Comments on: When Lynch Met Fellini

By: In the Distance, Oblivious » Vanishing

In the Distance, Oblivious » Vanishing — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:12:42 +0000

[...] The ominous distance. Just going down the road like everybody else. [...]

By: HerbT

HerbT — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:07:10 +0000

The book by Jon Kabat Zinn “Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life” is an excellent introduction to meditation.

http://www.librarything.com/work/11565

By: BrittanyTwoFacedStabberHead

BrittanyTwoFacedStabberHead — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:36:15 +0000

An American Zen Buddhist , Charlotte Joko Beck, prescribes in her book Everyday Zen a method called Beep Meditation (likely not the origin). You sit quietly and when a thought comes up, you say ‘beep’ out loud or to yourself. I’ve tried this and it is very frustrating but I think it is useful in forcing yourself to face the useless abstractions/distractions that crop up in conscious thought by forcing ownership of them. Horrible, horrible.

The first time I tried meditation was when I picked up a self-help book about falling asleep, the old now your toes are asleep, now your ankles are asleep, your calves… routine. That works. I concur with the mention of subtler forms of meditation, the ones that just kinda happen, usually due to reverie of something or monotonous work, those don’t set off my own sincerity alarm.

One day I would like to have someone teach me, if the discipline for formal meditation is not there I think it might need the formalization of bells and gongs and some poor person to deal with the whining and be able to (pardon the french) ‘rip someone a new one’ to get them back on track.

-Brit

By: agent double oh-no

agent double oh-no — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:25:47 +0000

I just learned that the comedian Andy Kaufman meditated for three hours a day. I wouldn’t mind a little of THAT brand of Enlightenment! (Really, just a little, not too much.)

I’ve found that I get all of the benefits from formal meditation – focus, epiphanies, a greater sense of well being – from long hours of sustained reading or writing. The added advantage is that I’ve also accomplished something tangible.

- Jeff

By: Charlotte

Charlotte — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:04:37 +0000

I don’t know if anyone has already covered these points, ’cause, er, tl;dr…but I thought these were worth mentioning:

1. David Lynch is *specifically* into Transcendental Meditation (TM), the type founded and taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who you might know of from his work with The Beatles…”jai guru deva” was a phrase they picked up from him). I don’t know whether David Lynch believes that other types of meditation, such as those associated with Zen Buddhism, are as effective as this type. Followers are a little cultish about it, honestly.

2. I can’t meditate. I can’t make my little, chattering monkey-mind shut up for long enough. I’m still working on it, but there are so many distractions.

3. Apparently there are 2 conflicting brain systems dealing with self-awareness. (I’m not a neuro-anything, so please correct me if I’m wrong). One system perceives feelings (hot/cold/soft/hard) and emotions, the other puts those feelings into words. Ideally, in meditation, you’d like to get to the point where you can just sense, without it being necessary to define what those senses mean to you on an abstract level.

4. If you’re doing it right, meditation should be boring. Or so I’ve read.

By: nekojita

nekojita — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:38:26 +0000

P,S, Thank you Coilhouse! You make everyone’s life better.

By: Nadya

Nadya — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:12:57 +0000

Guys, thank you all for the incredible advice here. I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one who finds TM™ suspect (I had that feeling when I finished reading the book), but the actual idea of meditation appeals to me even more now that I’ve read the comments. I think I’ll try some breathing techniques and just visualizing a color or a phrase. Won’t force it too much. We’ll see how it goes! Thank you to everyone who commented.

By: Karri

Karri — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:44:53 +0000

I think of meditation as the treadmill for the mind. Just like with your body, you can’t expect your mind to be a marathoner after a lifetime of cerebral couch-surfing. Start with something simple. Try paying attention to your breathing. When your busy mind tries to interfere, treat it like a screaming toddler–make sure there’s no blood, then get back to what you were doing. Don’t try for a 62 hour tantric experience right off the bat. Start with a minute or two, then work your way up. Just like Konstantin says, there are a lot of places to go from there. Find something that resonates with you, then stick with it. You can go some pretty remarkable places in your head with enough practice.

