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Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#101

Post by taneq »

mojuba wrote: post #88
honkdaddy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think Americans like podcasts more than Europeans because of American marketing? Sometimes it can just be simply cultural preferences I think. I can think of lots of American made products which succeeded much better in parts of Europe not due to a specialized marketing campaign, but just because the product was more in line with European preferences. I don’t think that the internet has homogenized us quite to th…

Take the classical big American cars vs. small European cars, I think it's pretty much a fact that the love of big cars was manufactured by the auto industry in the 1950-60s and is likely supported to this day by, again, some marketing money. There's an interesting documentary about these things by Adam Curtis called "The Century of the Self", and esp. part I "Happiness Machines".

I thought the giant cars/trucks were a cobra effect style thing resulting from a loophole in emissions standards for commercial vs. passenger vehicles.

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#102

Post by andi999 »

texasbigdata wrote: post #73
beckman466 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, there is a mindfulness "industry" > But. > I quite like "vague notions" like "feelings", myself :-) it's funny how what you write is exactly "what you would hear from an 'intergalactic encyclopedia salesman'", to quote OP. thanks for proving OP's point. i think the reason mindfulness falls flat is because it ignores the material reality of the working class in our profit-seeking economic system. it makes like…

Falls flat? You can MRI and observe neuroplasticity type changes based on level of meditation experience. Also, I believe it was Berkley affiliated, a monthly review of papers published on mindfulness and it's impacts often had 80+ meaningful entries on an average month: some of the use cases around therapy, around endangered populations (ptsd), disorders (agoraphobia, etc). Your general point about society might not…

You have neuroplastic changes if you practice guitar or golf.

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#104

Post by mojuba »

taneq wrote: post #101
mojuba wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the classical big American cars vs. small European cars, I think it's pretty much a fact that the love of big cars was manufactured by the auto industry in the 1950-60s and is likely supported to this day by, again, some marketing money. There's an interesting documentary about these things by Adam Curtis called "The Century of the Self", and esp. part I "Happiness Machines".

I thought the giant cars/trucks were a cobra effect style thing resulting from a loophole in emissions standards for commercial vs. passenger vehicles.

Well then who lobbied those standards? But undoubtedly advertisement and more subtle product placements made their job even easier.

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#106

Post by andi999 »

dmje wrote: post #66
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…

To be fair, there's a multi-layered thing going on here. Yes, there is a mindfulness "industry" nowadays, and it's terribly fashionable right now, and with fashion comes The Horde, and with that comes The Charlatans (not the band) - and in the modern world this is all now followed by The Influencers and adverts and apps and a whole plastic money-fuelled nothingness that accompanies the modern world. But. Under the ho…

"But. Under the hood is a centuries-old tradition of self-investigation and awareness. It's often laid at the door of Buddhism,". Could you be more precise? Which Buddhism? And which buddhist (meditation) practice? I am getting more and more the feeling that this is as true as 'ikigai' being something rooted in japanese culture (which it is not). People know little in depth about Japan, and/or Buddhism (but perception is positive), so somebody might just have come up with some amalgation of something and sell it with 'but we know from thousends of year of buddhist practice...' and so on.

So which one is closest to mindfullnes: Theravada, Mahayana, Zen, or some other smaller branch and which meditation practise exactly?

I realize I sound very confrontational, I dont mean to attack you (I think it is important to have this precise question though)

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#108

Post by jetbooster »

mojuba wrote: post #75
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 use the "culture test" for this kind of things: if something is talked about a lot in one part of the world but not the other, it means there's an underlying industry that has their money in the media and the so called influencers. As for mindfulness, for example, you can almost unmistakably tell an American from a European online, by how someone talks about meditation or ignores the topic. Interestingly also, podc…

Why does it being cultural imply that there is someone pushing it in order to make money?

Specifically regarding podcasts, Americans have on average much higher commute times, and I've found podcasts are brilliant for when I do long drives here in the UK, so that would explain the difference in popularity

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#109

Post by damontal »

abandonliberty wrote: post #45
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.

This is easily googled. In any case, keep in mind that scientific approaches have only been applied to a very small subset of meditation practices popularized in the West by people like Jon Kabat-Zinn who were looking to address specific problems. Jon's program has had over 100 randomized clinical trials, and several hundred more publications.

He has a pretty good course on master class.

Re: Sometimes mindlessness is better than mindfulness

#110

Post by RandomWorker »

laserlight wrote: post #103

Clickbait title. The article defines mindfulness as directing one's attention to an object. The act of directing and redirecting attention is a practice that develops mindfulness, not the mindfulness itself.

Also both paying attention to the swing and to the sounds are both forms of concentration (both can be improved by mindful concentration exercises). The swing is really not something that will improve your shot, it’s also about understanding the conditions like wind, ground patterns etc. Makes sense that listening to the sounds you would be more in tune to these things (then using your muscle memory to perform the swing), while a swing is just a mechanical motion that doesn’t interact with many of the features that would make you a better player.
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