Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?
131–140 of 163 posts
Re: Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?
#132How is it a scam when monks teach it free in my country? from my understanding, you are learning almost the wrong ways or you don't really understand even basically. That is why you can't achieve things: (English is not my native language) > But then isn’t our whole life a sequence of meditations? Because we always focus on something (with sleep breaks). => Mediation means we rid of thoughts, cause we always thought…
> And It is hard to mediation when you don't know basically about Buddhism - This is my guess from what did you write. Why? There's nothing inherently Buddhist about meditation; there's no reason to bring religion into this. Buddhism is a tradition that has been practicing meditation for a long time, but their practice is shrouded in their mysticism, so it's difficult to know what's real and what isn't. This is comin…
Because meditation methods are all derived from Buddhism.
If we don't understand basically then we don't know the real reasons and we don't have enough motivation for why we need to meditate.
And our mind has to be in a peaceful state to have the best in mediation.
For example about this: gamers always say they play worse when they are old. In reality, it is almost like their mind has many problems with worrying about family or money, not like when they are young.
And we can't have peace of mind if we are just meditating. We need to understand the Noble Eightfold Path. https://i.imgur.com/Sv9Sdoj.png.
Meditation is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
Re: Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?
#133As Sam Harris puts it: Meditation is the ability to not be lost in and identified with your thoughts, and to recognize when you are.
The scam is actually every second when one is not meditating. Most people most of the time live in an illusory dream world, lost in their thoughts, pushed around by those thoughts (often called “the ego”), and suffering due to them. Meditation means practicing to wake up from that illusory dream world, over and over again. And it can be done in every situation. The formal sitting down meditation is simply a process to develop, maintain and strengthen the habit.
It’s a great practice, which can both improve each moment (by realizing that each moment is actually as good as the next one, if one is simply aware instead of lost in thoughts) as well as build incremental long term resiliency against life’s adversities.
Re: Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?
#134I do a type of meditation, which I guess could be considered mindfulness meditation - based on how broad that term is.
The difference of ours compared to a lot of other types of meditation in the West is that when you are meditating, you do not try to think about stuff, you instead try to clear your thoughts and have your mind be silent. Unlike say sleeping, you are fully aware of what is going on around you - it's not a trance. That's basically the gist of it: clear your mind of thoughts.
Ignoring the spiritual parts, I'd imagine the way it is beneficial is that by reducing your cognitive load thinking about that presentation you need to give tomorrow and how everyone will react, it allows your body to focus on more mundane health-keeping tasks while in this meditative state. People in our group have reported various annecdotal health benefits, however there was also a peer reviewed study in Australia where our methods were used to help children with ADHD:
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/11/30/2106111.h...
The spiritual parts supposedly help you to get into that state easier, but as there isn't any scientific evidence of that I'll leave you to make your own decision.
Another benefit of the methods I follow is that they are always free - you can do then at home and do not need any special equipment. Anyone charging you to learn how to meditate is probably just scamming you.
Re: Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?
#135Think of it as a form of exercise.
If you go back to the gym after a long break, you spend a lot of time conditioning your body just to get your muscle memory back in sync with the machines, or free weights, or whatever you like to work out with.
Meditation is analogous to that. Once you get past just figuring out how to sit, you spend more time figuring out how to breathe, and then you get to the part where you let your mind do what it does while you're breathing. But the breathing (and the standard advice to keep your attention on your breathing) is just the tip of a much deeper iceberg.
So over time you get to explore the part of the iceberg beneath the water. You begin to unwind the long chains of association that exist below the level of words and verbal formations. There are good books about the impediments you will run into and strategies for getting past them (it really is like exercise).
But to what purpose? Why do you exercise? Do you just want to look good? Or have more strength? Or just health for its own sake? Or do you enjoy the social camaraderie you find at the gym? Or maybe a workout just makes you feel good and requires no other justification. In the end you will need to find those answers for yourself.
You have a body, but you are not your body. Exercise is practical and it works.
You have a mind, but you are not your mind. Meditation is practical and it works.
Re: Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can measure how many times you get distracted, and how far do you get dragged. This is very easy to do during meditation.
Yes, but who decides the standard here? I am distracted 5 times a minute. Is it good enough or should I continue practicing? And in the end - why is this a bad thing, to be distracted? If it’s in our nature in the first place? I’m not being sarcastic - I truly want to know the deep answers from someone knowledgeable, but didn’t find any answers yet.
> And in the end - why is this a bad thing, to be distracted? If it’s in our nature in the first place?
But is it indeed in our nature? That comment assumes: if a condition exists, then that condition is correct. But, for example, it's in our nature to overload on sugar and fats, but that's not a healthy way to live.
Re: Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?
#137meditation for me is investigating nature of reality by observation.
