141–150 of 181 posts
So one guy measured a gamma wave of his friend, and it's a >140 point article on HN? There's zero substance to this article. No links to reviewed research.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Put very curedly, they're getting high. And, everybody's getting high. Life is about pleasure. If you found out that you can feel really, really good by sitting and doing nothing... would you do it? Of course you would. :) Now the stark reality however, is that to be able to sit and meditate properly requires to be already at home in the body. Any amount of trauma will make that particularly difficult. As soon as you…
"If you found out that you can feel really, really good by sitting and doing nothing... would you do it? Of course you would. :)" Nope, I'd go for walk. Meditation is passive and lazy. Being outside in nature with the sounds of the birds and the UV light, being actually connected with the universe, being alive.
It truly is neither. "Passive" meditation would be daydreaming, which all meditation techniques aim to minimise. Hardly 'lazy' either - retreat drop-out rates are high precisely because it can be really, really hard to muster the will to maintain the required discpline for hours (and days) at at time.
> Nope, I'd go for walk
Most meditation traditions include walking practises.
What do these 'meditators' do for a living ? How can they afford to spend their days sitting down doing essentially nothing ? Could they do this high-level mediation in a busy office with people on phone meetings all around them ?
Put very curedly, they're getting high. And, everybody's getting high. Life is about pleasure. If you found out that you can feel really, really good by sitting and doing nothing... would you do it? Of course you would. :) Now the stark reality however, is that to be able to sit and meditate properly requires to be already at home in the body. Any amount of trauma will make that particularly difficult. As soon as you…
However you might assess such disciplines (I'm not sure myself), it's pretty clear that pleasure and getting high is absolutely not their aim - indeed attachment to such would be considered a hindrance to 'progress'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My comment wasn't about the article's word choice, it was about the fact that if this article is correct, then there seems to be a link between meditation and autism spectrum disorder (based on 4 studies showing strong gamma waves being a great indicator of ASD). Since many meditators say that meditation "cures you of mental illness", the idea that the best meditators have ASD is probably something that meditators wo…
yet I believe that meditation is not a tool to calm the mind, but rather to focus it. The mind is always active and meditation gives you the means to shift the activity focus to something healthier, even if it means that the mind is working harder at it. When you meditate you are not disperse in a thoughtless slumber, that would be the first stage of non-rem sleep, but rather completely focused. That might explain th…
"You enter Stage Ten with all the qualities of śamatha: effortlessly stable attention, mindfulness, joy, tranquility, and equanimity. At first these qualities immediately fade after the meditation has ended. But as you continue to practice, they persist longer and longer between meditation sessions. Eventually they become the normal condition of the mind."
As for the gamma wave correlation, my guess is that the adept meditator is actually taking in everything that goes on around them (due to powerful mindfulness). While the layman is probably just thinking about what they'll have for dinner as they navigate the world.
As a Zen Monk, my answer to “What does it mean?” would be: “If I tell you, I deserve 30 blows. If I don’t tell you, I deserve 30 blows. Now, tell me: Why did I say so!” Zen Monk Alain M. Lafon, headmonk of Lambda Zen Temple of Glarus, Switzerland https://zen-temple.net/zen-temples/lambda-zen-temple/introdu...
I would guess that what the monk is communicating is that to think about "what does it mean" is to separate oneself from the meaning (i.e. the experience), which is the opposite of Zen. The goal is for you to be your true self. There is no true self in figuring out the meaning of something. Meaning comes from personally conducting the chaos of one's life (which is "the way"). To philosophize (or similar) something is…
That's a great explanation.
For those who are interested and new to meditation, I started meditating several years ago with Headspace and YouTube videos of Jonathan Kabat Zinn and others. It's a great place to start. I later went on a silent meditation retreat and learned a lot more about meditation and got confident with techniques I could practice on my own. This may not be available to everyone due to the time commitment (and being completel…
> May everyone reading this be happy and free. सुभ्मस्तु as I would say in Sanskrit.
For those who are interested and new to meditation, I started meditating several years ago with Headspace and YouTube videos of Jonathan Kabat Zinn and others. It's a great place to start. I later went on a silent meditation retreat and learned a lot more about meditation and got confident with techniques I could practice on my own. This may not be available to everyone due to the time commitment (and being completel…
Do you have links to those YouTube videos from Jon Kabat Zinn?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Put very curedly, they're getting high. And, everybody's getting high. Life is about pleasure. If you found out that you can feel really, really good by sitting and doing nothing... would you do it? Of course you would. :) Now the stark reality however, is that to be able to sit and meditate properly requires to be already at home in the body. Any amount of trauma will make that particularly difficult. As soon as you…
Yet most spiritual disciplines proffer strictures against chasing pleasurable meditative states. They can arise, but are generally not supposed to be sought, nor held on to. After arising, they fall away, and that is fine - all the same to a serious meditator. However you might assess such disciplines (I'm not sure myself), it's pretty clear that pleasure and getting high is absolutely not their aim - indeed attachme…
Amateur meditator here, who had the trippiest experience from meditating in the World's Quietest Room (anechoic chamber at the Microsoft lab) for two hours. tl;dr: multiple sensory streams completely merged. I "lost" the t-region of my face. All breathing relocated into my auditory track (can't be a coincidence I was in a -22db environment, right?) I'm still curious to try to get a veteran meditator or neuroscientist…