
Ask HN: Advice on meditation for anxious, restless, distracted mind? - justaguyhere
I have a monkey brain. Unless I am extremely interested in a topic&#x2F;task, I find it quite hard to concentrate for longer periods on it. Planning to try meditation to calm down and improve overall.<p>Other than taking a retreat like Vipassana (which I understand I need to take 10 days off from work), what advice would you give me to start? I have never meditated before. I am willing to try anything, including headbands, mantras etc.
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PaulHoule
I went to a 2 day intensive course at my local Namgyal monastery that I think
was good.

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ksaj
Have you spoken to a doctor about conditions such as ADHD? Your first sentence
is pretty much spot on what someone with ADD or ADHD might say about their
daily experience.

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stazz1
"Meditation" is a wonderful word and in a lot of ways a misnomer. Acclimation
or Recognition might be better terms to describe the process. Essentially, due
to ignorance all beings end up in discomfiture. This ignorance can be wiped
away clean by insight into absolute reality. Insight into absolute reality
requires a positive bounce and universal compassion. The vast infinite
universe is packed with uncountably many sentient beings, all who have within
themselves the potential for awakening. As I want to be happy and free of
dissatisfaction, so do they all. Compassion is noble and allows us to
entertain and understand selflessness.

(Infinity of) Continuum Hello and, with you again, rolling some hopefully
helpful thoughts on the most inscrutable but also most important discipline
i've come across in all my days, now I'd like to pivot and speak about the
Continuum and Focus.

The continuum is easy enough to comprehend. People say the material world
yields material causes and effects. The mental world is made of mental causes
and results in mental effects. Prior moments of world are made of world, prior
moments of mind are made of mind. We can explore this idea more deeply, but
fundamentally we are seeking the well body of breathing and good resonance
that pervades our body-psychic system and is largely influenced by the quality
of our thoughts, attitudes, health, and degrees of flow of the body fluids and
winds. Reeling back a bit consider infinite time. Infinite time with infinite
world still does not explain where mind comes from. On the other end, if mind
creates mind, then mind is foremost, and might in some way magnetically find
and forge environs in its process of grasping and becoming. Clinging,
grasping, and later on becoming are just a couple of the links in the causal
chain known as the twelve nidanas. It is this causal sequence that we are
trying to somehow halt or arrest, if only for an instantaneous moment of
focus, because once the link is clearly allowed to melt the chain is a lot
less strong.

That's a lot.

Focus is very fundamental, and until you can focus on the dance of breath and
body (your breath is a companion for life), just focus on a dot on the ground
or the wall for a while. Try and actually keep it in focus. This should expose
the vibratory nature of the universe immediately. Duratable focus is how we
are going to illuminate the dark corners or clouds of in-conciseness. Single-
pointed-precision or Single-pointed-concentration is therefore key for a
diligent and thorough investigation into reality's qualities and properties
(assuming it has some we can name or identify) and it must be undertaken/done
with a positive attitude, a chipper or cheerful countenance.

Short of that, "meditation" can be done to help focus by a classical
meditation where one separates black and white stones. Black stones for an
unsavory thought that does not benefit oneself or all sentience / sentient
beings / community, and light colored stones to indicate a wholesome thought
or helpful thought to all sentience / sentient beings / community. This lets
one learn how to observe ones mind without being too rigid about what is being
thought. In general, the mind wants to be your friend, help you focus, and it
can take hints. Focus training could also be something like staring at
particular points for ~15 second periods and trying to hold them perfectly in
focus. You may find it to be impossible - vibratory nature.

Related way to keep your ocular muscles healthy: take about 2-3 minutes in a
day to adjust your eyeballs' focal points by looking at near trees, near
homes, near phenomena, then gradually increase the distance, trying to clearly
focus on new objects at deeper and farther distances. Finally, work your way
back on the same chain of objects. Small, frequent, and useful techniques will
go far. Still, making time to sit and let the emotional wattage of daily life
dissipate through the slightly enlarged vessel of quietude-and-sensory-
withdrawn-mind will help immensely. Again, frequency preferable to intensity.

