Re: requesting help with chapter 1 of IIH

["SeaWinder" <seawinder@...>]

Hello, all;

I remember when I first began concentration exercises. I don't 
remember where I found the instructions but what finally helped me, 
(and boy was I plenty frustrated with myself back then) was to happen 
onto instructions given on pranayama yoga, or some buddhist 
meditating exercises. 

I do, however, remember what the specific exercises were that brought 
results. The meditation went like this:

Try to be quiet with your mind. Any thought that arises just:

1). Follow it and let it float away like a baloon filled with air.

2). Try to detect where the thoughts are arising from. When you 
locate the general direction, then think of the thoughts as trees, 
and chop the tree down as close to the root as possible.

What I found in doing these exercises was that my thoughts arose from 
my chest, the Tiphereth area (the heart chackras in the Eastern 
traditions). In fact at that place I found a lake. And each thought 
occurred on the lake like a drop of water falling and causing rings 
to form on the placid lake top.

Eventually I was able to keep the lake top quiet for long periods of 
time. Concurrently I was also concentrating on following a sweeping 
second hand on a clock around as it moved. Eventually I was able to 
stop the second hand (freeze it in motion). About that time I also 
experienced samsadhi/nirvana in the experience of experiencing such a 
quiet moment that in a second my consciousness shot out beyond the 
earth, expanded beyond the universe and to the ends of the universe, 
and "immediately" it sprang back and went inside of myself and into 
the center of my chest and became first a molecule and then a nano 
atom planet like our earth in comparison to the universe of that 
molecule. And suddenly I was awakened to normal consciousness. It was 
amazing. 

All of that was because I persevered with the initial meditating 
exercises of allowing my thoughts to rise and leave by following 
them, following my thoughts to their root within myself, and to 
concentrate on one object. 

Though I was horribly frustrated at the beginning, I stuck with it 
and after about 9 months I had results. I can only say that if you 
stick with it you will come out of it with pleasant results.

Stick with it.

I Wish You Well,
Chuck