New members introduction thread 2017 - present.

[gannuman]

True thank Middleway!

[Nicolas]

Bonjour everyone!

I'm Nicolas from Switzerland. I have been practising vipassana/anapana in the style of Goenka since last year and have been (most of the time  ) kept a daily practise since, which I found challenging yet rewarding. Like I believe many others, I was a "lurker reader" on the forum for some time. One of the thing I've really enjoyed here is that it has helped me put the school I come from in perspective, I mean not taking Goenka's teachings as final words or beyond criticism.

Have a nice day all!

[Middleway]

Welcome to the forum Nicolas.

[Emoint]

Hi all,
My name is Lance and I have not lurked on the forum, i think more accurately I have lurked for a way to really contact myself a lot of my life. I'll be honest, I have asked to join this forum because despite a dysfunctional family upbringing and counselling, it was not until my aunty died that the true extant of my deafness to me and shut down of the inner workings came to the surface. Nothing was working really, then I read that emotions run the mind not the mind runs the emotions and things began to click. My instinct lead me to mindfulness, then to emotional intelligence, and the EQ forum said to talk to people each day about how your meditation went. Thats why i'm here to be amongst people who meditate and can relate experiences. I'm meditating 20 mins a day on the beginners stage of EQ website started by the segals in america. It seems that some of you have meditated for many years and are very practised at it, I have been meditating 20 mins a day for four days and happily feel like a child in comparison. I dont know the different forms or types of meditation, it is enough that i have discovered EQ's website. Is it ok that the one thing in common and prevalent theme is that we all meditate. I guess I just need to be, or need to know that like minded people are close to hand for comfort and peace of mind I guess. hence my desire to register with you. Thanks

[Matthew]

Hi Lance,

Welcome to the forums. Such dynamics can truly hold us back in life. It's all learned behaviours though, and can be unlearned too. Meditation was the beginning of true healing for me, also coming from a very dysfunctional family/background. The calm helped me know "I'm safe, I can handle it" and the insight gained started to untie the knots that bound me. I don't think it would be hyperbolic to say it may have saved my life.

I look forward to getting to know you through this space. I'm sure you will find the practice beneficial, the fruits of meditation undo these patterns of suffering with patience, self-compassion, and a little time.

You might find the "calm-abiding" practice linked from the home page beneficial. Development of calm and acceptance in body and mind unlock many doors.

Warmly,

Matthew

[Thanisaro85]

Hi all,
My name is Lance

Hi Lance,

Just a quick note, the mental state of every person varies. So sometimes even new meditators can progress very fast too. It is just like someone who have great physical health by default, even he has not run for 10 to 20 years, he can progress in marathon pretty quick. And next, hope you can find some good sharings here that benefits you

Regards

[Emoint]

Thankyou Matthew and Thanisaro 85 for your welcomes,  Thanisoro85 I like the analogy, it is true especially in this lock down you see people running or exercising, and you look at their shape or age and think, whats getting you to do this? Its a case i think of having an in built athlete in you and no matter how much you try to fight it or pass it off, it just comes to the surface anyway. I'm not gonna try and become a monk. I just want to feel all my space within having seemingly run away from that space or unaware of its significance most of my life. I'm only doing beginners emotional intelligence 16 mins meditation and i'm starting to feel the lungs rub,roll, press against the stomach and organs retracting then re settling themselves. So thankyou both, I feel by your responses that I have stepped past the door now into the lobby. i'll check out c-abiding as you suggest Matthew, cheers all

[Lucas_T]

Hello Vipassanaforum.net Sangha!

My name is Lucas, I live in Toronto, Canada. I have been meditating and attempting to learn Dharma seriously for the past year.
I sit for two hours each day, and hope to spend some time practicing intensively at a monastery when health regulations deem it safe to do so.

The practice has greatly improved my life, from helping me develop my attention, gain control of anxiety, and generally aid my understanding of what it going to make my life enjoyable and meaningful.
The groups that I am a part of are full of mostly people 50+, I am in my mid 20's, so sometimes because of the age difference I lack that sense of being able to connect and discuss practice. These conversations are ones I definitely crave, so I'm very happy to see that they go on here.

Hoping everyone is safe in this time and practice is going well!

-L

[Middleway]

Welcome to the forum Lucas.

[consapevolezza]

Hello, I hope that everybody is staying safe from the global pandemic and other circumstances. I am writing from the East coast of the United States. I participated in a 10-day silent meditation retreat in Amherst, MA, in November of 2019. I have strived to practice Vipassana at least once a day since, especially during this pandemic. I look forward to following and contributing to interesting discussions.

[Middleway]

Welcome to the forum Consapevolezza.

