51–60 of 295 posts
When i exercise or try to meditate i just wind up thinking about things i need to do, and i typically abandon my workout to go do it. It can be as simple as picking up a dirty sock or putting away a coffee cup.
My apartment is never more spotless than when I have to tackle some hard/complex piece of code that requires my undivided attention for a long stretch.
I've been practicing meditation for several years now. The phenomenon described in the article is very obvious to every practitioner - it can happen that for some time you will feel worse (actually I'm surprised that it's only 8%). It is related to psychological mechanisms of repression, which is weakened during meditation practices. That is why during serious meditation retreats (like 10 days vipassana) some people…
To be fair the vast majority of people who leave (Goenka) Vipassana retreats leave on days 2 and 6 (Goenka himself mentioned this in one of the prerecorded talks). It's extremely unlikely that first timers get concentrated enough to start experiencing negative effects (such as 'bhanga jnana' or dissociation) in 1-5 days of meditation. Anyone familiar with those retreats would guess they couldn't take the boot camp schedule and not being allowed to speak or to peruse any kind of diversion such as book or smartphone.
This is probably oversimplified, but it does make some sense. Some people are happily trotting about in their objectively miserable lives. Sit them down and let them think on it, and they just might realize how empty their lives are and how little control they have over their situation. I've always been very "mindful" and depending on your inclination to cynicism, that inevitably means finding out that life is what i…
What is the difference between an objectively happy life and an objectively miserable life?
In my 20s, I would routinely get into yelling and screaming matches with girlfriends. There were two significant driving forces behind that:
- that is how my parents interacted. Things are good, someone screws up, everyone yells at each other for a while, and the next day it’s as if nothing happened. There were addictions involved...
- because it was the family dynamic I was used to, I was naturally attracted to people with similar disagreement-resolution styles.
I started down this path when I met someone awesome (now going 10 years strong), and she came from a family that uhhh wasn’t quite as messed up as mine. We’d have a disagreement, I’d yell, and she would shut down. She basically told me that if I didn’t stop trying to argue like that, she’d be gone.
So I started figuring out how to take something I was upset about and generally stay calm enough to discuss it, but the anger was still there, I was just suppressing it. Turns out, when I did that consistently, I started to go emotionally numb. Sure, I didn’t fly off the handle when I was upset, but I also didn’t find much joy in anything either (which I had before!)
What I basically concluded one night was that I had effectively found my “volume knob” and I had turned it down too much. Therapy and meditation (encouraged by the therapist) helped me work through all the baggage that came from my weird childhood and helped me get that volume knob dialled in.
Now I have wonderful joyful experiences, and when my partner and I have a disagreement about something, we can resolve it calmly. I don’t think I’ve yelled at a single human being in probably 8 years.
Objectively happy vs. objectively miserable? I don’t know if objective applies since I didn’t collect any data :). But, if nothing else, I would wager my cortisol and other stress hormone levels are waaaaaaay down compared to how things used to be.
It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. Yogis writing about the practice (before it became big business) freely admit all sorts of horrible-sounding mental side effects, but couch them in religious terms (and encourage the acolyte to push through until they achieve "enlightenment", which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being). Thi…
This is true for far Eastern styles of meditation, but it's not true for Christian meditation[1]. It aims to fill the mind rather than to empty it. In general Christian meditation is practiced more by the various Eastern Christian Churches, but there are Western traditions as well. I'm by no means an adept at the practice, but it has benefited me pragmatically and spiritually.
It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. Yogis writing about the practice (before it became big business) freely admit all sorts of horrible-sounding mental side effects, but couch them in religious terms (and encourage the acolyte to push through until they achieve "enlightenment", which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being). Thi…
Can confirm from personal experience. Even a lot of vipassana meditation by itself can send you into psychotic states when you're not ready for all the insight yet. I came very close to psychosis once, experienced ego death, broke down mentally and had to spend 2 months in a depression ward. Cannot recommend. On the other hand, I met my now-wife in the depression ward, which in the "active" phase right before my admi…
I _accidentally_ fell into a vipassana state of mind after the first time trying a particular religious chant, seriously, from out of the pains of boredom as a 20 year old.
At the time I lived nearby mountains, and after 'coming to', I saw them through the window. I cannot describe to you the overwhelming feeling of beauty and awe that crashed over me. It was as though this was the very first time I had ever seen mountains. I think the best description I can manage comes from 'Both Sides Now' by Joni Mitchell.
'I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all'
The experience was so disorienting. As if I was seeing the mountains for what they were directly through my senses and not mediated by my knowledge of what mountains were like, linguistically.
It changed my entire life -- weeks later later I lost my job and fell into a 5 year extreme depression / anxiety spell in the attempt to reconcile my adolescent religious upbringing with the continued insight from that experience. Absolutely worthwhile, in hindsight, but it cost me near everything for it.
Depends on your object of meditation
No. For any meditation object one can have pleasant and unpleasant experiences.
If you do metta (loving kindness) you can cultivate equanimity and other positive qualities. These can act like resources that can help you deal with trauma resurfacing in a healthier way. They can also reduce the aversion towards the parts of you that carry the trauma and this can be beneficial.
I've been practicing meditation for several years now. The phenomenon described in the article is very obvious to every practitioner - it can happen that for some time you will feel worse (actually I'm surprised that it's only 8%). It is related to psychological mechanisms of repression, which is weakened during meditation practices. That is why during serious meditation retreats (like 10 days vipassana) some people…
I have never sat down and properly given meditation a go. That said I have encountered it in various walks - through yoga, martial arts and casual meditation sessions. What benefits would you describe you feeling from getting past beginner stage?
There are different meditation practices, mindfulness meditation is a special type of meditation (popular are Headspace, Calm, the work of Jon-Kabat et al. and many more).
There are other types of meditation not aiming primarily at mindfulness, popular examples being Transcendental Meditation, visualisation type exercises, and many more.
Mindfulness (in the scientific sense) refers to a state of mind characterised by various qualities (which are slightly different depending on the author), in short being in the present moment, or "not on auto-pilot".
In a mindfulness course, meditation refers to the formal practice of catching your inner auto-pilot. This is usually complemented by applying mindfulness to every-day situations as well as some form of psycho-education.
As a last comment, a 10-day Vipassana retreat is a completely different beast than doing a 10 minute guided mindfulness meditation every day, especially in terms of risks. As has been mentioned by variosu posters, there is a small, but real risk, that the retreat can trigger psychosis. In my understanding this is significantly different to the worsening of a pre-existing condition as described in the article.
The whole point of vipassana is to break down what exactly is happening into its component parts. If your feeling anxious then you try to break that down into mental imagery, bodily sensations, mental chatter etc
You are essentially exploring your depression, anxiety or whatever else you are feeling and over time you'll be able to handle all these states of minds calmly.
One positive aspect of meditation is that it can start to make you feel very good. You can start off your meditation session with extreme states of anxiety and as you explore what it means to be anxious - anxious feelings all over your body can suddenly turn into extremely pleasant sensations sliding up your body. The more you do it the more persistent this feeling becomes.