I'm trying to find ways to control my mind. I repeatedly watch my thoughts catch onto anything that could relate to a traumatic experience in my past, and take some of my concentration. I'd like to find a type of meditation that would help me with this and let my mind continue on it's way. I'd also like to have more composure over my brain. I practice NLP, Chia's inner smile and microcosmic orbit, and some meditations out of Ram Dass's 'be here now' which are helpful. Anybody have some suggestions? I believe this is my last particularly noticeable ego-trip. the rest will just be a calming of the mind, and spiritual growth with my wife.

dropping these two exercises in futility will be a good start. A mind attached to marketing vehicles will not be calm.

find a comfortable location

light some incense (optional)

sit down

close your eyes

breathe

you don't need any fancy meditation

Can you spare 10 days?

www.dhamma.org

I just wrote more details about my experience in this post.

The norwegian link didnt work, but I´ll find it. just did darknessretreat, but missed total silence. even if we hardly spoke. it could become a habit.

Deep question.

The mind cannot be controlled.

The way to go about it is to let it be. Just like you cannot stop a river. You have basically two options, as to how to go about it.

Either sit on the shore and observe the chaos, or become the river.

I've really struggled with wanting something out of my meditation: Peace, absence of thoughts, calm, becoming more detatched, etc. The whole crux with real meditation is that there is nothing you can get out of it.

But my experience is that correct meditation is when you are being meditated. This means that you have no say in what goes on. You're not setting the agenda. When this emerges, alot of pain, emotion, sluggishness, boredom and downright hell comes up.
Better deal with it.

Sometimes, it's better not to meditate. Maybe go for a walk, or climb a mountain, or visit a friend. Other times, meditation is good only if you give up hoping that it will make anything better or different.

Just my hard earned 2 kroner

h

www.dragonherbs.com if you are in the States.

They have different products for stabilizing the mind...

unfortunately I have so far never found one that completely shuts the monkey off...
but they DO HELP immensely...



Harry

........

Meditation and Taoism is about non-attachment. Motion comes from stillness. Returning is the motion of the Tao. If you mind is goind in all directions wait til it calms before beginning your meditation. Quiet sitting is a way to calm your mind.

Wu Wei er Wu Bu Wei....Do Nothing and Leave Nothing Undone.....

Wudangspirit

This is a good place to start,meditation have great benefits.
http://meditationexpert.com/ebok/howtomeditate.pdf

Hi kingfred,

Could you clarify please - do you mean that you want your mind to stop focusing on on traumatic thoughts, or do you mean that you want your mind to be able to focus fully on traumatic memories?

There is something in NLP that may not have come to your attention:

There are three fundamental aspects to the average human -

there is the upper (brain, mind, ego, thoughts, words etc) - there is the middle (heart, emotions, feelings, senses, 'states', the body) and there is the lower (belly, the infinite, 'now')

You can think of the upper mind as the exact opposite of the lower belly. Scientists have found two aspects to light - firstly photons, which can be thought of as discreet, separate, individual particles - and secondly waves - which are like infinite ripples... This is a fundamental paradox in physics - because photons and waves are completely different and opposite in form and function and from our understanding can't coexist... we now have Quantum mechanics that attempts to explain this...

Our minds are like photons - like individual grains of sand. Whereas our bellies are like all the sand and non-sand and everything else in the universe. Our minds are very limited and our bellies are unlimited.

And we come to the bit in the middle - the heart. The heart is much less limited than the mind, but does not even approach the emmense limitlessness of the belly. The heart is the meeting place between the belly and the mind - it's an intermediary between the tiny mind and the infinitely huge belly. The heart is responsible for emotions, sensations, all kinds of talents and skills - working with chi is working on the level of the heart - the heart is the area where belly and mind meet - the meeting and 'mating' of the belly and of the mind is the aim of 'spirituality'.

NLP primarily works on the level of the mind. NLP completely disregards emotion - you'll see Richard Bandler mock emotion, and you'll also see that even though he is highly developed in certain ways, he's very stunted in others - he's unbelievably unhealthy for one - ever noticed how incredibly fat he is!? and then he teaches NLP masters how to have their clients lose weight...

The mind is like the spoilt child of the 3 - it gets all the attention and has the least ability. 98% of humanity is completely led by the child... imagine a child doing open-heart surgery - this is what spirituality lead by the mind is like.

Control is an illusion of the mind. You have never been in control and never will be - if it ever seems that way then you know that the child is attempting open heart surgery again.

NLP is a sharp scalpel - give it to a child and see what happens. It will take reality, cut out anything it doesn't like, keep what it does like and surround itself in all these images, creating a fake little reality for itself that in fact turns out to be a prison.

NLP in different hands can be directed towards learning and discovery... the mind has nothing to do with discovery - discovery is about opening up the limits around us - the mind only wants to create more limits to make us feel safer...

Emotions, feelings, traumas, the letting go of control are all invitations to start our journey into the heart. usually painful at first (the mind has this trick of hiding all the pain under the carpet - so when you lift it, all you see is pain (at first) and eventually when it's cleared out you notice there is always as much pain as pleasure - and both are fantastically nurturing and enticing...

Hagar seems to be getting to that point...


...or you can carry on attempting to control, at least you'd be part of the majority...

well, i just want things throughout the day to not remind me of something that some kids did to me. See these kids gave me drugs and then tried to tell me I was weak and gay. Thanks to the drugs, even though that is all completely untrue, it got burned into my brain. So now, for instance, whenever a guy with his shirt off is on TV, my breath will get more tense. This never happened untill this bad trip happened. So i'm just trying to learn how to go back to the way I was before the drugs, and not notice subtle things that could be gay. This is actually not a big deal to me, I know my sexuality and thank the world for making me the sex that I am. which reminds me to ask about celibacy cause that'll be a hard one to explain to my wife, but that's for another thread. well, the shit's lame but anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks freeform, good post! I like the photons and waves analogy.

Song Yongdao, Thanks. The similarity between light and consciousness is alarming - talk about microcosm - macrocosm...

Kingfred, I realise the vulnerability involved with this issue.
You know how I wrote about the heart? this issue is a conversation between your heart and your mind. Your heart wants to re-live the traumatic experience
and resolve it, while your mind is incredibly frightened by it and tries to ignore the whole thing altogether.

I do have some suggestions for you. Firstly forget about controlling this, forget about healing it or getting rid of it - this struggle against it is what's keeping the trauma in place.
You will have many emotions involved in this issue. Emotions are like flowing rivers - they're designed to move and flow through, your attempt to get rid of them has effectively frozen the river in place and you must now defrost it and
allow it to flow again.

This is very frightening for your mind, because it's an issue to do with your identity. You'll find yourself distracted by flashy practices and visualizations and all the wrong NLP techniques.
I recommend checking out "the power of focusing" book.

Let us know how you get on.

thank you freeform, you spoke to me.



I like that alot too