“Meditation, Judaism, and Self-Mastery”
Let’s reclaim our spiritual heritage!
Upcoming schedule:
Sunday, September 19: 8pm EST
Sunday, September 26: No class – Chol Hamoed
No official class. But if people want to learn, let me know. We will study a special topic.
Today’s Class Agenda:
We will learn about Mantra Meditation, including what Rebbe Nachman teaches.
We will also learn how to control our tendency to conceptualize, to improve out personal mediation practice.
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Jewish meditation techniques we have covered so far:
Amidah: achieving consciousness of God through prayer.
Hitbodedut: becoming mindful through internal and external isolation.
Ruach Hakodesh (Enlightenment:) transcending the physical, through work on yourself.
New:
Mantra Meditation – Hagah – quiet the mind for spiritual growth.
Upcoming:
Unification: experiencing Oneness with God by reciting the Shema.
Blessing power: meditations to bring you closer to God through mundane acts.
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From Rabbi Avigdor Miller:
Is There a Benefit To Deep Introspection?
If you get the knack of using your mind as a bucket, and you lower the bucket into the depth of the soul, you’ll discover that there’s endless wisdom there. The longer the rope the more deeply you can lower that bucket into your mind and draw forth precious wisdom that will flow without end. – The Image of Hashem.
Mantra Meditation
Rabbi Kaplan – “Jewish Meditation,” pp 54 – 63
Best known
Relax body
Works through habitation
Clear the mind
Spiritual power
Simple
Biblical reference
Mystical reference
Kabbalistic schools
Rabbi Joseph Caro
Talmud
The Ari
Rebbe Nachman
Rabbi Nachman’s mantra
Program of meditation
Word of warning
Preparation
Place
Position
Sit and settle
How to say
Mind wander>
Visual images
Bodily motions
Advance
Afterwards
Converse with God
Smell
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Best practices for meditation
Bhante Gunaratana, “Mindfulness in Plain English,”
Dealing with Distractions Part II, pp 115 – 130
Understanding mental states, pp 123 – 130
General pattern
Craving and desire
Tricky positive states
Similar to breathing
Extend awareness
See them rising
Precision
Conceptualization
The “I”
See it as it is, p 128
Multiple sensations
Developing mindfulness
Meditation as mental acid
From Matt Furey: mind / matter
Fear is nothing but a mental image that is projected onto the screen of our mind.
Some fear is good for us as it prevents falling into a complacent state of over-confidence. Excessive fear, however, paralyzes us or makes us act irrationally, even ignoring our natural instincts.
When we encounter a fearful mental image, we have an opportunity to examine it. We can look at it objectively, then ask ourselves what the opposite of this image would be.
As soon as you become aware of what you are picturing when you feel a sense of fear, change the mental picture playing in the theatre of your mind to something that generates courage and confidence. In so doing, you feel a shift for the better and immediately begin to realize that your mental images govern your feelings.
You can interrupt the onslaught of fear and other negative emotions with deep breathing exercises – but ONLY if the deep breathing exercises are combined with mental imagery that shift your mind away from disruptive emotions.
To breathe deeply without a change in mental imagery might help you a tiny bit – but this microscopic change is negligible when compared to the MACROSCOPIC changes that instantaneously occur when you project “positive outcome” images on your mental movie screen.
Fear is only something when we make believe it is something.
Once we realize that we make ourselves afraid, that is when we can see that fear is nothing.
Here endeth today’s lesson.
Matt Furey
Steve Siebold, “177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class”
The World Class is Determined to Win, p 76
Check out our new website!
A New and Exciting Class
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