General manual questions

[djtechno22]

When doing the meditation how long should you pause before saying the next word?  I'm finding myself attatching too much meaning to the words and focusing more on what comes next then just flowing through the passage.

[recovered]

for me, i just focus on repeating the phrase. i don't dwell on it to much because at first it is frustrating because the mind wanders. grrr

it takes time and continued focus.

[IGC Moderator]

More important than the exact technique one uses is the fact that you are meditating.  The goal of meditation is to exercise the frontal cortex of the brain. Some people pause and meditate on one word, others phrases.  What works best for you is the right answer. Some people meditate on one word for minutes. That is fine. It may feel uncomfortable, but that is good. The goal is to catch your mind as it wanders and bring it back to the meditation immediately.  It is interesting how people talk about their beginning experiences with meditation...often the mind wanders hundreds of times initially.  Bringing the mind back to the meditation is what will create power.

Think of it like lifting weights...our muscles are stretched and worked until they literally create new tissue and break down the fat.  Addiction has created pathways in the brain and broken down much of the pre-frontal (logical, reasoning) pathways.  Meditation is like lifting weights...new pathways are created and the addictive ones broken down over time.  You will notice that over time, your mind will wander less and your ability to focus will increase. The daily planning sheet is another form of repetitive daily exercise that creates healthy pathways as well.

[Vista2010]

I am having a lilttle trouble with assignment #4. For instance, "Physically" are we talking about appearence or things I can physically control like exercise and eating right.
Maybe a little help with the definitions of the 4 catogories would help.
Sorry if I sound a little dense...maybe I think to much and am making it harder than it really is.

[IGC Moderator]

The question is just fine. Things physical that you can control are exactly the things you asked about.   You generally can control exercise, eating, appearance, sleep decisions, etc...   You cannot control if you have an or injury or some defect that effects the physical.  

The purpose of the assignment is to simply begin to gain an understanding of what is in our ability to control and what is not....this allows the mind to hopefully begin to surrender to those things that we cannot control.  It is always amazing how much we try to control that we simply cannot.