Meditation, anyone?

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Just wondering about the prevalence of meditation practice among Aspies ... either that you've discovered for yourself, or perhaps recommended as a therapeutic assist. I find it very calming and centering, helps me maintain a good sense of balance in my life. The very act of observing how much nonsense is constantly streaming through my brain is instructional, and lets me know that I can at least slow it down, if not stop it.

Of course there are many types of meditation practice, and it can be as simple as sitting still and being a detached observer of your own thoughts.

I never tried it, but I would really like to learn it.

I didn't vote because my response would be more like "Learned it, was immensely helped by it, but lacked the self-discipline to continue it for very long." Maybe because it was a special interest for a few months, and once another interest came along, desire to do it just vanished. I'm considering taking it back up... It would have to be something I'm committed to doing, not just an intense curiosity.

For learning, I'd recommend doing it in a group setting with a practiced teacher. This helps (at least for the beginner) to progress in capability with a minimum of distractions, and allows for practical feedback and reinforcement.

I don't know much about meditation but I have spent a whole lot of time wandering around in my head, so I have had plenty of amature meditation practice and have found it very helpful and enlightening.

I simply can't imagine how it's even physically possible to meditate. What am I supposed to feel during the meditation process? What are the steps to reaching it? Is there more than one way of doing it? Is it in any way related to the New Age spirituality?

I once tried meditating (to the best of my knowledge), and all it left me with was a headache.

I'm pretty much convinced that meditation doesn't exist, at least not how the mainstream society presents it. Meditation is a part of Buddhism; a form of non-monotheistic prayer, if you will. Relaxation therapists took it from an ancient religion, completely out of context; corrupted it from its religious form; and repackaged it as a relaxation method.

Semantics aside, some form of meditation is part of most religious practices, and has only lately become popularized in the west. To me it's both a nondenominational spiritual practice and a practice to reduce anxiety, fear, confusion, depression, etc.

After hanging out with Buddhists for years, and trying to learn meditation on my own, I've been going to our local zen center off and on for a couple months.

Random thoughts-Its supposed to empty your head, which is supposed to make your calmer and less conflicted latter.

2) My darned executive function is so poor I never remeber to sit on my own.

3)lots of religous systems use meditation, not just Buddhism.

4)Tibetens in paticular, are pessimistic about most people's ability to make progress(but the
Tibeten tradition has the most complex meditations and a tradition of religous hiarchy.

50 If i understand this stuff right, you shouldn't think about wether you're making progress
anyway.

^) sometimes a short walk in a quit place works just as well, but you can't really combine it with either a hike or a fitness walk, which are both goal oriented.

I used to do yoga a lot and with that comes meditation sometimes and although Im not that good at it yet, I found it helped me to chill out and reassess stuff really well.