No.18266
Does anyone on here meditate? I've been getting into it recently, and I think it's a really great thing to do. It's more humanistic and not directly cyberpunk, but I still think it is and will be necessary for humans in a cyber world to find inner peace away and personal freedom from corporations, etc.
Discuss your methods and general meditation ITT.
No.18268
>>18266No, but i have tought about it.
Also unlike in that image you don't have to sit in that kinda position, it's more like relax and focus on breathing.
There are also more meditation techniques than just one.
No.18269
>>18268Well yeah, this is just a simple and fairly common method. I find that focused breathing makes for the easiest meditation for a beginner, and it's good to have good posture when meditating, that's why this position is common.
Like I said, I really would recommend it; if you suffer from anxiety or depression like myself, it may help you alleviate that. I've only done it for about a week and I can tell that it's helping me some.
No.18271
I just listen to post/prog rock while laying on the bed, is that meditation?
No.18273
>>18271If you want it to be.
No.18274
No.18275
No.18282
>>18266meditation is nice and all, but how the fuck is it even remotely /cyber/
No.18294
>>18282In my experience, technology overwhelms me and it's pretty clear that modern humans are addicted to it. Walk outside and you'll see 90% of the people on their phones. As soon as they get bored, they open up their phone.
I meditate to clear my mind from the technological world, and I posted this thread because maybe others do too (or maybe they can learn).
No.18301
>>18294Right, and that's fine and all, but: How is it /cyber/?
No.18335
i want to merge with my tech
not run away from it
No.18337
>>18301Not OP but…
think about it as brain/mind hacking. The stuff posted here fundemntal meditation, good advice, but the very basics.
Unless you want an AI to do your thinking for you being able to have a clear mind and apply it to problems is always going to be necessary.
Learning how to control your mind and deal with existential crisis will be relevant even if your a full cyberized ghost in the machine, probably even more so.
Beyond the benefits of fairly basic meditation you can learn about memory palaces, lucid dreaming, and a whole host of other mental skills that roughly fall into meditation as long as your not on some mystical kick. Think about how often it is pointed out the only way to keep information really secure is to keep it in your head? Meditation is the basic exercise that allows you to keep impressive amounts of information in your head. When we can tell what your thinking about from a brain scan, meditation will be the skill that helps you not think about anything.
If that still isn't good enough for you people are all ready combining mediation with things like neurofeedback, nootropics, and isolation tanks. All of which are pretty /cyber/ on their own.
If you feel the need to rice it up then feel free, I'd love some mindhacking info graphics or whatever, but the benefits should be obvious even if it isn't a stylistic match.
No.18356
>>18335Bitch, how the fuck are you supposed to crack skulls if you can't even clear your head?
No.18383
>>18266Hey OP, just so you know, meditation isn't about sitting or breathing.
>meditation is not the absence of though, but the practice of stillnessWell that depends who you ask. I studied daoist chan meditation, what the japanese call zen.
If he sits thinking about shit for a couple of minutes a day, I wouldn't call that meditation.
He does point out something good though, use a cushion. The monks sat on flat stones. If you have a big enough butt this isn't necessary.
No.18420
>>18383Meditation isn't about sitting or breathing, but for a beginner that's one of the best ways to get into the practice. It's hard to think about nothing, but it's relatively easy to minimize your thoughts to that of just your breath, which you can then expand your abilities. Actually, when I created this thread, I was hoping that it would inspire others to share their techniques and help their fellow c-punks out.
>>18337You made a ton of great points. I think what criticizers of this thread fail to realize is that meditation is all about having control of your mind, and really that's the most important thing we could have in a cyberpunk society. Like you said, if shit got all totalitarian with thought police and whatnot, meditation would help us to not give up our brains so easily.
No.18446
>>18420>I was hoping that it would inspire others to share their techniques and help their fellow c-punks outAre you hinting at me to share to share my secrets with you? Go on then. I will describe two techniques for practice. I suggest you practice these some place quiet, at the very least where you cannot hear spoken words.
Technique 1:
Lay on your back on flat ground. Bend your knees and roll your pelvis forward as if about to sit on a chair with the soles of your feet flat on the ground and shoulder width apart. Tuck in your chin. The length of your spine should now be straight and the length of it flat against the ground. Place something small just above and between your brows. Place your right hand over your heart, cupping your left pectoral. Place the palm of your left hand over your dantian, centre of your lowest abdominal below the belly button roughly higher or in line with the hips. Breath in from the dantian to the floor allowing the diaphragm to distend and breath out pushing the dantian allowing the diaphragm to sink.