Re: Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?
#138The very first question is why do you want to meditate in the first place?
If... "I want to quite my mind." Good luck with that! Trying to quite the mind just makes it louder. Or even worse, throwing trash in the closet until it piles up and you're living a lie and going crazy. Our minds, considering that you are a human too, is not meant to be quite. It's more like a tool that evolved to sense and experience abstractions. Have a bunch of stuff in your mind? Too much to handle? Sit down, do nothing, feel everything and cry it out. Why? From my finite observation, sitting down, doing nothing, feeling everything and crying it out, is to allow you to slowly and gently follow the threads of thoughts, memories, and emotions, to find the mental kinks within yourself and be able to come to terms and integrate it into your being. Sometimes it's joyful, other times you will enter to dark places that will give you the temptation of getting up and doing something about it. Don't. We know what it feels like. It hurts, bad. But you must sit still and feel it out. That rash decision will only make things more painful. As long as you practice sitting down, doing nothing, feeling everything and crying it out, the mind doesn't become something you fight to shut up, but instead something you roll with.
"I want to be more mindful." Why? Do you have a disciplined mind that can be concentrated to a single point? What good will it do to let it run wild without knowing how to get a grip on it in the first place. What will you do when you are diving down the pit of psychosis at 50000 mph? Can you snap out of the signs that lead there? Like the warping of the visual field? The spiral into vexing confusion that blurs the senses? Western new age hip plastic spirituality messed up bad trying to make mindfulness/vipassana meditation as the gateway to everlasting inner peace where the gods/daemons/demons/buddhas/devi/[whatever higher or lower dimensional beings here] fart the scent of flowers upon our noses and everything is all well and fine until you circle back to the beginning, again and again and again, and again. And again. And maybe this app that told you that you meditated for 20 minutes and gave you an award badge like a treat to a dog for doing so well. Then the thought pops up if you are even doing mindfulness properly, and another, and another, and another. You wanted to be mindful, you ended up confused instead. How about doing the exact opposite? Concentrate on that pen right next to you. With your entire being. Then come back to mindfulness. You'll notice single pointed concentration and mindfulness leads to the same place. But samadhi meditation is easier to practice for someone that didn't grow up with Southern Buddhism. Since it's only relaxed concentration. But it builds the necessary skill of being able to tug the leash when the mind is running too loose.
In simple terms from this fleeting being tapping away, meditation is the practice of bringing our identification aspect of ourselves beyond our minds and back into our senses to have an observation without an attachment to the preconceived notions that come up and layer upon our direct experience. Thoughts and concepts are a There-ness within the Is-ness of what we are experiencing here and now. Meditation is to strengthen this mode of awareness.
Disclaimer. I'm not a certified anything. Just a practitioner. Never met any of my teachers beyond the books and talks they created. Mindfulness meditation isn't for everyone, you want inner peace go do something else that won't make you deal/play with the worms in your mind on solo mode with a manual with a bunch of holes in it.
Peace and Love
Re: Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can measure how many times you get distracted, and how far do you get dragged. This is very easy to do during meditation.
Yes, but who decides the standard here? I am distracted 5 times a minute. Is it good enough or should I continue practicing? And in the end - why is this a bad thing, to be distracted? If it’s in our nature in the first place? I’m not being sarcastic - I truly want to know the deep answers from someone knowledgeable, but didn’t find any answers yet.
You want that capability to separate yourself from thoughts that are intrusive or that you don't wanna think. I like the metaphor of sticky thoughts. Oftentimes, thoughts that aren't good for us drive us. But what we really want is to be able to snap out of them and identify them for what they are. Meditating is just learning to notice things that go on inside your head or around you. You're training your nervous system. See https://rightasrain.uwmedicine.org/mind/well-being/science-b... or any other hit on google for "meditation parasympathetic nervous system". You're learning to regulate yourself basically.
Re: Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?
#140Meditation is being fully aware of what's happening now. Washing dishes can be a meditation. Talking a walk. Focusing on the breath. Repeating a mantra. Lifting weights. It doesn't matter what the technique is, the important part is that you are aware of what happening now and being present in that moment, from moment to moment. For many people, focusing on the breath is an easy way to notice when the mind wanders, s…
> Meditation is being fully aware of what's happening now. Is scrolling TikTok meditation then?
You joke, but If scrolling TikTok puts you in a particular State of Mind, then Yes.
Simply put; Any Activity which causes The Subject (i.e. The Doer) to lose himself in the Continuous Contemplation of The Object (whatever it may be), is Meditation.
The best example of this is the ancient Hindu Text Vijnana Bhairava Tantra which lists 112 types of Activities which if done correctly leads to "Meditative Dissolution". Start your study here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vij%C3%B1%C4%81na_Bhairava_Tan...