31–40 of 148 posts
Sam Harris' Waking Up https://app.wakingup.com/ tries to. (No affiliation, just an user.)
One thing to be mindful of is mindfulness is a fad. It’s not a silver bullet for fixing problems.
Besides, the Pali word for mindfulness, sati, is one of the Seven Factors of Awakening (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Factors_of_Awakening). So as part of a whole practice, besides just bare attention and a mind that doesn't move much, there's factors like joy, energy, and tranquility to balance.
Not to mention the precepts as a prerequisite to even starting the practice.
I used to think this mindfulness stuff could be completely stripped of its context, like an extra secular Buddhism, but I'm not so sure anymore.
Mindfulness isn't "thinking about chopping onions while chopping onions." Mindfulness is chopping onions. The confusion is that "developing" mindfulness means recognizing when, while chopping onions, you're instead thinking about work, or that embarrassing moment from years ago. There are meditation practices, like "noting", that have you think or say what you're doing while you're doing it. But this is an exercise t…
You're arguing semantics. These two things are not mutually exclusive either. You can and should practice both.
The comment above seems very relevant to me. Sure, mindfulness (meditation?) can be both.
Still, the signposts point primarily not to thinking as the driver of doing (being), but to awareness itself.
Mindfulness isn't "thinking about chopping onions while chopping onions." Mindfulness is chopping onions. The confusion is that "developing" mindfulness means recognizing when, while chopping onions, you're instead thinking about work, or that embarrassing moment from years ago. There are meditation practices, like "noting", that have you think or say what you're doing while you're doing it. But this is an exercise t…
You're arguing semantics. These two things are not mutually exclusive either. You can and should practice both.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s so special about buddhists? What’s the evidence? Is there some scientific research demonstrating something unique about them compared to the rest of the people?
Well, suppose your best friend told you that he did some practice for a while, and gradually got rid of what he estimated to be 99% of the suffering he'd had before. What form do you think evidence of that could take? Brain scans of some kind? They have apparently been done, and they apparently really do look odd. https://www.lionsroar.com/how-meditation-changes-your-brain-...
What I doubt is that doing so is prudent.
When you look at the ambiguously labeled knobs and levers in the locked control panel of your mind, is it really a good idea to pick the lock and mess around with the levers?
(Also, why would I even want to change whether a thing would cause my mental reaction to be “suffering”? Either “suffering” refers to something other than what I generally mean by the word, in which case, well, whether it is a benefit would depend on what that meaning is (but the default would be not to mess with things beyond my ken) , or it does, in which case, uh, no, I’d rather not be wireheaded kthx. Along the lines of https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/utilitarian-time-travel , if the baron would impale me on a pike, my preferred solution would be to prevent that, not to have a neural restructuring beam make it so I love getting impaled. )
Mindfulness isn't "thinking about chopping onions while chopping onions." Mindfulness is chopping onions. The confusion is that "developing" mindfulness means recognizing when, while chopping onions, you're instead thinking about work, or that embarrassing moment from years ago. There are meditation practices, like "noting", that have you think or say what you're doing while you're doing it. But this is an exercise t…
You're arguing semantics. These two things are not mutually exclusive either. You can and should practice both.
Yes.
Is there any evidence mindfulness as taught and practiced by, well, those who teach and practice it, is good for anything ? Keep in mind (no pun intended) - if your example is someone who was already successful, and they remain successful, that's not terribly good evidence.
> Is there any evidence mindfulness as taught and practiced by, well, those who teach and practice it, is good for anything? Well, the 26 centuries of Buddhism, and all those monks and laypeople. I'm not sure if you consider all that they've said and written to be evidence , but I think you should.
Just because it's a Buddhist practice, and it's ancient, that's all you need...?
The same can be said about any other religious practice.
You sound almost like a Christian preacher who could very well say,
"Well, the 20 centuries of Christianity, and all those priests and laypeople. I'm not sure if you consider all that they've said and written to be evidence, but I think you should."
You need reasons actually grounded in preferably personal practice.
That is, something treated like a scientific experiment performed on yourself, to see if following the steps affects you. Then, you look at the results others have attained.
And then you draw rational and logical conclusions based off of that cumulative data.
The end goal of mindfulness is to make you realize that you don't exist and that you have no free will, and there is no "you." With enough practice you will get there, and it's interesting to be able to meditate to the point where you briefly experience periods where you don't exist. Overall, while of course it's true that we have no free will and there is no "you", it's a terrible place to leave someone, especially…
Have you ever considered that all of this might be gobbledygook that obviously doesn't even serve you well?