Be aware of your breathing, equal breath duration in and out. Be aware of your heart rate and how it relates to your breath. Be aware of the tension in your body and relax the point between your eyes first and then the rest of you. As your mind becomes quiet you will begin to realise you are aware of and feel more than you pay attention to. Given time you can slow your heart rate right down and steady your breathing at will. This is also good for posture but that would take much more than I can type here to get in to.
Technique 2:
This position is for when you are sleepy but don't want to slip off whilst meditating. As you stand, cross one foot over the other. Then bend your knees and lower yourself down to the ground. Your knees will be on the ground with one of your legs laying flat shin to toe and the other leg on top with the shin laying on the lower part of the calf of the other leg. Toes stick out so as you sit the weight of one leg sits into the other. Your heel should be somewhere near your anus. You should feel an uncomfortable sensation coming from your calf which will keep you awake. Sit upright with a straight spine and hands on your lap or what ever you like.
People write books about what your head should be doing so I will leave that to you.
No.18455
>>18268The image depicts zazen, the seated Zen meditation. The reason that it has a set position is not that the position itself is important, but if you follow the set rules it gives your mind less to think about, it won't wander around as much. So it's not that the decisions made for you are important, but the fact that you don't have decisions to make so you can focus on just sitting, on just meditating.
No.18566
>My method
Lay flat on back, head on level with body, arms at sides. Idea here is to minimise pressure on any one part of the body.
Stick some binaural beats, white noise or general fuzzy music thereby eliminating external sound
Wear a soft blindfold or ensure I'm somewhere dark thereby eliminating external sight
Focus initially on one thing to eliminate random thoughts, then attempt to stop thinking even about that; to think of nothing.
Also fun: map out your own body using thought alone, try to focus on then eliminate feeling in various body parts. If you get a pins-and-needles sensation, it's working.
>Why meditation is /cyber/?
Potential to get you in touch with underlying mesh of the Universe, program reality.
There's a lot of parallels to be drawn between programming and Eastern spirituality/Western occultism
No.18573
>go running at night
>wind up in a park where the city noise and lights are distant blurs all around you
>stand still, blank everything out, concentrate purely on the sensation of breathing
No.18580
>>18573Sounds like a fucking awesome time m8
No.18583
Really son what you're doing with your life?
No.18679
Meditation is an oldschool technology of mind, in the sense of 'technical/technique knowledge'. It must be among the oldest mind-altering technologies.
Old yet still incredibly potent. Meditation can teach you tranquility amidst distraction, and distractions have never been in greater abundance today. Its in that tranquility that your greatest cyber-techno skills flow freely. The idea of 'punk' may differ from person to person, but for me reaming calm among adversity has recently become a great priority of mine, and the effort has already paid off. I step away from technology for a bit, but I come back feeling relieved and more ready and capable than before, which I like. I tried living completely among technology, but it didn't quite work for the best I feel.
No.18804
So what I need to do is be comfy, relax and focus on breathing and not think of anything?
No.18806
>>18804essentially, it's a little bit more complicated rthan that though
No.18809
No.18810
>>18809Training your mind to not wander is a difficult thing to master.
No.18814
>>18810Not for me though.I can keep my mind empty easily.
No.18830
>>18814Well, that's good. Now explore your empty consciousness.
No.18831
Lots of misconceptions in this thread
Meditation IS NOT ABOUT NOT THINKING OF ANYTHING.
It's about
OBSERVING
your thoughts and letting them happen to you. You can be thinking about anything you want, you just need to be aware of your thoughts.
It's best to dismiss them and let them go right after you notice them, though.
No.18833
>>18831I don't get it, well i kinda do but kinda don't.
No.18834
Just sit down without any stimulus. No music, no screen, book or newspaper. Recline comfortably. Let your thoughts wash over you, observe but do not engage.
Eventually your previous thoughts will abate. After this, there is typically an active few minutes of your brain trying to get a bigger picture of your current situation in life, telling you what tasks need accomplishing next and so on.
After this comes the deep calm, in which you can descend into yourself. Personally I have a very special place constructed here, reflecting different aspects of my thoughts and being. This part is highly individual.
No.18861
So how do you guys meditate?
How does your process go and what are the things you do?
No.18865
>>18861I started to write a response but it came off really mystical and showy and not very practical or helpful.