[MusicAndMind]

...since I am posting in the new members thread.

I have been meditating off and on for a few years, and for about 1 year daily. I have sooooo many questions but I will look around to see if some of them have been addressed already, which I am certain will be true for many of them. I just want to introduce myself here and tell you all a bit about who I am.

I am a professional musician, with a loooong history, so I may find the "Hangout" or whatever the non-forum topic thread is called here at some point and tell some life's stories. I also work as a tour guide but have only been doing this since 2012. I am American, from Texas, but I now live in Germany and have for about 40 years. I have a wife and 2 lovely children. I have been out of work since March, but this is certainly a situation many are also experiencing. My professional future is not very rosy, and I am using meditation to try to keep centered and my outlook from going farther down that it already has.

Meditation has made some big differences in my entire life's outlook, and I am kinda surprised at the difference it has made. Of course, lately, it is getting harder for me to keep positive, but that is one of the reasons I went searching for a meditation forum. I did a few years stint as a professional poker player. I am pretty good but not as good as I thought (tilt, for anyone who knows poker, was my main downfall...). Financially, I came out ok, meaning I kept my losses to a minimum, and actually made a bit of money doing poker room reviews, and book reviews. Why people wanted my input, and paid me for it, when my winnings were so...uhh... not good, I am not sure. But I am knowledgable about the game, so I guess that was why. They paid me, so I didn't ask... :-) But I became a member of a really cool poker forum, a smaller community, and made some lasting friendships. Perhaps that will happen here as well.

But no matter what, I am looking forward to hearing others' advice and experience in meditation and mindful living. I am not a Buddhist, and read that many here may be. I am not a religious person at all, but I do consider myself on a spiritual journey (that may be a very contradictory statement, I don't know..) and am very interested in learning new ideas about spirituality. In my opinion, religion and spirituality are two completely different things. Buddhism would interest me, at least I would be happy to know more about it. Still, that is not my reason for being here. Meditation is.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to meeting some of you.

[Middleway]

Welcome to the forum MusicAndMind. That’s quite an introduction. Look forward to you walking the path with all us of here.

[stillpointdancer]

Hi MusicAndMind
Nice to hear from you. I guess there are many musicians in the same boat, literally victims of the gig economy. I took up meditation only as an experiment to see if it would change my state of consciousness. I was not interested in Buddhism as I was not religious, but got interested when it had some of the answers to what happened to me after meditating a number of years. As a science teacher (retired now) I went with what I could use to explore my experiences, and nobody could have been more surprised than me when I decided to go through a formal ceremony to become a Buddhist.

Luckily you don't have to become one to get a lot out of meditation, but there's a lot of useful experience in meditating in Buddhist writings to get to grips with, if you can get around the religious language which often obscures the message. I'm in lockdown in the UK and using my time to catch up on piano skills I didn't have time for as a teacher. I played the guitar and taught it for a number of years, but only as an accompaniment to songs. On the piano I could vamp chords with my left hand and follow a melody from sheet music with my right.

I bought a keyboard with a midi out and attached it to my laptop, bought some software, and started again from scratch to read music and play the piano properly (as I would say) to an intermediate level. Look forward to hearing some of your stories.

[mobius]

Hello MusicAndMind; sounds like you have an interesting life. I'd love to hear more!
There's a lot of people who's future isn't looking real good right now or at least uncertain including me, and probably a lot of us using meditation to help ourselves keep a good attitude. I too was surprised by the effect meditation had on my life (I think a lot of people go through this).


@stillpointdancer:
I always love to hear that someone learns (or re-learns) to play an instrument. While I've played piano and guitar for several years now I've never learned to read sheet music. Keep at it and have fun!

[stillpointdancer]

@stillpointdancer:
I always love to hear that someone learns (or re-learns) to play an instrument. While I've played piano and guitar for several years now I've never learned to read sheet music. Keep at it and have fun!

I bought eMedia software 'piano for dummies', which, unlike the book, is interactive. I usually play with headphones so the midi-out connection worked to mark my playing as I went through the exercises and played the sheet music. If I was up near 90% accuracy then I moved on. Not quite the same as having a teacher there, but was pretty good. I've moved on to their intermediate level software (I don't have shares in them BTW) which doesn't have the same feedback, but is fun to use, especially when I bought foot switches which allow me to turn the pages over on the laptop. I play other fun stuff too. My problem is that I would rather play 100 pieces from my books than spend time learning a much smaller number by heart, which I would like to do because then I get 'into' the music more.

[mobius]

@stillpointdancer:
I always love to hear that someone learns (or re-learns) to play an instrument. While I've played piano and guitar for several years now I've never learned to read sheet music. Keep at it and have fun!

