So I’ve had a couple tracks up on the insight timer for about a year now. I’ve really enjoyed the app and it has felt good to give back in a way to that electronic community.
But I’ve noticed they’ve been implementing ways for the teachers and artists to get paid. Now they have courses available for download at a fee.
And yesterday I received an email that they are trying to allow artists to get donations from their listeners. They’ll take 15%, I’ll (the artists, guided meditators) will get 85%.
Any donators will appear on your “gratitude wall.”
Problem is, android accepted their idea to take donations, but Apple didn’t! That’s crazy.
Anyway, what I’m getting at is I don’t feel comfortable taking donations for some reason, within this community structure. I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking it through though, but my intuition is just upset. I don’t think I want to see a donation button for my music on a meditation app.
But I have my music up on bandcamp, for “name your price.” People can download it for free. Would I like money and in some sense a little recognition? Yes. It would be cool to get a few bones for an album. Now I’m really confused
yeah, i also say take the money. you can read up on dana if you want to feel better about it. it's supposed to be as much for the benefit of the person giving as the person receiving, if not more so, basically. another form of practice.
i had to have my therapist talk me down from some massive drug shit this past week and he told me to plug my right nostril and only breathe out of my left and it calmed me down so fucking much. Taught me some other pranayama through text and some breath holding techniques and I swear these are the secrets to the world and definitely to mental health. I swear I just don't breathe right
if you respond well to diaphragmatic breathing/other controlled techniques there's a pretty good pranayama app for your phone that has you build up to longer and longer outbreaths held to a tone it plays that i've used some
also in terms of doing so while meditating a lot of zen traditions (not so much vipassana, which traditionally tends to tell you to not control the breath) have controlled breathing techniques that incorporate rather interesting visualizations re: the breath energy (qi) being concentrated in a specific place below the navel (tanden, also has other names in other traditions/cultures) and flowing up back through the head along a meridian etc. that reflect zen's interfacing with taoism/qi gong/other traditions - more here from the late maezumi roshi:
internethandle wrote:if you respond well to diaphragmatic breathing/other controlled techniques there's a pretty good pranayama app for your phone that has you build up to longer and longer outbreaths held to a tone it plays that i've used some
also in terms of doing so while meditating a lot of zen traditions (not so much vipassana, which traditionally tends to tell you to not control the breath) have controlled breathing techniques that incorporate rather interesting visualizations re: the breath energy (qi) being concentrated in a specific place below the navel (tanden, also has other names in other traditions/cultures) and flowing up back through the head along a meridian etc. that reflect zen's interfacing with taoism/qi gong/other traditions - more here from the late maezumi roshi:
i'd really like to get into subtle body/lung practices but vajrayana feels all but impenetrable without a lot of dedication and a guide when you're coming from a vipassana background. might just do some qi gong.
doing a 8 day retreat from 12/29 to 1/6 (so, through the new year), which will be my longest one by more than double. am excited!
Picked this up last week and started in on it during this long weekend. Curious if anyone else has read it and their opinions if so. Seems really well-reviewed.
Finished Everyday Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck before it and it was one of the better books I read this year. Will be seeking out more of her stuff.
I like how he breaks down the tiers of meditation and I like to review the chapter for where I think I'm generally at before meditation. He has lots of free guided meditations at dharmatreasure.org. he isn't a replacement for spiritual aspects of meditation but has really supplemented my practice.
yeah TMI/culadasa is very big right now. if having a goal-oriented practice is something that you feel you can handle without getting too caught up in expectation mind/checking mind/self-criticism then it definitely seems worthwhile. his methodology is really sound, at least, and his experience/knowledge base extremely solid.
i'll definitely report back after the retreat. it's with my favorite teacher - shinzen young - so i'm both intimidated and excited. good to see you're still practicing, chachi. keep it up! what fires together wires together and all that.
A lot of the reviews I read were from long-time meditators who said they wish they had this book early on in their practice. I'm at a year of practicing, so my hope is TMI can help me build on my foundation to create a solid, long-term practice.
My wife got me a cushion for Christmas, which should hopefully help with tackling longer sits.
I like Stephen Procter’s excercises on insight timer, they’ve been my introduction to meditation in general. Any suggestions for good stuff on insight timer?