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Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#51

Post by logicchains »

stevebmark wrote: post #39

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…

> 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 as a therapeutic intervention.

I wonder if part of the problem is exposing people to a visceral understanding of that without also teaching them an intellectual understanding. I.e. that if the universe is deterministic, then all their actions were predetermined at the start of the universe, and there's no sense in worrying about the future because there's nothing we can do to change it. And to the extent that the universe is non-deterministic, the added randomness means we have even less (still zero) influence over future outcomes. In this light, the notion of "self" drops away as an arbitrary distinction among cogs in a single machine, and without the self there's no way to think thoughts like "I am sad" or "I am unhappy". Because such thoughts rely on belief in the existence of "I".

I can imagine it causing trauma when someone suddenly feels via meditation that they have no "I", but have no way of understanding/processing this on an intellectual level.

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#52

Post by BoHerfVJrEsq »

Valmar wrote: post #38
BoHerfVJrEsq wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So, an appeal to tradition is all you have? 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 y…

> So, an appeal to tradition is all you have?

Hmm, no, sorry if that's how it seemed. I mean the tens of thousands of books, talks, testimonials, etc, that make specific claims like attaining freedom from suffering using various specific strategies and meditation practices.

> You need reasons actually grounded in preferably personal practice.

My personal practice is a few thousand hours of meditation. It's obvious to me that the practice is working, but I can't say exactly what it's doing to my brain, and I can't prove it to anyone else (unless I would already appear odd on a brain scan)

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#53

Post by andi999 »

artificialLimbs wrote: post #10
kayodelycaon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along these lines, my psychiatrist was all about mindfulness. I’d spent my entire life working on being mindful of my actions and reinvented Cognitive Behavior Therapy in the process. For all the good it did me. Without executive function, mindfulness is pretty much useless for self-improvement. People misapply mindfulness all over the place and it drives me nuts. Maybe if we called it “paying attention to detail”, p…

>> self-improvement I don't see mindfulness as being for self improvement. Its most precious function is for self observation and self learning. It is intended for one to 'wake up' to be able to see oneself as one is. In our 'normal' state of functioning, we are completely divorced from most of our own internal perceptions most of the time. Do you realize that you have a foot right now? Likely no, but when you read t…

Beeing aware of the sound you hear in your ear when it is silent and focusing on it is the best way to increase the volume, making it permanent and driving you nuts according to my ear doctor. Being oblivious to your body is in my opinion the healthy state.

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#55

Post by Aerroon »

A lot of these posts here on HN regarding meditation and mindfulness sound like what you would hear from an 'intergalactic encyclopedia salesman'. Just a different faith. It's dressed up in the mystery of 'teachings' and 'feelings' and other vague notions.

It feels like someone has set up an industry that's raking in a lot of money and all the converts perpetuate it. Perhaps they buy into it or maybe they try to justify it to not feel like they were cheated, but the way it's talked about puts me immediately on guard. I suppose that even if it doesn't work there might be a placebo effect at play.

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#56

Post by MauranKilom »

Aerroon wrote: post #55

A lot of these posts here on HN regarding meditation and mindfulness sound like what you would hear from an 'intergalactic encyclopedia salesman'. Just a different faith. It's dressed up in the mystery of 'teachings' and 'feelings' and other vague notions. It feels like someone has set up an industry that's raking in a lot of money and all the converts perpetuate it. Perhaps they buy into it or maybe they try to just…

> I suppose that even if it doesn't work there might be a placebo effect at play.

I mean, it's not hard to believe (hah!) that faith, various belief systems and meditation-like exercises are beneficial for mental health. The alternative is generally "the universe is uncaring and nothing you do matters in the grand scheme of things", which is slightly less uplifting.

Completely agree that any related rhetoric should put one on guard, but "the explanations they provide are wrong" isn't incompatible with "they help you live a better life". Probably not worth becoming a zealot and throwing all your money down a certain drain though.

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#57

Post by drdeca »

BoHerfVJrEsq wrote: post #48
drdeca wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t doubt that one can do mental things to put one’s mind in an unusual state long term (nor that differences from these unusual states can be observed with a measurement device). 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…

The basic problem of life is that by default, happiness depends on circumstances that you don't control. Meditation helps cultivate a kind of happiness that does not depend on getting what you like or avoiding what you dislike. It also helps people behave like saints, i.e., kind, compassionate, joyful about the successes of others, equanimous, generous, fearless, etc.

Why should I want to be happy?

A major purpose of happiness is a difficult-to-fake signal to others of an outcome being good for me (rather, of it seeming to me to be good/desirable).

Happiness is what happens when I get what I want. Making happiness into the thing I want is almost completely backwards.

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#58

Post by trabant00 »

bedobi wrote: post #18

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.

Good question. Just note that success is not the only possible desirable outcome. And I would judge it at a larger than individual scale, sort of like a medical trial for a drug.

I think no, there's no proof it actually does anything meaningful. Otherwise we would see some effects on populations where these practices are popular.

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#59

Post by rg111 »

I have always doubted full Mindfulness.

I meditate irregularly.

Some of the best ideas in my life came to me when I was not thinking about it- while walking, cooking, or in shower.

If I had fully focused on those tasks only, those ideas might have had eluded me.

OTOH, always thinking about something is unhealthy.

I find a comfortable middle ground in times when it is required.

If Archimedes only focused on the warmth and the smooth texture of water on his skin, he wouldn't have gotten to the Law. (I know these stories are little dramatized.)

Only doubt I have is that is there some (perceptionally) magical benefit that you get when you reach there? Could be. Or it could be mythical.

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#60

Post by dr_dshiv »

Well, even mantras are a way of distracting the mind from thought in order to support improved performance. Often, verbal thinking distracts us from a task— verbal thinking is just a small part of the thinking we do.

So, counterintuitively, distractions can help our mind attend more mindfully.

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