I bought eMedia software 'piano for dummies', which, unlike the book, is interactive. I usually play with headphones so the midi-out connection worked to mark my playing as I went through the exercises and played the sheet music. If I was up near 90% accuracy then I moved on. Not quite the same as having a teacher there, but was pretty good. I've moved on to their intermediate level software (I don't have shares in them BTW) which doesn't have the same feedback, but is fun to use, especially when I bought foot switches which allow me to turn the pages over on the laptop. I play other fun stuff too. My problem is that I would rather play 100 pieces from my books than spend time learning a much smaller number by heart, which I would like to do because then I get 'into' the music more.

I kind of have the opposite problem. I know only a few songs/pieces pretty well (and have totally forgotten some over the years that I haven't played in so long like Moonlight Sonata). Because it takes longer (at least for me at this level) to learn a song by ear. That and much of my musical time is spent focusing on my band's own stuff.

If you're interested in learning more about musical theory and tips on piano or guitar I highly recommend youtube channels like "Rick Beato" or "David Bennett Piano".

[BHendrix]

Good morning y'all!!!! I'm super excited to be a part of this community and wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Brandee from the great state of Texas and I've been on my journey of manifestation/meditation for almost 2 years. I'm a certified health coach and small business owner just here to swap stories and share ideas with like minded individuals. I'm looking forward to learning more about the Buddhist practices as well. Thank you Matthew for allowing me to be part of your movement  I can't wait to share and learn more from all of you!

Many Blessings,

Brandee

[milco]

It's been a long time, been a long time, been a lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time. Yes it has.

Hi! My name is Tony and I am from Liverpool.

I like beer, decent music and football -- especially the wonderful Liverpool F.C.

I attended a course of six sessions with 'Mindfulness Merseyside' about three years ago, having suffered with depression and anxiety on-and-off for about twenty years. I did quite a bit of counselling last year, which I found fairly useful and used the meditation app Headspace for a few months before settling into quite a chilled, and settled, space with mediation. I feel like I have hit a bit of a groove now and really feel the benefits from it.

I have gone back to my original career, working with a Housing Association in Liverpool and everything feels like it is heading in the right direction.

I have questions to ask and opinions to deliver and I will get round to all of that, but for the moment -- hello! 

[dharma bum]

Welcome to the forum BHendrix and Milco.

[mayank]

Hi everyone,
Thanks for accepting me to this forum. My name is Mayank and I've been meditating on and off for a year. I found this forum while frantically searching for some questions. I'm struggling on my meditation path and somehow, I find myself back to where I had started a year ago, with an overactive mind and mental and physical pain. While I made an account because I had intention to post some stuff, I realise most of it is posted here already, and I'm taking my time to absorb the information while also trying to meditate still. There is nothing I have to ask, but my thoughts and pain feels unbearable rn  , and having others on the same path has encouraged me. So I have decided to stay.
Love to all.

[Phil]

Dear spiritual friends

Brief introduction of myself and my practice:

Male, 40s, living in central Europe, retired.

I started meditation about 10 years ago. Some practice in the Goenka tradition (3 day day courses, some shorter, some serving). Switched to other Theravada branch (Western Lay Buddhism of people like Joseph Goldstein / Jack Kornfield) and stayed.

Spent over 1.5 years on retreat, most of them lasting between 1 and 3 months.

Self-studies of the Suttas (read all of the Majjhima Nikaya and most of the Samyutta Nikaya), the Abidhamma and other texts such as the Manual of Insight.

Happy if I can be of help to others.

May you be enlighted in this very life.

[Middleway]

Welcome to the forum Phil. Freedom forty eh. Congratulations!

I would encourage you to provide your help  / advise out in the open in the forum rather than one on one personal messages. We all could benefit from the discussion.

I just have this burning question no one answered to my satisfaction. I will start another thread where you could address my question. Thanks in advance!

In the Dhamma,

Middleway

[Mrs.C]

Dear Vipassana Forum!

I am happy to see such a specified forum on meditation and am eager on checking it out : ). I started Zen meditation over a decade ago and have learned since then many different approaches about healing, trauma work and the theory behind mindfulness (I always recommend the Dr. Goto Jones' "De-mystifying mindfulness"-course on coursera :-)

I too have registered here to get in touch with you and create cross connections for my current meditation-app project I've been working on for the last few years. Looking forward to get in touch with you and hopefully to get some feedback and visitors of my own community that I just started building.

All the best from Germany!

Mrs C

[Middleway]

Welcome to the forum Mrs.C. You are welcome to interact with the community here but note you are not allowed by the forum rules to promote your meditation app or market your website /community. Thanks in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

Best regards,

Middleway