Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Not everyone should meditate

joshcsimmons.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 335 posts

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#171

Post by exolymph »

argentinian wrote: post #142
heyoni wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit on day 5. My life started playing itself in my head on repeat and I started to focus on all the pain. I would imagine the universe dying and coming back to life where everything, especially some nasty events would reoccur ad infinitum. I was convinced that the people who were unlucky in this life were actually suffering for eternity and practically lost it. I had a panic attack, and then another and finally ta…

> I was convinced that the people who were unlucky in this life were actually suffering for eternity and practically lost it. Do you have some idea now about why that conviction seemed believable to you at that moment?

Frankly, we don't know that this isn't true. Is the past actually gone, or merely inaccessible to us?

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#172

Post by argentinian »

cromd wrote: post #170
argentinian wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you consider that there's a "you", a self, apart from what you call your life?

(Note: I'm not sure if you're suggesting there is a "you" or not.) While I'm of course a mass of stuff that feels and thinks, I really do feel like I'm watching a pleasant movie filmed through my eyeballs. I feel like that about half the time. The other half, I forget, and live "normally". I also don't feel like I'm part of some interconnected world organism or anything like that. To the ~5 people I've described that…

> I really do feel like I'm watching a pleasant movie filmed through my eyeballs.

I was curious about this. You mean it feels as if you are a little person sitting inside your skull, watching the "you" movie? Or you meant something different?

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#173

Post by HimalayanGoat »

I have been meditating for the last 28 years and I meditate 2-3 hours a day, every day, without fail. Still don’t consider myself an expert and I am not a teacher although when pushed, I will sit with someone sincere and meditate with them. If they ask.

The question is not whether everyone should meditate or not. The question is whether “I should meditate?” And if the answer to that is yes, try and find someone who knows what they are doing. If they charge you something, that’s fine, they need to make a living. If they charge you so much they make you weak—-run. If they in any way try to come between you and your friends or family—-run.

I cannot say if meditation is for everyone because I am not everyone. I am me, and meditation has had a mind-blowing effect on my life. And with it (because of it) I can work (I’m an engineer) and know I am not working, I can do, and know I am not doing, and perhaps best of all, be, without blaming anyone.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#174

Post by Trasmatta »

Mo3 wrote: post #65

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. I don't regret the 2-3 months of active ego dissolution phase, life has never been more beautiful and strange…

I had a brief experience with what you're talking about induced by drugs. It's made me decide I have no appetite for either meditation (except for short, surface level sessions to help with anxiety) or mind altering drugs anymore. I had briefly waded into the depths of something I wasn't prepared for, and I don't want to go back.

> I have gained insights I was not supposed to have and I've preferred to mostly live in peaceful ignorance since then

Yes, one of my strongest emotions was "I just want to go back to the ignorance I had before. Being moderately unhappy and distracted all the time was much preferable to this." I'm mostly back there now, two years on. Something that helped me was an Alan Watts talk about those that are "far out" -- AKA, fully engaged in the part they are playing in this life, and not aware of the absurdity of existence. Trying to live life like that has actually helped me cope with that experience, but I do continue to see brief glimpses from time to time.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#175

Post by argentinian »

exolymph wrote: post #171
argentinian wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was convinced that the people who were unlucky in this life were actually suffering for eternity and practically lost it. Do you have some idea now about why that conviction seemed believable to you at that moment?

Frankly, we don't know that this isn't true. Is the past actually gone, or merely inaccessible to us?

That would be quite horrible if that was true, your eternal suffering hypothesis. But fortunately I see no evidence to believe it.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#176

Post by cromd »

greggman3 wrote: post #156
cromd wrote: post #107

For me, meditation started a fundamental shift in how I think about free will, and oddly nobody I've mentioned it to in real life has felt this. I used to feel very in-control of my own mind, but after intentionally sitting and monitoring for thoughts, labeling those thoughts, etc, I became sensitive to how thoughts can really come out of nowhere. You can't predict what you will think next. That strikes a little deep…

Where would they come from in some alternate reality? What would the difference in your perception be if you weren't just watching a movie of your own life but where actually in charge of your thoughts? It's hard for me to imagine it being any different.

(It sounds like you're saying you largely also view life as happening to you, but maybe I'm wrong). There's maybe no point in even making a distinction between life-as-movie and life-as-commander, especially if people aren't choosing the camp they fall in!

I would posit there are correlations like "people who view life as something that happens to them tend to enjoy it more, when their economic and political circumstances are good, and enjoy it less when their circumstances are bad". And "people who view themselves as controlling their life enjoy life in a wider variety of conditions". I think some call this internal/external locus of control (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control)

You could probably extend those correlations to things like "societies with an overall internal locus of control tend to support the death penalty more", or "societies with an external locus of control tend to believe in magic more". Whether or not these are useful correlations, I don't know ;)

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#177

Post by hackernewds »

borepop wrote: post #147
mtalantikite wrote: post #137

Coincidentally Mingyur Rinpoche just posted a talk about this as well [1]. I think the most important thing is to find a lineage to practice under, with texts that can support that practice. As much as people want to divorce it from it's historical context, meditation is part of a spiritual practice and communities of people have ways of teaching it in particular ways for a reason. No one should just go sit with zero…

>No one should just go sit with zero context and no support. C'mon now. It's not hang-gliding or dropping acid, it's sitting quietly in a room. Not everything in life should be treated as if it's horrendously risky or can't possibly be understood by people exercising common sense. Nor, in my opinion, do the agglomeration of various meditative practices and teachings, no matter how old and "sacred" they may theoretica…

There are ample counterarguments in the article itself to these points.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#178

Post by davorak »

redisman wrote: post #124
skilled wrote: post #20

This is a great perspective. I know what the author means with it, too. I spent 5 years in daily meditation practice (twice a day for 20 minutes) and it completely altered my state of mind. I was a naturally introverted person when I started, though I believe that meditation really stepped it up a notch for me. The strange thing about meditation and the idea of living in the present is that it completely transcends y…

It’s interesting that everyone who has had a bad experience seems to have really tuned their practice up to 11. Silent retreats etc. seem to show up in these stories a lot

That is my impression as well. An ultra marathon is not a walk around the block even if they both commonly involve moving your legs.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#180

Post by hackernewds »

skilled wrote: post #20

This is a great perspective. I know what the author means with it, too. I spent 5 years in daily meditation practice (twice a day for 20 minutes) and it completely altered my state of mind. I was a naturally introverted person when I started, though I believe that meditation really stepped it up a notch for me. The strange thing about meditation and the idea of living in the present is that it completely transcends y…

To inject another perspective from an outsider, to me it read like meditation actually was a positive experience for you. One of the implicit intentions and outcomes of meditation, at least in Buddhist and Hindu belief systems, is that it's meant to be a technique to _overcome_ wordly illusions and temptations (Maya) and attain enlightened state (Moksha) thus escaping the cycle of birth and rebirth into this world. Seems instead you reverted back to the _samsara_ (world filled with Maya) - although not necessarily for me to judge whether that is good or bad.
Post reply on HN