To try and simplify zen, you simply need an awareness of all your thought. Thought can only be experienced in the instant it exists. People who are unaware are easily manipulated because a different part of their brain is more developed to focus on imaginative thought. They are solving tasks and imagining the past or future. They have a highly developed "sub" conscious to essentially function for them whilst they focus on other things. The sub conscious can be compared to an auto pilot and it makes people easily manipulated or influenced. It also causes problems because people can find they are no longer in control of their actions to varying degrees. An example of this is a fat person unable to maintain the discipline to lose weight or a serial killer who is unaware they could stop at any time. Gaining this awareness takes time spent in meditation. Once gained these people realise (as I did) that there is no phantom or devil or soul but only what you choose to do and the reasons you make those choices. What's more is you realise there is a constant unneeded noise of thought which you can stop at will. Even the most basic of thought you can do by choice. Breath is oddly enough by choice but it isn't until you choose not to breath you really become aware of what is thought and what is pure instinct and that you can overcome that instinct if you choose. I am not saying I have held my breath till I passed out but I have reduced my breathing to the point where I knew the difference between my cognition and my instinctual reflex to breath. Some monks even choose to die in meditation, very powerful stuff.
I hope this made sense. I have felt the frustration of being a beginner and trying to decrypt the riddles told by practitioners. My advice is just to dive in and you will naturally figure the rest out if you push your self.
Try beginning with a fast. Defining the difference between what you know or feel and what you think or what you need and what you want can be a good first step.
No.18866
>>18831Sorry but you are wrong and it sounds like you are very undisciplined if that is truly how you meditate. Of course my opinion is of no worth to you but I offer you a test to see if you have truly mastered meditation.
It requires a pea and a small amount of earth, water and time. Take a dried garden pea for planting. Break a small hole in the outer skin and leave in water until it sinks. Place on the palm and put roughly 1cm of wet earth on top. If you can sit in meditation till that pea pops up then you pass.
If however your mind drives you to distraction then you fail.
If you should get up at any point and only be aware moments after I highly suggest you consult a teacher.
No.18909
How exactly do you meditate correctly?
Each time I attempt to meditate, my mind starts thinking about things and worrying about any mistakes i've made.
I can't relax because my mind has to think about or compute something.
How do you clear your mind and just relax?
No.18928
YouTube embed. Click thumbnail to play.
>>18909You are doing it right. Keep at it.
Alternatively, here is an instruction video. The guy has been meditating for almost an hour a day for nearly a year, so he really knows what he's talking about… schway. He's a bullshit artist.
Try to distract yourself with your senses. Sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. But just raw sense, not what you think you see, hear, smell, taste and feel. When you see clouds, don't think clouds.
Sorry, this probably isn't very helpful. Try seeking out a teacher.
No.18935
No.19124
I meditated a few times, but now I can't. I went into some weird ass trance for like 30 minutes and it was pretty cool, I felt way more relaxed and had a bit of a "glow" for like a day after. Now, every time I try to do it I just get antsy and stop. How can I get back into it? Should I go into it with no expectations and try not to live up to the time I succeeded in clearing my mind?
No.19131
Does anyone on here masturbate? I've been getting into it recently, and I think it's a really great thing to do. It's more humanistic and not directly cyberpunk, but I still think it is and will be necessary for humans in a cyber world to find inner peace away and personal freedom from corporations, etc.
Discuss your methods and general masturbation ITT.
No.19135
>>19131This. Please stop posting things that have little to no direct relation to cyberpunk.
What we really need is a single thread to contain all these niche interests that could
potentially have some things in common with cyberpunk or that can be relevant to cyberpunk. But otherwise, this is a cyberpunk board for talking about cyberpunk shit, not a personal blog for you to talk about your interests and get its approval from us.
No.19171
>>19131>>19135Samefag
You're what's ruining this board. Just because you aren't interested in it doesn't mean it isn't relevant to the board. If we're going to have one thread for all the "niche interests", then why not just have one general thread for everything? That wouldn't be very fun would it?
If you don't like it, report it, but well, good luck with that. Whether or not you want to admit it, being in touch with your own consciousness is extremely /cyber/.
(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) No.19174
>>19171>'WAHH I DON'T GET TO POST WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT WITHOUT ANY STANDARDS WHATSOEVER BEING RELEVANT TO THE THREADS I POST BECAUSE MY INTERESTS ARE SO IMPORTANT AND SPECIAL'>'hurr well ur just a samefag anyways ur ruining the board lol le banana maymay'Shut the fuck up forever holy shit.