A word of caution though. A lot of people get confused and frustrated because they try to do something they found in a book or on YouTube, and don’t get it. From my limited experience, the best thing you can do is find a real live human being to teach you. They will make sure you understand what you’re supposed to be doing, and be able to answer your questions as you go.

By: bruce bourassa

bruce bourassa — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:14:54 +0000

DL is on target. meditation is not a carefully crafted myth, supported by invested true believers, but the accessible existential realestate of any sentient being in possession (or even the presence of) a mind. it is mind calisthenics to train flacid, go with the flow minds to have sufficient self awarness to get out of traffic & start taking responsibility for their own content & the consequences of the attitudes, thoughts & decisions that they entertain. i am not an adept; not enough consistent practice, but enough episodes of immersion (when the alternatives were going to be ptsd or some paralizing form of depression) that i have had at least 3 distinct experiences of satori, & several extended periods when the visable circumstances of my life were utter chaos during which i could readily & at will access a zone of functional bliss (independent of pharmaceuticals, tho not necessarily exclusive of some benign botanical versions) which allowed me to work thru the apparent dilemas & pass those waters with my boat, leaky & battered but still seaworthy. i never could have afforded “professional intervention”. i suggest readings in zen & tibbetan traditions (thick nhat hanh’s “miracle of mindfullness”, (zen) or chogyam trungpa’s “cutting through spiritual materialism” or “glimpses of abhi dharma”
some observation re comments above. TM & other organized institutions suffer the same handicaps endemic to any religion; that of being captive to corporate pressures & inclined to corporate remedies. look for a local meditation temple or group with a mentor that is actually a person of spiritual accomplishment. let someone who you respect & who is also a practicioner lead you to that leader. then give it an honest try (doesn’t mean submitting cult style as per scientology etc). otherwise books are good. some of the practices are very simple. mindfulness (alumiere – you should try thich nhat hanh’s “guide to walking meditation, but see miracle of mindfulness first. total reading investment is less than 200 pges together) is not a switch; it’s more like a rheostat, & you have to find it first before you say it’s not there. the mind chatter is darkness. you are groping. as for hours of TV being apprenticeship for clarity. wouldn’t that be an interesting contradiction. Timothy Leary (any of you juvenile delinquents remember what LSD is) did resarch with flashing strobe lights. found out that the human brain can be wiped clean, & made ready for free ascocciative hallucinatory suggestion by exposure in a dark room to certain frequencies. 60 mega hertz is one of em. because of already in place alternating current delivered in that frequency, it is the rate at which the TV picture wipes . happy accident for the pervayors of the most accute narcotic in human history. & you thought you were watching it because there is so much great information & it is so artfully produced (get a hold of what you were watching 5 years ago – see if you can sit thru it). actually TV is producing a large portion of the mind clutter that has to be sorted out, along with misrepresentative politics, consumer maddness, perscription & cartell narcotics, & noise & light pollution. actually humans are becoming very hardy. if you were to take say a 17th century maiori warrior & plunk him or her down at the corner of wilshire & westwood. he/she would probably experience cardiac arrest on the spot. was ever a moment more ripe for & needful of trancendant epiphany. things that need to happen always do. you are either on the boat or in the water. your pharmeseuticals will not see you there esp if they get wet, run out or get nicked. as jesus said, “your endocrine secretions you will have always with yo” get a handle on their techniques. meditation is part of the user’s manual for a human life QED

By: Tequila

Tequila — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:01:35 +0000

With all the noise burning about it seems meditation has gone from new age punch line in western culture to a valuable and needed practice. I’d heard about Lynch’s book and he’s not the first in recent years to speak so highly again of Transcendental Meditation. We even have a whole town built around its teachings in the states (the fasted growing by last reports.)

All these positive experiences have me curious, think I’ll give it a go. You’d think with the amount of TV we Americans watch, sitting still and letting the brain fall silent would be easy…

About the closest I have to meditation in my life now is listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan albums. They do take you out of yourself (or deeper into ones self) quite a bit…it’s a great feeling.

The Fellini story is great…I hear the nicest stories associated with him. The weirdest too..but some real gems.