121–130 of 148 posts
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…
As a musician what happens when you don't think and just do is often superior than when you are mindful of every tiny detail of your hands movement (it can even happen that you are downright unable to play if you are too aware of what you are doing). This kind of focus is important when practising, but on stage it should just be there with the sound, not sure whether this would be called mindful or the opposite. Mind…
While other cultures are more on plugging into "feel" and letting things emerge/flow.
Concentration (sustained attention) has many stages. For example, at the lowest stage and in an unpracticed individual, one must fight to keep attention placed on an object. Someone who is well practised will either pass over that stage immediately upon beginning to concentrate or they will not be in that stage for long. As concentration sustains it becomes easier to the point that no will is required for it to remai…
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This is silly. I discovered mindfulness early in life and it definitely does help one contend with the (mental) pains of poverty. Please at least minimally research the topic before descending to call it “gaslighting hoo-ha”.
my problem is that we are living in one of the most globally unequal times [1]. i just don’t know how relevant a hijacked practice is that misrepresents it’s origins. the way ‘mindfulness research’ filters down today is a type of gaslighting. ‘McMindfulness’ (as Ron Purser calls it - he wrote a book with that same term) is often a vanity project by CEOs/executives/school boards in the west who have too much time on t…
I don't personally have a problem with people making money from Mindfulness - I'm myself studying to be an MBSR teacher and ultimately I may well find myself being paid for this. I pay for Sam Harris' Waking Up app. I pay for retreats (I'm going on a 5 day one tomorrow as it happens!) - none of this strikes me as problematic.
What is problematic for me is the misunderstanding that this new industry (actually, as someone else says below, it's not new, it's just "New Age", only...newer) IS the practice that underlies it. It isn't. And further to this, nothing is going to save anything without work and practice and fluidity and understanding, least of all meditative practice. I have sympathy with the view that this modern approach has found itself in the company of rich Westerners looking or boardrooms or consultants all looking either to find meaning or to make loads of cash. But the misunderstanding about the practice itself is just plain wrong.
In the world of mindfulness and meditative practice that I inhabit, it is compassion and understanding and - totally - that outward looking view which is at the core. It is SO far from being a narcissistic, inward-looking thing. A fundamental principle which runs throughout this practice circles around Metta[1] - and what's been interesting to me as a practitioner is how uncomfortable this can be! We're so used to being insular and inward looking and all the things you cite in your reply that to be faced with an outward-looking, compassion based set of principles can feel really quite exposing and strange.
Does this solve inequality? No, of course not. Do I come at this from a privileged and relatively wealthy white male point of view? Yes. But we'd accept, wouldn't we, that (say) fitness, maintaining a good weight, working less, eating well, having more time with family, etc. are all "good things" without being shot down for being elitist?
The question for me is: Does a more inclusive, compassionate, considered world view help people to help others in some small way? I hope so. In large part that's exactly why I do this practice.
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>> 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.
There is also the case of bleeding as a direct experiment one can do. Next time you cut yourself and suspect you may have some blood, try not looking at it (reduces the mentation/expectation of blood), and focus exclusively on the feeling of the pain as much as possible. You'll find the bleeding stops substantially faster.
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my problem is that we are living in one of the most globally unequal times [1]. i just don’t know how relevant a hijacked practice is that misrepresents it’s origins. the way ‘mindfulness research’ filters down today is a type of gaslighting. ‘McMindfulness’ (as Ron Purser calls it - he wrote a book with that same term) is often a vanity project by CEOs/executives/school boards in the west who have too much time on t…
I think I was hoping to make the point that there is indeed a "McMindfulness" thing going on - the industry that we've both linked to / talked about - but I was also trying to say that there is a deeper practice, too, something less about the glitz and glamour of the next meditation app or course that suggests it can "fix you" or instantly remove your stress, or whatever. I don't personally have a problem with people…
The more important question is: what happens to people that they lose their compassionate worldview in the first place? Or are you telling me that you've never heard the contagious laughter of a baby who is lovingly cradled, or played with, by a caregiver/parent?
"The radical therapist David Smail argues that Margaret Thatcher's view that there's no such thing as society, only individuals and their families, finds "an unacknowledged echo in almost all approaches to therapy". Therapies such as cognitive behaviour therapy combine a focus on early life with the self-help doctrine that individuals can become masters of their own destiny. The idea is "with the expert help of your therapist or counsellor, you can change the world you are in the last analysis responsible for, so that it no longer causes you distress" – Smail calls this view "magical voluntarism".
Depression is the shadow side of entrepreneurial culture, what happens when magical voluntarism confronts limited opportunities. As psychologist Oliver James put it in his book The Selfish Capitalist, "in the entrepreneurial fantasy society," we are taught "that only the affluent are winners and that access to the top is open to anyone willing to work hard enough, regardless of their familial, ethnic or social background – if you do not succeed, there is only one person to blame." It's high time that the blame was placed elsewhere. We need to reverse the privatisation of stress and recognise that mental health is a political issue."
— Mark Fisher, Why mental health is a political issue
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/mental...
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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 perceptio…
However, based on my own experience of meditating for 40+ years, I believe that the practice of only doing one thing at a time without stray thoughts leads to contentment and productivity - a great combination! For me, the ability to (usually) be able it almost instantly quiet my mind during meditation is a skill that carried over into the rest of my life. In the spirit of Stoicism, I try to not concern myself with tasks that I can’t do until some future time and if I catch myself becoming distracted thinking of something that belongs in the future, I use mindfulness to be in the present.
Everyone needs to figure out for themselves what makes them happy, and for me it is spending as much of my life as possible doing productive things for society, being calm and content, and happiness gained from caring about other people as much as I care about myself.
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 u…
Every proper religion has two sides: public and occult. Buddhism is a very elaborate, but still public and thus simplified teaching. The complexity and level of detail of Buddhism was appropriate at the time it was last updated.
For example, the meaning of word "I" from the occult perspective is interesting. That I is the number 1, the number of abstract spirit - the immutable mathematical principle behind reality. So that "I" exists, but it's unreal and it's shared by all humans.
Concentration (sustained attention) has many stages. For example, at the lowest stage and in an unpracticed individual, one must fight to keep attention placed on an object. Someone who is well practised will either pass over that stage immediately upon beginning to concentrate or they will not be in that stage for long. As concentration sustains it becomes easier to the point that no will is required for it to remai…
Apology for the slight detour, I wonder if pianists/drummers have a leg up on this. The multiple parallel layers (hands/melody/chords for piano, polyrythms mapped over all limbs). This forces your brain to handle many things at once yet focus on a single whole. In my small experience it was highly meditative (and very deeply stimulating for the brain).
It's also very distracting too. You can't have it all :) Personally, I've found learning scales or some particular run of notes to be similar to single pointed meditation but I notice changes in mental state more with a traditional technique, my goals are slightly different.