(You're both choobs - knock it off.) No.19199
>>19190>>19174>>19171>>19131I was gonna ban y'all but reviewed some of the content and decided that since it's your first offenses I'll let it slide. However, stop acting like immature shazbots and get back to the topic of the thread.
No.19289
>>19199Thank you based mod
No.19290
Last night I sat in meditation for ~30 minutes. Just a simple breathing pattern, and I focused solely on my breathing. I began to feel myself free from my hands, and eventually my legs. It was like those parts of my body didn't even exist. It was weird as shit. After that, I begin to just feel really creative. I was writing really weird abstract poetry in my head, but I couldn't remember it afterwards. Eventually I succumbed to itches on my face, and didn't attempt to get back into this state of bliss.
Afterwards, I felt really peaceful. Meditation is great, and it's great to just disconnect from everything for a little bit. One of the things I'm curious about is how much this can be expanded on. Can I eventually numb my entire body and free my mind from all external factors, with my thoughts coming solely from my subconsciousness?
No.19348
>>19290So if I want to meditate, I should just focus on my breathing?
No.19353
No.19455
if I meditate usually it just reminds me of why I'm meditating and that is that people are loud in my area and then I nerdily swing punches into the air mid meditation because I have violent thoughts it's fucking annoying punctuation
No.19466
>>19290There are those monks that believe the final test is to sit in meditation and burn to death. Mayahana buddhists if I recall.
No.19467
>>19455Sounds like you are trying to tell yourself something.
No.22898
>>19290
Meditation is good, but if you meditate too much, you start to lose yourself. You start to love everything, and you no longer care about anything. It sounds great, but you'll start hugging trees, stop eating, etc. It's not good.
No.22910
No.22931
It's a bit Silicon Valleyish, hipster "hacker"-style, but I'm a fan of https://www.headspace.com/
No.22940
So, I think that they whole metaphysical spiritual aspects of meditation are complete and utter bullshit, but it seems to me that there could be some strict utilitarian benefits to my mind by practicing it. Being able to clear one's head and focus on something is an underrated skill.
What's some secular meditation shit I could look into? Like this seems like what I'm thinking about to some degree >>22931
No.22941
>>22931
>>22940
Except that they're a business social network-y kind of thing with "apps" and a F2P model. If it isn't free knowledge I don't want any part of it.
No.22959
>>18268
when I meditate I listen to loud-ass metal, close my eyes, and just focus on the music.
No.23021
Bumping this thread with the Neijing Tu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neijing_Tu
This is hacking the mind and body. I have done excercises where it was advised to take off quartz watches, because the specific type of Qi generated in the excercise had destroyed quartz watches before. Human EMP.
I would also recommend the book The Tao of Programming. http://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html
In some way, I agree that meditation is cyberpunk, but I`m still not sure, because the lack of technology.
No.25585
>>23021
I'm going to try this, thanks for sharing, user.
No.25587
whenever I try to relax/meditate my biggest enemy is my own body. I do zero exercise and I have accumulated years of bad posture on the computer. Taking a straight posture strains me like taking a bad posture for someone who stands straight. Also it's like I can't fully relax because my muscles are overcharged, I can feel my joints "squeaking" and it's the most annoying feel ever. I guess the only answer is "exercise".
No.25589
No.26643
>>19353
>that link
back to fringe m80
No.26676
No.26684
No.31411
>>18266
I've been doing mindfulness meditation in sessions of 10 to 20 minutes. I haven't been able to get it to be a daily thing but it really works.
It's not bullshit
No.31465
>>18420
>meditation is all about having control of your mind, and really that's the most important thing we could have in a cyberpunk society
So if I make a thread about access to clean water, since that's an important thing to have in a cyberpunk society, it's automatically suited for a /cyber/ thread?
No.31468
>>31465
This. Ten times this.
No.31469
>>31468
>>31465
Thirding this.
Fuck's sake, guys. I know I'll get flak for even mentioning it, but I used to be a regular on /r/cyberpunk. A big regular. Made an account just for that sub. Left because half the shit there wasn't even cyberpunk. City pictures are nice and all, but when a time-lapse picture of a soldier swinging a glowstick around his head is upvoted to the heavens along with a Ukranian rioter wearing a gas mask, something is wrong. I don't want to see the same shit happening here.
No.31480
>>18573
>Suddenly, in your zen states, a fist comes flying into the back of your head
>oh no! You forgot to check for dindu nuffins!
>the dindu beats you to a pulp and takes your shoes and wallet
>just another day
No.37228
>>31469
>>31468
>Ten times this.
>Thirding this.
You're from Reddit? You don't say.