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Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

newscientist.com

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Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#221

Post by sysalphUS »

mpax wrote: post #213
groby_b wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is not conducive to maintaining any kind of organized group of human beings. The idea that "life is meaningless" means that society cannot rely on you, because you'll do whatever strikes your fancy, whatever the consequences. Worse, it is also a philosophy that contributes absolutely nothing to actually understanding the nature of the world, which is kind of the point of philosophy. In short, nihilists are…

> The idea that "life is meaningless" means that society cannot rely on you, because you'll do whatever strikes your fancy, whatever the consequences. How does "life is meaningless" imply "life is useless"? Also, why would nihilism entail radical individualism? The core of nihilism is that since the indifferent universe is without meaning humans have to give it meaning, quite the opposite of what you're implying.

That sounds more like absurdism.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#222

Post by hdfhu »

dorkwood wrote: post #188

This is anecdotal, but I feel that learning to meditate has caused my mind to go blank much more easily during conversation. Before I ever knew about meditation, it felt like my brain would always serve up whatever words and ideas were needed to keep the sentence going. I even felt like I was quite a quick-witted person. But now I'll often lose my train of thought and suddenly be left with a completely empty head. I…

Meditation is prolonged concentration on something. Perhaps what you practiced was exactly "thinking about nothing and keeping your mind blank"? That would be the opposite of meditation and could be harmful, I guess. There are very subtle objects used in meditation, like light or space, but it's definitely not nothing.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#223

Post by aarpmcgee »

samus wrote: post #214
aarpmcgee wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is meditation a means to an end? Is mental stillness or focusing on senses the result of meditation, or meditation itself?

Meditation and other religious practices are always means to an end. Even if the end is actually unknown or shrouded in religious mystery. Thus, it is very important to be clear on what one actually wants to achieve with a particular practice. If you want to achieve something, but use the wrong means, at some point you'll realize that you're wasting time and effort. But if you don't know what you're after, you just w…

Would you be willing to give me some examples of such "ends"?

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#224

Post by thevardanian »

fsloth wrote: post #146
mtalantikite wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being.” This is very important to point out and I think is actually the big trap when approaching meditative practices. I fell into this nihilism trap when I was starting meditation in college and I abandoned my practice almost completely for the next 10 or so years. It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self. The latter is an e…

"It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self." Yeah, basically you have to realize that the fact you observe all of the normal brain noise is gone does not mean you are gone. You still observe. And most critically, you are not your brain noise, but something beyond that.

Not beyond. Not becoming.

The beyond implies a spatial expanse in which one progresses. Becoming implies a temporal expanse in which one progresses. The cessation of these spatiotemporal limits is fundamental to that "state of being" (this phrase itself betrays that). In that sense memory itself creates that time-space substance, because it is through that, that it exists.

This is something that is very difficult to reconcile with, because this would also imply that cause and effect are non-objects. So then what is it that one "realizes"?

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#225

Post by thevardanian »

adaisadais wrote: post #94
lukaa wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in Catholicism there are Jesuit spiritual exercises tailored both for priests and shorter for ordinary people, similar in orthodoxy. I think protestants lack that element and that's why meditation is so catchy in America.

Meditation is big in both Catholicism and Protestantism within the U.S. Meditation is catchy now due to some of the research behind it as well as society always looking for the next panacea. Modern / Hindu / Buddhist meditation (or what i have read and understood) typically centers around emptying one’s self or chanting a certain phrase to reach enlightenment. Christian meditation is about filling oneself with the Ho…

The denial of the self or "selfish desires" is the common thread here.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#226

Post by thevardanian »

tgflynn wrote: post #110
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point out some of the traditional practices of meditation that have no roots in religious traditions? I can't think of any truly secular traditions of the top of my head (or at least any that weren't invented in the last 50 years).

One might argue that stoicism would be one such case, though I don't think it developed techniques anywhere near as sophisticated as those of Eastern traditions. As for Buddhism, which is at the root of what most people mean by "meditation" today, calling it a religion is a bit problematic because it doesn't involve worshiping gods and, in theory at least, is not supposed to be primarily faith based. Both of those th…

Buddhism while not worshipping Gods, does not deny their existence, or rather a more familiar phrase would be deny the existence of "higher beings".

So it is neither atheistic nor theistic.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#227

Post by hvs »

tyre wrote: post #144
Igelau wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self. I think part of the issue is that the words/concepts really don't translate into modern english well at all. Another example is how frequently the first of the Four Noble Truths is misrepresented as "Life is suffering". We don't have good ways of saying or explaining shunyata or dukkha that preserve the nuance of the concepts. Edit: Thic…

Is there a longer translation that gives more nuance than "suffering"? Often times we settle for less precise words in favor of pithiness/conciseness.

I prefer "unsatisfactoriness" rather than "suffering".

"The word is commonly explained as a derivation from Aryan terminology for an axle hole, referring to an axle hole which is not in the center and leads to a bumpy, uncomfortable ride."

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#228

Post by TurkishPoptart »

JesseMeyer wrote: post #56
Mo3 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Meditation is a blade with no hilt. 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…

Holy shit. You need to write more of this. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#229

Post by mensetmanusman »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #153
User23 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. 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…

Isn't dying to self a central tenet of Christian teaching? " Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12:24 "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. " Galat…

Dying to self versus death of self maybe?

Re: Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety

#230

Post by xdavidliu »

mpax wrote: post #213
groby_b wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is not conducive to maintaining any kind of organized group of human beings. The idea that "life is meaningless" means that society cannot rely on you, because you'll do whatever strikes your fancy, whatever the consequences. Worse, it is also a philosophy that contributes absolutely nothing to actually understanding the nature of the world, which is kind of the point of philosophy. In short, nihilists are…

> The idea that "life is meaningless" means that society cannot rely on you, because you'll do whatever strikes your fancy, whatever the consequences. How does "life is meaningless" imply "life is useless"? Also, why would nihilism entail radical individualism? The core of nihilism is that since the indifferent universe is without meaning humans have to give it meaning, quite the opposite of what you're implying.

> The core of nihilism is that since the indifferent universe is without meaning humans have to give it meaning.

I'm not that familiar with nihilism, but I'm rather surprised that "humans have to give it meaning" is part of the core. That's somewhat non-obvious to me; intuitively I would have expected nihilists to believe that meaning cannot exist.

Can you point me toward some sources that say nihilists actually believe that humans are capable of creating meaning?

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