Well the most easiest thing is using the so called holy word technic.
Since I am doing western-style mediation for more then three years, I am very used to it. There is a theory that when ever you get nervous or being distracted from a task your brain is about to do one of two things. First one of your part of brain is underused causing it to go to a energy-save mode. Since the brain is build for all-scences used scenarios like running around and check out things in nature, our energy-save mode looks like getting sleepy, meaning all parts of the brain went into sleep mode. Second possibility one of your background thoughts getting more important and eating your brainpower giving your the feel of missing something important, over being overstressed and so on. You know you have plenty thoughts you are not aware of going on every time. It’s the brain causing it.
Normally its all ok doing so. Nature is very dynamic. But when doing repeative tasks, your brain is about loosing attention since the environment does not change and everything seams to be under control. So what do we have to do is just keep it bussy. So we do not get to sleep. The easiest way is doing something called a chant. You know some kind of sing-sang the mooks do (most famous are the buddists). Doing jelqing it may be something like ‘Going up, One two three, going down, one two three, going up…’ by synchronizing this to breathing we have something like ‘Going up, <breath> one two three <breath> going down <breath> one two three<breath>…. By stetching the O, I, E vocals we can increase the impact of the sound to our brains. (those are very stimulative and add alertness cause not being seen in the normal environment). This is quite good. The chant solves synchronizing the breath, adding a rythm and involving our word/talk/listen/understand mechanism. Since we are used to speaking without saying something (dont know how to describe it better), we can do this chant sing-sang only in conscious. The human brain has a hook on rythm, so it won’t get tired.
This chant-sing-sang is quite good but you still have to add awareness to it. But you will get into the flow easily and you will lose the feeling of time. Try it.
But how about the holy word? Well the holy word is using a quite diffrent approach but it is more powerfull than the chant. The idea is to drive our brain crazy. Give the brain something it doesn’t understand and add as much resources to it (make it important, a matter of surviving) as you can. The brain will do lower the resources all other thoughts will get. In other word you push every thought out of your brain. Not even out of your awareness (most of the thoughts you aren’t aware already) but out of the scope of your brain. So you are about to eliminate the thoughts. By eliminating you won’t make them go away. After you stop using the holy word the thoughts will drip into your brain slowly but they will do for sure. So you are eliminating thoughts but not the reason for the thoughts. This is another story.
I have talked that much but I didn’t tell you what it is. So what is the holy word? To be honestly it can be every word. But the word has to meet one requirement. It has to drive your brain crazy. It has to make it through every bit of brain power in the task as it can. So how can we do it?
Well it is quite simple. Our brain is trained to understand. And even if something isn’t understand the brain should at least offer a theory, an idea what it might is. So what word do we use? Well any word you can invent but has no meaning. Doing some research and adding some knowledge about the chant and mantras I came up with Pademi. You have three vocals, it has no meaning to me - if it has a meaning for you don’t tell me! Once I know a meaning it will be useless and it is being ruined forever for me.
So we have a word like my Pademi. Reading it, no meaing, hearing it no meaning, seperating it, no meaning, similar words, noone known. Perfect. This is what we want. So now we can drive the brain crazy. But how can we make it important. How can we make the brain that funny that it throws all its full brain power at it?
Well actually it is quite simple too. Repeat it. Like the chant is being repeated, we repeat the holy word over and over again. And since we know about the power of rythm (that’s why I mentioned the chant earlier) and the sync with the breath, we use Pa-De-Mi <breath> Pa-De-Mi… .
So by repeating it and doing it in a rythmic style and control our breath, we make it important. If you want the brain to draw attantion to, just repeat it.
But we can add more attention to it. Lets not only say the words but also visualize them. You know when I say Paaaa (stretch the vocals) I see the Letters Pa dancing from left to right, followed by De(ee) and Mi(ii). So you add your most powerfull scence, the visualisation to it. And also you can let it wave or add a color to each letter or what ever. But attention don’t let the visualisation become the task. The word should be the most important.
So enough distraction, what will it do to you? Well by repeating it you wont pass out but your brain will get empty. Its like the mooks saying Ommmmm over and over again. But this one is faster. For the buddists Omm is a magic word. Used to get away from normal live and enter the innerself (well it does empty the brain, no mystic is going on here). But our word does not have any meaning to us and is yet more powerfull for the untrained.
By repeating the word your brain will get empty. All you have in mind is this single word. The visualisation is the same and after repeating it around 20 or 30 times will lose the feeling of time for sure. Since the word has no meaning your brain can not get it. Inother word it is drawn to it. That means you won’t get bored after all.
But the real fun starts when after you done it for some time (around 10min) you stop repeating it. Then you open your eyes and watch. If you have never meditated that way, you will be amaze. You are only existing. No thought no expectation is driving you. Since all the thoughts has being eaten up by repeating the holy word and now your only task, the most impotant task has gone. You are part of the world now. You are united with everything. Well this is the idea of those religious guys. My explaination is quite simplier. Your brain is empty. You have no reason to act. You are only reacting. This makes you calm and positiv. You will feel no fear, you will not be angry nor happy. And then the normal madness will drip into your brain again. All your thoughts are back again. And after some couple of seconds (my first emptyness lasted about 10secs or so) everything is back to normal.
But is repeating those word over and over again isn’t also a bit stressing? Yes it is. It is a way to empty your mind. And once it is empty you can focus on what ever task you want. Empty mind is the only why into the flow. The chant will empty it, the holy word is emptying it, a child while playing will have an empty mind too.
But it lasts for 10 sec and I need 10min to get there - whats the deal dude? Simply training. I need around 5 to 10 secs repeating the word to empty my mind (except I am quite stressed) and since I am used to it I am happy with an empty mind. And once I notice other thoughts are dripping back in my mind I am just repeat the words again until its empty again. Doing this for years, I can just sit infront of my desk and get into the flow. I did not repeated pademi to get there since I am used to it and I was relaxed. And once you feel your emotions taking over control of you and you don’t want it, just repeat the word and you will gain selfcontrol nearly instantly since you are trained to empty your mind.
And once you have mastered it you can serious think and talk about everything. You don’t fear anything since you can calm down and think about the reason of your fear instead of being blocked by it.
I guess that’s it.
PS: Wow look I wrote all this stuff and didn’t felt boring nor I know how much time I spent. That technic changed my live for sure :-) .
PSS: Empty table requires a skilled visualisation. You start by imagen a table. Then you take of the foots of the table and you make the table to apear white or gray. So you are looking on an empty table and look and look. After a while things will pop up on this table. This things are related to your thoughts you are not aware of. The empty table is sometimes used to solve and get aware of thoughts bugging you. When things pop up you simply wipe them off the table and let them disapear. The brain will offer you many things to do something usefull. But you wipe it off everytime. So after the brain have noticed it can not add value to the table, it will give up. Or at least is going nuts and tries to understand what this table is all about. I don’t know. But it empties your mind the same way. But I couldn’t master the table before mastering the word. So I guess you should stick with the holy word first.
PSSS: Try to do the holy word whenever you are getting bored or angry. Like in a waiting chain or when walking around. It’s amazing how an empty (in term of waiting,walking) or fully focused (when doing a task) feels. Try it. Empty your mind, think about what causes the emotion and whats the reason of it… .
So now I am off :-) . I wont proof-read my writing. I have to go to bed now. If you have questions left, just ask me.
