Meditating In Circles? Try Straight Line Meditation
Research confirms it
Research confirms it. No self-help tool holds more potential for benefiting mind, body and spirit. Meditation promises great liberation, great knowledge, great tranquility. Great promise however, is rarely fulfilled.
The shortfall lies with meditation methods that fail to control minds wandering. With traditional methods, even with the best intentions you drift and dream when youd hoped for attention. Going in circles you dont get far. This age-old problem now has a solution: a feedback method stops the wandering. Heres how it works.
The Feedback Method - A Straight Line To Your Goal
Think of meditation as a mountain climb. Your goal is the summit. The fastest route to your goal is a straight line. With guidance from feedback, the fastest route is yours. Feedback prevents minds wandering.
How Feedback Prevents Minds Wandering
Feedback is the knowledge of results necessary for skill learning. In practicing darts for instance, seeing your target (feedback) lets you correct your aim.
Meditation is like shooting darts blindfolded. Your target is attention, but you cant see your target. All-important attention slips away unseen: you lose it without knowing you are losing it. (You find out later when you wake from a daydream.)
The feedback method solves the problem by letting you monitor attention. Add feedback -- see what you are doing, and the butterfly mind takes a bee line. Heres how its done.
How To Add Feedback to Meditation
Adding feedback to meditation is effortless because its already there! Sensations of light often reported in meditation are feedback signals. Feedback has been right before our eyes all along.
If you meditate with open eyes you may have seen it. Many have, but no one recognized its usefulness. We missed the fact that the light is feedback signaling attention. It tells us were on target because its caused by attention itself.
Attention causes sensations of light by holding the eyes still. When you attend to a focus point, a stabilized retinal image uses up photo pigment causing distortion in the form of light. Seeing the light confirms attention. Lose attention and the light disappears. The light is feedback proof of attention, a means of self-guidance, a fix for the wandering mind.
Seeing The Light: The New How To Meditate
Focusing discs specially designed to facilitate feedback are available at the Straight Line Meditation website. To make a simple disc at home, draw a two inch circle on a sheet of paper. Add a pea sized bulls eye. Place the disc on the floor a few feet ahead of you and focus with a gentle gaze on the bulls eye. Soon a halo of light will appear, signaling attention.
When light appears, attend to it. If your mind wanders, your eyes too will wander and the light will vanish. Thats your signal to re-focus on the bulls eye. Simply zero in and hold on to feedback. Youll see the light in more ways than one. Youll go straight to your goal.
Straight Line Meditation
Just sit, says Buddhist tradition, eventually, maybe after many lifetimes, you will come upon the truth. The slow progress expected here assumes lifetimes of wandering the mountainside, missing the summit. Slow progress goes with traditional methods. A straight line by contrast, covers ground fast. With feedback, the summit lies straight ahead.
by: Carol E. McMahon, Ph.D.
Exploring Delta Waves - The Ultimate Meditation, Part 1 Exploring Delta Waves - The Ultimate Meditation, Part 2 Learning Transcendental Meditation: How It Works Meditation Course In London: Some Key Benefits Meditation Power - Learn How To Energize And Cleanse Your Chakras Beginning Meditation Understanding Meditation Choosing A Theta Brainwave CD For Meditation Live Peacefully With The Principles Of Meditation Include Meditation And Chanting In A Kundalini Yoga Session Technique De Méditation Pour Un Débutant L'art De La Méditation : Comment Vous Pouvez Complètement Vous Détendre Avec La Méditation Meditation: What Can You Expect Out Of It?