Meditation stripped to it's core is good. All the religious hokum that often seems to surround it I find a bit nauseating.
Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast
101–108 of 108 posts
Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast
#102| For the study, participants were taught to meditate by focusing on the sensation of their breathing, acknowledging and dismissing any stray thoughts that popped into their heads. For those who do practice meditation, what are other techniques that are effective to you?
That's the essence of mindfulness meditation (the technique used in the paper). There's a completely different school that requires the use of mantras like "om" etc. Transcendental meditation is an example of a mantra-based technique. For myself, I find the mindfulness approach more useful and grounded than the mantra approach. There are also more active techniques such as tai chi, qi gong and yoga but they only qual…
Qi gong, tai chi, and yoga qualify as themselves only if done with a conscious and meditative mindset.
Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tried to look up more info about it but it seems like to learn anything, one has to take some $1500 course. Can you summarize how it differs from the standard meditation (i.e. zen meditation)?
As others have pointed out, Zen is not "standard", but just one variety of meditation among many. However, to answer your question: TM is focused on the internal repetition of a one-word Mantra, given to you by a teacher, and in that regard is not very different than mantra meditation you'd find in some Buddhist (Thai, Tibetan, Indian, Chinese) traditions. (I should point out that I do Buddhist meditation myself, but…
No, what I wanted to say is that I'm familiar with meditation but I was trying to figure out what is the difference between normal meditation and TM but all TM websites described how TM will influence your life without actually explaining how is it different.
Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast
#104I used to meditate but no longer do since I'm starting to trip (audial/visual hallucinations) very fast and the trip is usually not a good one. It is a very powerful natural psychedelic experience, comparable to third plateau of DXM at least... but controllable, unlike DXM.
Some people react poorly to meditation -- even having hallucinations. See this story for more examples: http://www.sfweekly.com/2002-08-28/news/bad-vibes/ So sure, try it, but if it doesn't feel right, don't force it.
Psychologists at Virginia Commonwealth University monitored 30 chronically anxious people during guided meditation. Seventeen percent indicated that their anxiety got worse.
17% of 30 = 5.1 people. Why not just say "five out of thirty indicated ..."?
Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast
#105Check out Vipassana meditation: http://www.dhamma.org . They offer 10-day residential courses for no charge at centres worldwide.
Be aware that there are some reports of these Goenka retreats being cult-like and involving some aspects of brain-washing. Additionally they may force a particular style and experience of meditation. http://melissamaples.com/how-not-to-do-a-goenka-vipassana-re... http://www.greatwesternvehicle.org/criticism/goenka.htm (I do not wish to start an argument, I am just pointing this out so that readers might be better inf…
Since you say yourself that you are not speaking from personal experience, perhaps it would help to have the words of someone who is speaking from experience.
The meditation retreat is difficult and uncomfortable because of its unfamiliar rules: no interaction with other students, no talking, very strict schedule of waking, meditation, food, and breaks. All of these are tools to eliminate distraction from the reason you are there: to develop a basic capacity to perform the meditation technique properly.
The course materials and instructions repeatedly stress that nothing they say is important; there is no philosophy you have to accept, no ideas you have to believe. As someone who is very logical minded and anti-all-"isms" and beliefs, I would have left after the first day if they didn't stress that you can ignore 100% of everything and anything they say if you just do the meditation technique.
The entire benefit of the experience is derived within you, in the same sense that no matter how many books you read about how touching a flame "burns," the experience of touching a burning stove is how you actually learn "ah, fire BURNS".
Ten days seems a long time to devote to learning "how to meditate", but it simply isn't possible to do in any shorter length of time, nor would it work if you simply did several 1-day sessions.
Suppose you went to the gym every single day, but you only did 1 pushup and 1 crunch every day. You might complain that this whole exercise thing is pointless. This would be a great loss.
Feel free email if anyone has questions. I'd be happy to discuss but the topic would overflow many pages so I'll just leave it for now.
Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worth spending a bit of time reading on, as I find the descriptions here to be overly superficial, perhaps largely because meditation is more defined by what you do not do, than what you do. It's also worth noting that there are many types of meditation. Years ago I read "Buddhism without Beliefs" (on "agnostic Buddhism"). Bullshitty as the title may sound, the major thing that I came away with was a decent medi…
I highly suggest "The Tibetan Book of The Dead" and "The Power of Silence." Try to find the TBOTD version translated by W.Y. Evans-Wentz if you're not one for happy meal, watered-down philosophy. Take these texts with a grain of salt at first only because they will be thoroughly alien to your mind; once absorbed use wisely. "...that which clingth not no fall can come. Where no fall cometh, there is rest, and where re…
Why on earth would an old translation in that kind of Biblical language be preferable above a newer translation? That kind of language is perfect for suggesting wisdom, through age, where there isn't any.
Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast
#107| For the study, participants were taught to meditate by focusing on the sensation of their breathing, acknowledging and dismissing any stray thoughts that popped into their heads. For those who do practice meditation, what are other techniques that are effective to you?
It's worth spending a bit of time reading on, as I find the descriptions here to be overly superficial, perhaps largely because meditation is more defined by what you do not do, than what you do. It's also worth noting that there are many types of meditation. Years ago I read "Buddhism without Beliefs" (on "agnostic Buddhism"). Bullshitty as the title may sound, the major thing that I came away with was a decent medi…
> It doesn't develop the mind, it dissolves the mind. Self-improvement?
> Forget it, baby. It erases the self.
> Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass.
Re: Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worth spending a bit of time reading on, as I find the descriptions here to be overly superficial, perhaps largely because meditation is more defined by what you do not do, than what you do. It's also worth noting that there are many types of meditation. Years ago I read "Buddhism without Beliefs" (on "agnostic Buddhism"). Bullshitty as the title may sound, the major thing that I came away with was a decent medi…
> It doesn't develop the mind, it dissolves the mind. Self-improvement? > Forget it, baby. It erases the self. > Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass. This doesn't sound like it fits the western culture at all. I'd think twice about going down a path that is so fundemantally different from what we've learned since kindergarden.
I don't mean to offend, but kindergarden teachers are rarely cognitive neuroscientists. The whole idea of having no idea, of having nothing and no ego is to get you out of your own way. People get caught up on the words, concepts, and ideas of things, which are not actually the things they point to. There is no spoon because a spoon is only an idea, a socially acceptable approximation in a particular context, while what you hold to eat is unspeakable.