Thursday, May 04, 2006

Chanting meditation

If you use a mantra as your meditation support, try chanting it if you have privacy. Here's a paragraph about that from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation:
No matter what tradition you believe in, chanting helps prolong the exhalation of the breath, calm the mind, slow the heart, and after long periods, helps bring the meditator into an alternate state of consciousness. Whether this is due to the effect on breathing, the effect of one-pointed thinking, the effect of the repetition, the vibrations of the mantra itself, or (most likely) a combination of the four hasn't been proven, but chanting or reciting mantras does seem to be a highly effective form of meditation for people of many beliefs, traditions, and cultures. It might be just the technique for you.

You don't need to know any particular tune in order to chant. You can simply chant your mantra on one pitch that's comfortable for your voice.

Here are some possibilities for mantras if you don't already have one:

Peace
Love
Joy
One
One is all, all is one
Let it be
Compassion
Spirit
Shalom ("peace" in Hebrew)
Om shanti shanti shanti ("All is peace, peace, peace" in Sanskrit)
Om (The primal sacred syllable)
Kyrie Eleison ("Lord have mercy" in Greek)

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:27 AM

    I want to ask u one thing only,have u experienced any time chanting meditation? if no then why u are writting about it.I think u are not experincing anything u are only giving the thoughts of other people only.i would like to say u that plz give your experience of meditation.

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  2. Yes, indeed, I have experienced chanting meditation. Quite extensively, in fact. I was trained in Gregorian chant when I was in the convent and in Tibetan chanting as well when I studied with the Tibetan Buddhists in Cape Town.

    The way I organize this blog is to quote a book or article I think would be of interest to others and give a link. I then usually make a comment about it.

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  3. Anonymous5:49 AM

    I would like to give one of the holiest mantra of Hindu's for chanting. This mantra is called Gayatri mantra.Hindu believes that it is most effective in awekning of serpant power(kundalini).its sanskrit form i am writting in english.

    "Om bhu bhurva swha tatsa viturvarenyam bhargo devasya dhi mahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayat".

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