Seems pretty useless to meditate much (aiming for real results) if one is very anxious or depressed. Sort of like running with mononucleosis.
I've spent months in a rut, and now that I'm slowly just feeling better in general, my baseline keeps improving with minimal effort.
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I've had a similar experience over the past few months. Coming out of it now. Switched my practice to vipassana which has helped.
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Vipassana makes me feel like the entire world is turning into this:
uberviz.io/viz/loop/
Find I'm mostly defaulting to anything learned from Zen, lately.
Feels a lot less like the end of the world, but doesn't really lose any clarity AFAICT.
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Pretty Michael everything went to shit after practicing the cutting machinery style for a couple of years. Needed to happen but not very fun. Also I found it really hard to concentrate on a mantra. Hence looking for something else.
What practices are you using from Zen?
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Heheh, "Michael".
Well, mostly Zazen, reading koans and other instructions from Zen masters.
Still just trying it out, but I'm thinking to adopt as many of the practices as possible - because they're working really well for me.
Most importantly, I'm trying just to deepen the practice. Spent a long time asking people's opinions. Now I feel confident to just do my own thing.
That is, without all the messing around and eclecticism I used to do, which would lead to long periods of stagnation. So, Zen.
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Haha. Much. Funny cos I've been listening to a lot of Michael Taft podcasts on with and
Do you have links to good a guide on Zazen, koans etc?
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Far better sources for that than me. I'm only just rediscovering it myself (in any kind of organized way, that is).
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