[A Thousand Threads]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

ha ha ha-- whatever works! right?

since everyone seems in a better mood now i'll explain a supersimple technique

the easiest easiest most basic form of "meditation" i can think of, one that is simple enough for everyone and requires no sore legs or mystical beliefs or anything, is to lie down flat and comfortable with the pams facing up, you know what they call the "corpse" pose in yoga-- do an image search

then you simply breathe and scan your body-- become aware of it-- starting from, say, the feet, and moving upward. some people teach this with just the skeleton/muscles, consciously relaxing them as one progresses, all the way up to the face, but i like to become aware of my insides as well, because of some chinese stuff i learned once-- just feel around the organs, lungs, liver, stomach, etc. and regardles of the circuit path i like to finish in the navel area as a collect point.

anyway, that stuff, that simple stuff, the act that putting your mind back in your body gets one back from mental overdrive and into the world with peace again. it's superrelaxing before sleeping, for example, and i have empirical evidence that it helps prevent nightmares. the why and how is a long hard-to-believe explanation, but basically i've seen it work and i swear by it.

here's one I sometimes do: (i think i already posted this somewhere here)

How to disappear - Haytham El-Wardany

1. Sit alone in a public space like a café, garden, or public square.
2. Try to shift your focus from the thoughts spinning in your mind to the sounds of the space surrounding you.
3. Consider the sounds that reach your ear, sound by sound, without granting any one sound greater significance than any other.
4. Contemplate the folds and creases of the sounds you now hear. When you hear the voice of a passerby, contemplate its tone and this tone's depth, not only the meaning of its words. When an annoying car drives past, contemplate the harsh sound of its motor and the sonic spectrum of its reverberations. When you hear a distant radio, don't focus merely on the singer's voice or the sons's name, but rather contemplate the clarity of its frequency and listen to its static. When you ultimately succeed in listening to the place in its entirety, you will find that the distance between yourself and the space's sounds has diminished, and that you have become part of the place. You will find that no one around you notices your presence; everyone will pass by without seeing you.

How to reappear

1. Return home and turn on all the electrical appliances you own. Run the vacuum cleaner at full power, turn the radio and televsion on at full volume, turn the air conditioning on if you have it, run the washing machine, and have the alarm clock go off if possible.
2. Sit for half an hour amidst this maddening cacophony. (...)