use your discernment! it is simply a case of no-one is you or can tel you what is best at any point, sure we can all debate techneques say what has and hasnt worked for us in the past but you have to rely on yourself here, well for the most part, sure if a particulare problem keeps ariving ask Than...

Thanks for welcoming me folks

I'm already liking this place.

All the best
Laurens

Thank you for your kind replies :) I guess my other question would be, how does one know when one has found the right meditation technique? What are the qualities that I should look for? I have tried techniques which make me feel very calm and relaxed, others make me feel blissful (an kind of exciti...

Dugu wrote:What if you didn't like the name they give you, can you make a request for another? just wondering...

That reminds me of that scene in Reservoir Dogs when they are all being given their code names and they start arguing about them

Thanks for the reply. There seems to be a huge variety of interpretations of the Anapanasati sutta resulting in a vast number of techniques. I guess its best not to worry about the method that is the most correct, rather I should go for the method that works.

If you find yourself becoming angry at your father I would certainly recommend metta meditation.

Also another simple thing that might work is this:

"Dad is that okay if you turn the TV down just a little please? I find it distracts me from my meditation"

PICT0048.JPG I keep it fairly simple. I recently bought the Buddha statue off ebay at a reasonible price, its quite a nice statue but when it arrived it had the most awful paint job! So I decided to paint it black and it does look a whole lot better now! I feel like I need to get some better flower...

Thank you for sharing that, I could feel it working just from reading that without even being at the cushion! I makes a lot of sense.

Hello, I was simply wondering whether it is adviseable or not for someone to switch the focus point of awareness from the inhalation to the exhalation? When I breathe in I can strongly feel the breath on the pallette area, however on the out breath my awareness is not as strong on this area, I feel ...

Just to put another spin on things, I listened to a talk in which Ajahn Brahm stated the 'establishing mindfulness infront' means to bring one's attention to the present moment. He was quite adament about this, and stated that it is wrong to focus simply on the nose or the lips, or any area in parti...

There isn't a tendancy in Buddhism to tell you what you can and can't believe, it's much more about discovering the truth for yourself. That being said, one cannot discover the truth with a closed mind, meaning you shouldn't approach any subject such as life after death with complete denial. I think...

Interesting question. I am guessing you meant a world in which everyone would be practicing well and following the teachings closely rather than a world where everyone identified themselves as being Buddhist (because the two would be very different). If everyone was practicing Buddhism then its easy...

Hello

I'm Laurens, several of you may remember by from e-sangha, although I didn't post there an awful lot. As someone increasingly drawn to Theravadin practice I hope that this site would be of great benefit to me.

All the best

Laurens