It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
In Hinayana [this would include branches such as Tibetan Buddhism], there are two elementary ways (of beginner's practice): one is to count the breaths, and the other is to contemplate the impurity (of the body). In other words, a practitioner of Hinayana regulates his breathing by counting the breaths. The practice of the Buddha-ancestors, however, is completely different from the way of Hinayana. An ancestral teacher has said, “It is better to have the mind of a wily fox than to follow the way of Hinayana self-control.”
originally posted by: brazenalderpadrescorpio
my meditation is that much freer since I feel comfortable in knowing that my technique is not just going to lead nowhere.
One of the techniques that actually does give me comfort in knowing that it is an aspect of this school is that of having your eyelids slightly open while meditating. This gives me comfort because, while meditating, sometimes my eyelids flutter about, and this would lead me to the belief that the meditation was not as deep since I could partly see the room around me.
I also get struck by the realization that secular mindfulness based interventions seem to utilize techniques from Zen Buddhism (especially the Sōtō school) more than any other branch of Buddhism.
originally posted by: brazenalderpadrescorpio
a reply to: EviLCHiMP
Very lucid and insightful. I'm not sure if this answers your question but, even though I feel a very blissful feeling while meditating, I'd like to get to the point where a stillness is reached. That seems to be the goal of meditation if it can be said that meditation has a goal (I'd say that an advanced meditator would not believe that there is a goal, as someone previously alluded to). But I'd say that I have to be patient for that to happen.