant word is appamada, which literally means incessant heedfulness. Man cannot be heedful unless he is aware of his actions — whether they are mental, verbal, or physical — at every moment of his waking life. Only when a man is fully awake to and mindful of his activities can he distinguish good from bad and right from wrong. It is in the light of mindfulness that he will see the beauty or the ugliness of his deeds.
And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by DarwidHalim »

Meditation is like a holy attachment.
I am not here nor there.
I am not right nor wrong.
I do not exist neither non-exist.
I am not I nor non-I.
I am not in samsara nor nirvana.
To All Buddhas, I bow down for the teaching of emptiness. Thank You!
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

My meditation smilies: :console: or :anjali: or sometimes more like :zzz:

Or perhaps you meant to say "Simile."

A meditation session is like taking a break.
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by Cal »

Meditation is like this.

(In an attempt to follow the style of Ajahn Sumedho)

Best wishes
Cal
Right Speech: It is spoken at the right time. It is spoken in truth. It is spoken affectionately. It is spoken beneficially. It is spoken with a mind of good-will. [AN 5.198]

Personally, I seem to gain the most insight when I am under the most pressure, when life is at its most unpleasant. There is something in me on those occasions which feels that there is nothing left but to be aware of 'this'. Ajahn Sumedho - Don't Take Your Life Personally, p288
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by JackV »

For me presently:
Meditation is becoming patient at impatience

Or add any other word and it's antonym to follow
Here where a thousand
captains swore grand conquest
Tall grasses their monument.
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Re: Meditation is like... (put your similie here)

Post by David2 »

Meditation is like watching trash on an assembly line (i.e. the time) that's moving by.

The task is to just watch and to not crave for more trash of some kind, and to not have aversion for another kind of trash -- trash is trash.

To not think of the trash as "mine", controllable or substantial, to not think of it as permanent, to not think of it as satisfactory - how can trash be satisfactory?

The less we crave, the easier it becomes to watch the trash and to see the trash-nature: Empty, impermanent, unsatisfactory.
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