01-29-2008, 12:00 AM
We are talking about developing Inner Silence or shutting off internal dialogue.
One of my teacher's suggests a couple of things to fight the doziness, and they all make a lot of sense.
If you are too sleepy to meditate, perhaps it's best to rest for a bit, take a nap. Make sure you have eaten properly.
Quality over quantity. Meditate for short periods, like ten to twenty minutes. Make sure you are alert for the whole period.
Meditate with eyes open vs. closed. Do the prep work, the spade work. In other words, do some other types of exercises first to raise the level of your attention. Yoga, Qigong, Tai Chi, breath awareness, relaxation, visualization, etc.
It's very difficult to watch Mind at first. It does get easier once you develop certain positive mental habits.
In the Tibetan Tradition this practice eventually gives rise to five levels of Realization or Liberation.
So while it's useful in and of itself there are profound levels of Reality that there to be discovered.
But really it's not to hold to one method or another. There is no "Secret Mantra". Everyone has to find what's best for them.
Within Buddhism there are at least 84,000 Yanas or methods and none of them is "the right method". So this is just one of the tools we have. When you get to the end, you can leave the tool by the path.
One of my teacher's suggests a couple of things to fight the doziness, and they all make a lot of sense.
If you are too sleepy to meditate, perhaps it's best to rest for a bit, take a nap. Make sure you have eaten properly.
Quality over quantity. Meditate for short periods, like ten to twenty minutes. Make sure you are alert for the whole period.
Meditate with eyes open vs. closed. Do the prep work, the spade work. In other words, do some other types of exercises first to raise the level of your attention. Yoga, Qigong, Tai Chi, breath awareness, relaxation, visualization, etc.
It's very difficult to watch Mind at first. It does get easier once you develop certain positive mental habits.
In the Tibetan Tradition this practice eventually gives rise to five levels of Realization or Liberation.
So while it's useful in and of itself there are profound levels of Reality that there to be discovered.
But really it's not to hold to one method or another. There is no "Secret Mantra". Everyone has to find what's best for them.
Within Buddhism there are at least 84,000 Yanas or methods and none of them is "the right method". So this is just one of the tools we have. When you get to the end, you can leave the tool by the path.