Meditation???

[Heather]

Ah, the raisin. Sounds like it could be a mindfulness class? Vipassana? I would have saved eating a raisin for a later session.

Blake, tell them what actually happened to your raisin. :wink:

 

[bwester]

Blake, tell them what actually happened to your raisin. :wink:

ummmm, well....
couldnt eat it so I sat on it and then this girl next to me hit a guy in the face that was snoring during the body scan with it.

 

[Hien]

Ah, the raisin. Sounds like it could be a mindfulness class? Vipassana? I would have saved eating a raisin for a later session. Maybe you'll do it again at the end of the course for contrast.

Chi doesn't exist so don't worry about feeling it. Do understand that that particular form of meditation isn't about relaxing or feeling better. It's about looking at the reality of right now and feeling what's real and immediate. It's about watching your own thoughts. (It's also about taming the monkey mind.) Consequently it can be fun, boring, blissful or painful. The end result is equanimity.

Good luck with it. Once you've started you're a goner.

Mark, Qi definitely exists.
All descriptions by the peoples who had some training are only approximation in order to transmit the experience, to hint of a road sign.
Once you had an experience of it , you will not forget what it is like.
Still you can not describe exactly your own experience to the next. You can only say so much of experience. For example, we assume all of us seeing the colors (say red) exactly the same, which is not true.
Years ago, one of our envoy came back from Europe, described the car without horse, the lamp without oil source, the whole Vietnamese royal court laughing & jeering at him for being a liar)
Similar reactions & condamnations can also came from the West of things which we are taking for granted in the East for thousand of years.

 

[NYEric]

It depends on if and how well you are able to chennel the energy flow thru the points where it is concentrated. I took tai chi courses when I was younger and used to be able to go to the dentist and let him drill w/out anesthetics. Now I need to take knockout gas before I get the anesthetic!