Giggling Meditation Teacher - HELP......

anger, shock resentment as I feel my experience has been spoiled.

A lesson for you, in there. That "as" seems to be saying that you are justifying your feelings, which imo don't need justifying or judging, but observing, accepting and eventually, with gratitude, letting go of. Your teacher is showing you what is in you, and helping it to come out.

So my suggestion would be to include your feelings and responses as part of the meditation, and keep out of the way as much as you can.

Further information you may find useful is here:
[url]B 6 The all-pervasive influence of the emotions | Guides to Enlightenment[/url]

Hi All,

giggles towards the end of the meditation, and this just kills it for me.

I experience anger, shock (if I'm in deep) and resentment as I feel my experience has been spoiled. it knocks my equilibrium for six. I even wonder if he's having a snigger at us

I would feel he may be watchful of my reaction whenever he has a snorting outburst and would feel self conscious and tense.

I'm relatively experienced with meditation (14 years) and have attended many different classes but have never encountered this before. The teacher is fabulous in all other respects and a very knowledgeable man, but this is tainting the class for me.

CC
X

Hahaha it made me laugh! but obviously its not funny for you -for its knocking your equilibrium...

Meditation if to become less set, more fluid, more flowing, your set concepts will have to take a knocking or what on earth one meditates for??
Your set ideas are the reason you meditate for. you obviously don't know that.
...and you have done it for 14 years. That is hardly surprising.

Meditation is melting away of your conditional responses. There is absolutely no other purpose to it. Most associate meditation with joy, peace, bliss, experiences etc but it is nothing, absolutely zilch to do with any of that.

The only purpose of meditation is to thaw and completely melt the set mind. which is the only obstacle of peace. Mind knows only learnt stuff, Reality is the great unknown. Your mind is wobbling because this mad teacher is rocking you and all that you believe you know and are very snug in that knowing. Your smugness is being thawed. GOOD. Meditation is working, if it is making you uncomfortable! otherwise it is just an empty circus, a social gathering for different reasons. Now don't run looking for another teacher. he is doing his job just fine.

The way most people meditate precious nothing melts rather more layers of concepts are plastered on top.
When this man starts laughing not that he is releasing his stuff (as most new agey people are always trying to release). He is just responding in a spontanoeus, unlearnt, childlike manner to that moment.

He is getting somewhere. Don't know about you. Because you go there for wrong reasons- You meditate but are fiercely protective of all that you have learnt all polarities of good bad, polite, spiritual -mundane and all that. Your expectations of what should happen in a meditation class want to dictate...and with a good teacher your strategies will be ripped apart mercilessly. That is the compassion of the teacher. You don't hurt, your shrunken self alone finds it uncomfortable and hurtful.

Hang in there, forget how long you been meditating because you have done something but it wasn't meditation. True meditation is just beginning and you are already wobbling!
Hang in there and allow. Or you will end up running from this teacher to that looking to fulfill your ideas and expectations.

peace

It sounds like a good lesson on going with the flow more in meditation! I'd ask him about it, don't worry about what he thinks of your reaction...

It sounds like a good lesson on going with the flow more in meditation! I'd ask him about it, don't worry about what he thinks of your reaction...

I agree with Mouse. The people who have given reasons for his behaviour have really no more idea of why he does it than you have. If you ask him, you can find out. I'd guess that it is nothing to do with watching your reaction, but you won't know for certain unless you ask him.

I agree with all the previous responses.

As part of the class, ask the teacher why he does this at the end of the meditation and explain how it makes you feel.

If he's practicing buddhism, he will not be offended by you asking, and I feel it may also open the class up to talking about it and understanding it from buddhist principles.

I could expand a little with some guesswork, but best not to yet methinks.

Let us know how you get on, it will be interesting to hear the outcome.

All Love and Reiki Hugs

Hi Chakra Chick - I say, next time you go to class - get in there before your teacher with uncontrollable laughter. Take a whoopee cushion, to get things going! Maybe you could teach the teacher a thing or two - see if he's shaken up by the disruption :D.

