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Take the robes, lineage and all the rules out of your meditation practice. Our goal is not enlightenment, it is improving, healing or wellbeing.
I may meditate for 30 minutes but my goal is to focus on ten breaths with very specific intention. How, you may ask?
We use a combination of our senses. Thought is the enemy, thinking is the opposite of meditating. Actually these two actions happen in different hémisphères of the brain.
So let’s start: Visually; I use a model a continuum so getting lost in the pauses becomes much harder. There are visual models, the boxed breath and my breathing track. I also monitor what my eyes see with eyelids closed.
Auditory: A plethora of stimulus here. Pick out the quietest sound in the room, then go beneath it. Listen for the sound of your inhales and exhales. For me, I hear my inhales and exhales, as my focus stays inside my nostrils. For those experienced, a symphony plays inside our head, listen inside your ears.
Tactile: During the pauses, internal noise stops, it is a special opportunity to search for agitation, tightness, fear in the body. Focus on your inner world, intently. I , also focus on my third eye, or my upper lip close to my nostrils, feeling the cool inhales pass followed by the warmer exhale.
Smell: At the zen center form was important, incense and repeating phrases were staples. Incense can tell the brain it is time to meditate.
Mindset: No goals. We influence nothing, try to exert no energy, we observe and focus. We always set for others first.
Again, we are the ultimate observer, detached from thought and judgment, existing totally in this moment, unencumbered by the past.
We let thought clear, and hold an empty, focused space so our mind and body can repair as neuroscience tells us.
Know that ten focused breaths can deliver us to a no thought space, and active meditation. Once we are there time stops and the body repairs itself.
Question?
Inhale starts at bottom right corner traveling up and to the left.
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PTSD - A Way Out.com 
Posted by Marty on January 13, 2021 at 3:36 pm
Our senses observe in this moment, thought is added later.
I use multiple senses, usually visual and auditory but add tactile at times.
For me I have multiple ways to reach a no thought stage
I can use my breathing track by keeping constant contact with it as I inhale then move to the pause followed by a slow exhale and then final pause to complete a breath cycle
Focus on ten breaths like this and thought will clear
Takes practice