fandomhigh | Introduction to Meditation | Tuesday

"Hi, guys," Bruce said from his spot at the front of the room once everyone had arrived. Like last week, it was dimly lit, with cushions scattered throughout the room for students to sit on. There was a table with lemon water and tea toward the back of the room, though the implication seemed to be that that was for afterwards. "Before you sit, please put your bags and anything in your pockets against the wall to the side and make sure your phones are off."

Yeah, this was one of those classes. Sorry, guys.

"Today we're going to try samatha, or mindfulness meditation," Bruce said. "If you've ever seen people meditate in a movie, it was probably this technique. Or an attempt at recreating this technique." He scratched the back of his neck. "It's hard to depict something that's mostly internal and private in a visual medium, but this is... especially visually uncomplicated."

"Samatha is a Buddhist idea that strives for spiritual cultivation, which comes about through clearing your mind and achieving mental stillness, samadhi. It's said that through keeping your mind still in the short term, you open yourself up to take in insight and wisdom, and in the long term, you can become more tranquil and emotionally quiescent. You're not shutting off your mind - I actually encourage you all to continue to think throughout this form of meditation - but the goal is to critically process your own thoughts and put them into perspective, reminding yourself that they don't demand your attention at this precise moment. Be aware of your own distractions and catalog them, but don't allow them to take your focus."

Bruce cleared his throat.

"Some things to keep in mind are to stay awake, or to try your best to. Keep your eyes open. It's - a little difficult to do that, but I'd like you to try." Because learning not to simply space out was one of the hardest parts of learning how to meditate. For Bruce, anyway. "As far as your posture goes, I recommend sitting with your legs crossed and your hands on your thighs, with your back as straight as possible. The goal is to spend most of the meditation session sitting still, but first, take your time to feel out what the most comfortable posture is. Breathe naturally and steadily - if your breath speeds up or slows down, notice that. We'll talk about it afterwards. And use this time to analyze what occupies your mind."

He glanced at his watch. "We'll start with twenty-five minutes today," Bruce decided. "If you need to do a quick lap around the hallway before we start, please do. Otherwise, let's begin."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

With a clear mind.

Or be annoyed that you don't get to hang on to your cell phone. At least not without Bruce frowning at you.

Clear your mind. Don't try to not have any thoughts, but be aware of what thoughts do come up and let them float away. The goal is mental stillness and being unbothered by little distractions, and becoming more aware of who you are.

Please note that if you are loud or fidgety, Bruce will probably quietly ask you to go outside.

The twenty-five minutes ended and the timer that Bruce had set on his watch went off.

"Okay," he said after a slight pause to allow everyone to get their bearings. "Does... anyone want to share what their experiences were?"

Edited 2013-07-16 04:37 (UTC)

Should they be present!

Who is for suresies present!

This took a long time to write. Have some Karl Urban.

I accidentally tagged this #nsfw on Tumblr at first. You can see my mistake, right?

Raven Darkholme

So she had to sit up straight and still for 25 minutes. It was almost like when Mrs. Xavier had tried to send her to charm school, only no one wanted her to put a book on her head.

Raven did her best, but the fact that she had a mantra of "don't shapeshift, don't shapeshift" running through her head the whole time kept her a bit unstill. Not super fidgety, but she did keep frowning to herself and adjusting her posture.

She hadn't been very good at charm school, either.

Korra

This kind of meditation was far from Korra's favourite activity, but at least she was capable of it (thank you, Tenzin) and it was for less than half and hour, so she settled into a cross-legged pose, closing her eyes and lightly pressing her knuckles together.

Anna Korlov

"Good morning, Dr. Banner. I was a snake last week." Didn't he just love how succinct Natalie was? And yet polite, too! "Apologies."

Natalie was present! And eyeing the class. And taking note of at least one distraction in the room ~~assuming he was there omg~~. That was going to make meditating with her eyes open a little harder than necessary.

She was going to do her best anyway.

Mercy Thompson

Mercy did her best to sit quietly. She knew how to be patient while hunting in the woods and could stay still for long periods of time. But she found it was a lot easier to do in her coyote form and she didn't think the teacher would be all that happy if she shifted in class.

"I thought it might have been something like that," Bruce admitted. Which sounded ridiculous the moment he said it, so he gave a short laugh, shaking his head a bit. "It's not a problem, Miss Adams. Thank you for checking in."

Paddra Nsu-Yeul

Meditation itself was not something she'd ever spent much time on but Yeul was a fairly quiet, non-fidgety person anyway and she had plenty of experience at just letting time go by.

Unsurprisingly, she did not find the activity difficult.

Jim tended to like to move and talk and be loud and the center of attention so sitting still wasn't going to be the easiest thing to ask him to do.

Still, he was trying to do it even if he was making sending very occasional smirky glances and smiles towards one of the TA's because, well, she was there.

His face was the only thing that was moving though so that was something. His mind was pretty clear for the most part.

Jim would share because why not? "My experience was that it's hard to just sit there and do nothing for a half an hour. I like to talk and move and do stuff so just sitting there...kind of made just want to go to sleep."

He needed work at the meditation stuff, obviously.

Jim Kirk

"Yeah, that can happen," Bruce said a little sympathetically. "Especially first thing in the morning. We'll try some more engaging techniques later on, but in the meantime, how did you deal with the boredom? Did you try distracting yourself, or...?"

"As much as I could, yeah," Jim said, shrugging. "I made a few faces at your TA because it kept me awake but I tried not to do that too much. Didn't want to fail the assignment. Besides that, I just tried to imagine that maybe I was in a hot tub with some pretty girls around me, pampering me."

Oh, Jim. Natalie should probably not have rolled her eyes right now, right? She could've been a mature TA like that.

... She rolled her eyes.

Jackson Whittemore

Darcy Lewis

Darcy was there, trying very hard not to fidget and bounce around.

Mordin Solus

That was certainly... uh, honest. Bruce blinked.

"That's... a start." Maybe.

So sitting still was not Mordin's forte. Especially so long. It was partially his personality, restless even by salarian standards, and partially his species. He did some quick calculations--assuming an average lifespan of 42.3 years, this was over a millionth of his life spent sitting still. A small fraction, to be sure, but he hardly even slept an hour each night--how was he prepared to meditate?

So yeah, Mordin was fidgety. Quiet, but fidgety. He did math in his head to try to distract himself, knowing that wasn't the point, but unused to performing inadequately in a class.

Karl Urban's stupid pretty face needs to get out of my life before I explode.

Noooo I won't take the risk that that would remove him from my life as well!

Introduction to Meditation | Tuesday | Period 1

Sign In

Listen to the Lecture

Meditate

Discuss

Talk to the TAs

Talk to Bruce

OOC

Re: Sign In

Re: Meditate

Re: Sign In

Re: Meditate

Re: Sign In

Re: Talk to Bruce

Re: Talk to the TAs

Re: Sign In

Re: Meditate

Re: Talk to Bruce

Re: Sign In

Re: Meditate

Re: Meditate

Re: Discuss

Re: Sign In

Re: Discuss

Re: Discuss

Re: Discuss

Re: Sign In

Re: Sign In

Re: Talk to the TAs

Re: Sign In

Re: Discuss

Re: Meditate

Re: OOC

Re: OOC