Reading through this thread brought to mind a half-remembered quote, which goes something along the lines of 'where there is seriousness there is ego and where there is laughter there is God' - can anyone remember this better than I can?

I'm not sure about that particular quote but I found one along those lines from Osho :

"Meditation doesn't lead you to silence; meditation only creates the situation in which the silence happens. And this should be the criterion -- that whenever silence happens laughter will come into your life. A vital celebration will happen all around. You will not become sad, you will not become depressed, you will not escape from the world. You will be here in this world, but taking the whole thing as a game, enjoying the whole thing as a beautiful game, a big drama, no longer serious about it. Seriousness is a disease."

I'm not sure about that particular quote but I found one along those lines from Osho :

"Meditation doesn't lead you to silence; meditation only creates the situation in which the silence happens. And this should be the criterion -- that whenever silence happens laughter will come into your life. A vital celebration will happen all around. You will not become sad, you will not become depressed, you will not escape from the world. You will be here in this world, but taking the whole thing as a game, enjoying the whole thing as a beautiful game, a big drama, no longer serious about it. Seriousness is a disease."

Ah Osho!...we did laughing meditations, dancing whirling,crying, howling, talking in tongues, utter gibberish ones you name it. Giggles are the only sensible way that conveys what it is all about.
Osho told jokes too. He took piss out of all nationalities, cultures, religions- spared no one. Every set concept was attacked without mercy. Shredding your seriousness into oblivion
sometimes the entire discourse was one filthy joke and an hour of mad laughter-people rolling on floor, side splitting mad, wild laughter!
No-Mind is utterly non-serious, nothing to prove nothing to assert, no affiliation to any ideology, nothing to grab, nothing to achieve, no goals, no purpose-just being as the moment commands.. Only ego is interested in doing serious stuff.

Thanks for digging out that one Mouse!

Ah Osho!...we did laughing meditations, dancing whirling,crying, howling, talking in tongues, utter gibberish ones you name it. Giggles are the only sensible way that conveys what it is all about.
Osho told jokes too. He took piss out of all nationalities, cultures, religions- spared no one. Every set concept was attacked without mercy. Shredding your seriousness into oblivion
sometimes the entire discourse was one filthy joke and an hour of mad laughter-people rolling on floor, side splitting mad, wild laughter!
No-Mind is utterly non-serious, nothing to prove nothing to assert, no affiliation to any ideology, nothing to grab, nothing to achieve, no goals, no purpose-just being as the moment commands.. Only ego is interested in doing serious stuff.

Thanks for digging out that one Mouse!

Ah, but are we not programmed somehow to be SERIOUS - that's the problem isn't it!

Osho told jokes too. He took piss out of all nationalities, cultures, religions- spared no one. Every set concept was attacked without mercy. Shredding your seriousness into oblivion sometimes the entire discourse was one filthy joke and an hour of mad laughter-people rolling on floor, side splitting mad, wild laughter!

Isn't there a problem here? People don't all have the same sense of humour. Accusing someone of having no sense of humour is a time-honoured way of putting them down, and what can be humour to one person can be bullying to another. It's all saying that there is one best way to behave.

Isn't there a problem here? People don't all have the same sense of humour. Accusing someone of having no sense of humour is a time-honoured way of putting them down, and what can be humour to one person can be bullying to another. It's all saying that there is one best way to behave.

Good job you weren't there, or you will be thinking about all these problems of bullying etc amongst a rip roaring laughter. 😉

Isn't there a problem here? People don't all have the same sense of humour. Accusing someone of having no sense of humour is a time-honoured way of putting them down, and what can be humour to one person can be bullying to another. It's all saying that there is one best way to behave.

I think the point was that by joking and laughing about so many different things it was demonstrating that a fixed way of thinking (or the "one best way to behave") is in fact limiting oneself. Nothing to do with bullying and putting others down, but about coming to a realization that true joy is found in letting go of subjective limitations.

