Hello all,
I have been involved with yoga and meditation for the last couple of months. Where I have done daily exercises of both. I'm doing zazen and hatha yoga. Now I want to add lifeflow 2.0 to my zazen meditation. My question is will it really benefit me or will it act as a temporary placebo, like other hypnosis tapes? How do I know that it will increase the process of my meditation, timewise? I read that it would take me to meditative states of monks, has anyone reached enlightenment because of it? Has anyone reached the claims done by Michael Mackenzie, such as: "[/i]Meditating with LifeFlow is the fastest and easiest way to live in and enjoy the Power of Now! [/i]". I find this a very bold claim, any users here that can back this up from their own experience and any other proof scientifically on paper that backs this up?
And finally, from listening to several scholars I learned something remarkable that has always stayed with me. It was explained through the following analogy:
When you do fitness training, you practice formal procedures (exercises) that alter the fabric of your body in two ways…
[*] They increase your baseline strength.
[*] They increase your baseline flexibility.
When you do mindfulness training, you practice formal procedures (meditations) that alter the fabric of your consciousness in two ways…
[*] They increase your baseline clarity.
[*] They increase your baseline equanimity.
The goal of fitness training is
not to achieve a temporary state of strength and flexibility that is present when you do the exercises and then vanishes during the rest of the day. The goal of fitness training is to gradually increase your baseline of strength and flexibility. In other words, the purpose of fitness training is not to create certain temporary states in your body, but rather to develop certain abiding traits in your body.
So my question regarding to this is, is lifeflow like steroids or some drug that boost onces results[1]?
[1]
Scattered mental activity and energy keeps us separated from each other, from our environment, and from ourselves. In the process of sitting, the surface activity of our minds begins to slow down. The mind is like the surface of a pond - when the wind is blowing, the surface is disturbed and there are ripples. Nothing can be seen clearly because of the ripples; the reflected image of the sun or the moon is broken up into many fragments.
Out of that stillness, our whole life arises. If we don't get in touch with it at some time in our life, we will never get the opportunity to come to a point of rest. In deep zazen, deep samadhi, a person breathes at a rate of only two or three breaths a minute. Normally, at rest, a person will breathe about fifteen breaths a minute - even when we're relaxing, we don't quite relax. The more completely your mind is at rest, the more deeply your body is at rest. Respiration, heart rate, circulation, and metabolism slow down in deep zazen. The whole body comes to a point of stillness that it doesn't reach even in deep sleep. This is a very important and very natural aspect of being human. It is not something particularly unusual. All creatures of the earth have learned this and practice this. It's a very important part of being alive and staying alive: the ability to be completely awake.
Once the counting of the breath has been really learned, and concentration, true one-pointedness of mind, has developed, we usually go on to other practices such as koan study or shikantaza ("just sitting"). This progression should not be thought of in terms of "gain" or "promotion"; that would imply that counting the breath was just a preparation for the "real" thing. Each step is the real thing. Whatever our practice is, the important thing is to put ourselves into it completely. When counting the breath, we just count the breath.
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