Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?

I’m not trying to be philosophical here.

I’m trying to find those personal specific seeds that drove people to meditation.

Judging by the comments here - there are not that much. Most just repeat common mass media Knowledge about meditation.

Although some comments feel deeply personal, this is why I try to find more evidence, not just put a label on this meditation thing.

> we can learn to focus on what we are doing much more precisely than "typical" focus that we think is focusing

Is that different from the kind of focus during strenuous exercise?

I humbly suggest Alan Watts’ take, for example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df8wNh8-HLs

Somewhat flawed transcript here: https://alanwatts.org/2-5-4-meditation/

Words are references. Without a word, we could just point and gesture. Call it “pizza” if you wish.

When I first learned about pizza I didn’t have much use for it. I heard from others their interest in pizza. This was my growing awareness, but not interest or focus on pizza.

As with many things, as I have grown older I hear more about pizza and I encounter different practitioners and media discussion of pizza.

I only became interested in pizza as a practice when I heard an interview between zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and radio host Krista Tippett.

It doesn’t take more than a few very clever ideas for me to take notice, and these people are clever and insightful thinkers. It was an interesting discussion.

I learned that pizza was part of the practice, and that pizza can be practiced by lay people.

It was then that the reference pizza lost its singular representation and became, for me, something more. It became something for which the term pizza was useful and convenient, but not necessary.

I don’t question pizza in terms of the single referent pizza. My interest has transcended the singular reference. My thoughts on pizza are many, multi-facetted and self-sustaining (in my memory and understanding).

For me this missive is very honest account of how, leading to what, pizza is to me. Not what I do with pizza, or how much pizza I … consume (haha!). Maybe I’m not _persuasive_ enough to bring you to the point of liking pizza as much as I do.

Maybe you’re interested in other things and pizza is just the ‘word’ or object you have focused on?

https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/nf961AVmNQCRARXq7

I totally empathize with this. I am no expert meditator- I've been practicing for 5yrs and have only gotten glimpses of that stillness, "mind like water" phenomenon people talk about. But from my experience this is what it's all about: it's developing the muscle memory necessary to observe and release one's thoughts with the goal of peace. It's recognizing that those thoughts are like little fish swimming through the water- we are the water not the fish. Sam Harris gives a better explanation than I can in his latest pod here: https://overcast.fm/+KhqHiQsxY/29:15