Of course, a person could take a particular joke as something personally against themselves and not find it funny, but with the variety the realization should arise that it's not a personal attack, but rather about recognising your own limitations caused by a limited belief set, just as that same person may find it funny to laugh about someone elses limited belief sets.

At the end of the day it is all very funny, and that's without any personal judgement against anyone else, simply funny that we can recognise our own limitations.

😀

All Love and Reiki Hugs

Hi All,

Thanks for all of your thoughts, they're greatly appreciated.

I think context is key here. This particular form of still, silent meditation is focused upon creating a sense of peace, and we're encouraged once we enter the temple to be mindful of this in every aspect of our conduct. It all works beautifully, until the snorting....

In a different setting, during a different form of meditation (yes, I too enjoy dynamic, laughing, chattering, singing and dancing meditations) the sniggering may be barely noticed, but when everything is set up to help create a sense of peace this seems pretty incongruous to me.

I love a good belly laugh with the best of them, and agree that we can sometimes take ourselves and our practise too seriously. However, time and place come into play. I hope I am open minded, open hearted and truly hope I don't have set ideas about what meditation ought to be. With such a diverse array of forms this would surely be ludicrous. Any set ideas (I prefer to think of them as hopes) I may have developed around what we can enjoy during these sessions come from the teachings. This interruption doesn't seem to be in keeping with everything we're taught. Incidentally, I would be amazed if it was a conscious attempt to teach us anything about ourselves, but rather, it seems to be a genuine and spontaneous expression of mirth. (Quite delightful in its own way I suppose, but as I say - time and place...)

I must say, I am certainly learning things about myself from this, including facing my own fear of laughing at inappropriate times (I'm usually the one cackling at funerals). Maybe I will just let rip and join in one time? Maybe I won't be able to help it? Maybe it'll do me the world of good? Ah, much to be learned and gained here I feel! 😀

I think I will approach the teacher the next time there is an outburst. It seems perfectly reasonable on reflection, and rather than position it as an accusation that he is spoiling the experience, I'll simply approach it with a view to satisfying my curiosity about what is going on. Hey, I can only learn.

I'll let you know how things flow folks, and thanks again for your time and energies!

CC
X

its a contra-action......a reaction to the treatment.

some people cry, some people sneeze, cough, pass wind, some people giggle.

I know this because I too am a giggler, its involuntary.....it just comes out and its the most delicious of feelings....bringing out the inner child and allowing the giggle to bubble to the surface.

Meditation / mindfulness integrated into a 24/7 process.

Imho my advice would be to ditch the meditation classes.

Is 14 years enough?

The new golden age discipline calls for seekers of God to be fully in the world,
grounded, leading a family life in the main,
with meditation / mindfulness having been integrated into a 24/7 process.

Not something that you do for an hour or two every day.

😉

Not something that you do for an hour or two every day.

I didn't detect anything in Chakra Chick's posts that suggested that s/he switched off the spirituality when not in a class.

Meditation / mindfulness integrated into a 24/7 process.

Imho my advice would be to ditch the meditation classes.

Is 14 years enough?

The new golden age discipline calls for seekers of God to be fully in the world,
grounded, leading a family life in the main,
with meditation / mindfulness having been integrated into a 24/7 process.

Not something that you do for an hour or two every day.

😉

Some of my best meditations were experienced at my kitchen sink.

Maybe it's just who he is when he's completely relaxed. Just joyful to be doing what he's doing.

When I teach tai chi, I have quite a light-hearted and relaxed manner. If a student wants someone who floats about serenely then that's not me and if I did that, it would be false.

On the other hands, perhaps you've accidentally worn your knickers outside your yoga pants. 😀

Could be a release of some of sort from that person. Just focus on your practice, and accept what comes with detachment whether that makes you happy, sad, angry etc. Detachment, full awareness and full acceptance are your friends here.

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