mjhjmtu

I have never meditated before. I really want to get into meditation to explore the benefits, especially trying to understanding who I am and how my mind affects my perception of reality (looking for spiritual growth etc).

So, for the past week I have spent an hour a day, what I understand as meditating, on my own in a quiet room. From my very first session onward, my mind has simply been completely blank during meditation (after allowing 1 minute to adjust to such a state). I don't experience any form of brain chatter (I hardly ever do), I sit easily for an hour with only a handful of thoughts occurring to me, although I feel completely focussed, awake, present and aware. I don't force a blank mind, it simply goes quiet when I focus on breathing (perhaps due to my inability to multitask). In short, I simply feel I get no benefit from this, other than experiencing some sort of longish-lasting blissful state (but I thought there is more to it).

From my limited understanding, I understand that the ideal meditation state is getting your mind as still as possible, then simply observe (non-judgmentally) any thoughts passing by, realising it's all conceive by the mind and learning from what you witness as a kind of 'outside observer'.

Since I don't observe much, I feel I don't learn anything at all.

Can anyone perhaps please shed some light on my situation and tell me what benefit I can get from meditation when I find my mind is already completely blank and I have no thoughts during meditation sessions.

Just to give you some background context in the event that it might help ... I have immense focus and no ability whatsoever to multitask. e.g. I literally have to stop a conversation when I plug a plug into a wall socket. On the other end, I can easily sit still and concentrate for hours and hours. In general, my mind is overflowing with ideas whenever I want it, but I simply find that my mind goes offline when I meditate and I don't find it helpful in my deeper spiritual search.

You could notice how your breath moves in and out through the nostrils. This can be done to a very fine degree even isolating individual characteristics contained within one portion of the in-breath or out-breath. There will be more gross observations happening with bodily phenomenon like the rising and falling of the abdomen and the residual echoes this produces in other parts of the body.

The other day while meditating my attention shifted to my hearing as the sound of a crow (I think) was croaking. I discerned this with more depth thus: sound - ear - interpretation - feeling. I was able to get a very sharp sense of what was happening beneath the cognizance of the sound and could focus purely on just the raw sensation that the sound seemed to produce. As the crow was croaking there was a kind of sine wave in a localized part the head in the form of a sensation. This wave-form married perfectly with the amplitude of the croaking crow.

Your focus is one that many would envy. It can be fine-tuned to observe the most subtle physiological changes. I found myself in your position with having a tremendous focus when I began Buddhist meditation two years ago.

I would encourage that you develop a good structural spiritual framework before advancing to deep levels quite simply because insight and other odd experiences came to me with quite some force. Even my Sangha were uncertain about how to support me but eventually, I found a small group of individuals who were practising at very deep levels who give me some guidance.

Read many suttas and connect with a sangha group.

Since i didn't feel such, i don't know what exactly your feeling is. But i have heard that people who are meditating expressing their experience by these words blankness, lightness, emptiness, weightless etc. And for those experiences the teachers advice not to focus on it or do not meditate again and again for feel that experience. Even the Lord Buddha also said not to stuck there on that lightness or emptiness, because it is kind of a craving and it is distracting.

Mumonkan - Case 4: The Western Barbarian With No Beard

The Case:

Wakuan said, "Why has the Western Barbarian no beard?"

Mumon's Comment:

Study should be real study, enlightenment should be real
enlightenment. You should once meet this barbarian directly to be
really intimate with him. But saying you are really intimate with him
already divides you into two.

Mumon's Verse:

Don't discuss your dream

Before a fool.

Barbarian with no beard

Obscures the clarity.

When I first started out, I had a very similar experience with meditation as you. It was never really difficult for me to sit. I mean, seriously - butt, cushion, breath, calm. It's not that hard, right?? I'm sure you've figured it out by now, but for most people, it's not so easy. For them, that place of calm that you experienced so quickly can be years away. For these folks, a chattering mind and fidgeting body are obstacles that will take all sorts of sitting and sweat to unseat. Believe it or not, though, these people are at an advantage. To practice Buddhism isn't to sit well and have blissful experiences on the cushion. On the contrary, to practice Buddhism is to work through our bullshit and burn through our karmic obstacles. And it takes one hell of a hot fire to do that. If we were to liken Buddhist practice to a forge we have to stoke, then those who struggle with sitting are blessed with a huge, nearby wood pile of problems and difficulties that they can quickly burn up. They come out of the gate burning like stars. And it's that blazing inner fire their struggles have helped establish that make it that much easier for them to incinerate their deeper, psychological obstacles. People like us, well, we have to go searching much deeper in the forest in order to find enough wood to keep our practice fueled.

Which brings us to the question of what you should do now. How do you fuel the fire of your practice? The first thing I'd ask is whether your practice is going as well as you think it is. When you sit, do you remain completely motionless the entire time? If not, start there. Next, if an hour is so easy, why not try an hour and a half? I actually find that my meditation sessions don't really start to take off until after the first hour. Longer sitting can lead to better sitting. The same goes for frequency. Are you sitting everyday? If not, why not? If you are, why not try sitting twice a day? And even if you've got all that going, when was the last time you meditated 10 hours a day for a week long retreat?

So now that we've got that out of the way, onto beards and barbarians. Remember how I mentioned that Buddhist practice isn't about sitting well and being blissful? This is key. Real practice is when you meet the western barbarian face to face and are really intimate with him. You are the Western Barbarian. When was the last time you really took a look at your beard in the mirror? Once an adept has establish a good sitting practice, the rest of their days are spent examining that beard - those mental hangups and karmic obstacles - through a variety of insight practices. These can come in the form of Vipassana, Zen koans, sutra study, keeping the precepts, etc. etc. etc. These are the true forges of enlightenment.

So that should keep you busy for a couple of decades. Have fun!!!! :-D

I found a related topic where someone wrote:

"I used the 'blankness' to find something in my memory that made me feel something about anything, then sit with the experience and monitor the feeling."

It sounds like it would work for me, to invoke some kind of feelings that I can observe .... Is this recommended at all?

Is this perhaps one form of meditation?