Meditation

Mindfulness and meditation are psycho technologies that help you navigate through the story of the soul.

Four levels of meditation:

(1) Witnessing automatic thoughts: Eyes closed. First, you want to be able to distinguish between automatic thoughts and the voice of affirmation. When you can witness and recognize auto thought as ‘not you’ and the affirming voice as you, then move on to the next level.

(2) Second person perspective (SPP): Eyes closed. Like looking in a mirror, the aim is to be able to imagine the SPP while doing the mindfulness meditation in #1. Export your awareness into the SPP and witness your auto thoughts from in front of your face.

(3) Hold SPP indefinitely: Eyes closed. At this level the goal is to develop the ability to remain in the outside witness (SPP) for extended periods of time. Initially, you will find your awareness repeatedly getting sucked back into auto thoughts and unconsciousness. Retrace from the beginning and keep practicing until you can hold mindfulness from the SPP indefinitely.

(4) Hold SPP in daily life: Eyes open. Once you master #3, then the final level of meditation is to be able to hold SPP while living your daily life. This is self awareness mastery. After this, you have graduated meditation school and it’s about maintaining the skill.

The highest purpose of mindfulness meditation is to help you navigate through the story of the soul. Once you’ve completed the four levels, then you need to seek the kingdom by entering into the story.

It is a misunderstanding and a form of spiritual bypass to believe the aim of meditation should be to become thoughtless and lost to your self / soul.

The Son of Man can take you much further and produce more fruit than the Buddha.

I meditated once and could feel a scanning sensation moving through my entire body from right to left, in unison with a faint shadow over my eyelids moving in the exact same way

It felt like being put through a barcode scanner at the super market

NN, since you said you have meditation experience, when you have a few minutes, will you try the exercises I mentioned and let me know which you are able to do?

To me those 4 things you describe are more an "experience" than an exercise.

In a buddhist sitting group, you may have guided meditation by a leader. A combination of silent meditation and a dharma discussion or simple self guided meditation ..... sometimes just sitting, sometime alternating between sitting and walking.

During a traditional sitting meditation, the guidance is generally to be with one's breathing. Expand, exhale, contract, inhale.

If thoughts come in, we note them and let them go. Clinging is an indication of suffering. So we are cognizant of the thoughts but try to get back on the horse of paying attention to the quality of the breath.

There is no goal to look at ourselves in an out of body experience as you describe. Just maintain a good alert posture and breathe.

The Buddha provided advice on how to live without suffering. It's like medical advice. Nothing to do with religion.

I’m already familiar with Buddhism, thanks.

One variety of it: observe and feel your breathing -- feel it rather than listening to it -- with an emphasis on pausing after the exhale for several seconds. Very, very still space there ... so it's an access point to existential anxieties.