Not everyone should meditate • Hacker News Board

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#221

Post by astrange » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 8:46 AM UTC

verve_rat wrote: post #134

kragen wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the picture is a little more complicated than that. There have been entire monasteries full of people who spend many hours a day meditating for thousands of years. They don't seem to be mentally unhealthy on the whole, though there are some exceptions. So it's evidently not the kind of thing where a continuous overdose will leave your mind or your body disabled; on the contrary, the meditators tend to live lo…

> There have been entire monasteries full of people who spend many hours a day meditating for thousands of years. They don't seem to be mentally unhealthy on the whole, Not to be snarky (ok maybe a little), but they do believe in unprovable beings on some "higher" plane of existence...

If they’re practicing Buddhists they recognize that their own self doesn’t exist, so I think they’re winning compared to the average Westerner who believes in free will. Not to mention all those other unprovable beings like “Moses” and “George Washington” who like to hand down written commandments we follow.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#222

Post by skilled » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 8:48 AM UTC

hackernewds wrote: post #180

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. S…

It was! Honestly, my comment is pretty raw and it doesn't give the full picture. But you are absolutely right. Meditation changed me and gave me insights about myself and life that I perhaps would have never encountered otherwise.

And you're correct about turning back to a "stale" way of being. This is literally what happened, so kudos to you for noticing. As someone once told me, "You're still young. You have time.".

And I need that time.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#223

Post by astrange » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 8:50 AM UTC

reddit_clone wrote: post #12

People who suffer from severe ADHD, meditation is nearly impossible.

This is true but the causation is the other way round - meditation is an exercise and if you gain the capability to do that means your ADHD is getting better.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#224

Post by krageon » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 8:50 AM UTC

heleninboodler wrote: post #50

beebeepka wrote: post #15

I would like to at least try to meditate but I am not calm person. Not at all. Even coffee and green tea kick my nervous system into overdrive, so 8 don't consume them. What could possibly make meditation accessible to a person like me?

There's a lot of authoritative claims about what meditation is in this thread, so there's also a good chance that what I do is considered "not real meditation" but it's what I learned at a meditation center, so I'm going to go ahead and tell you what got me over it when I had a hard time starting: Just allow yourself to be bad at it and repeatedly apply the rule that when observe that your attention has wandered, you…

Anything that gets you there is a way to meditate. There's nothing wrong with the method you learned if it works for you.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#225

Post by iLoveOncall » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 9:09 AM UTC

brigandish wrote: post #200

iLoveOncall wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The strange thing about meditation and the idea of living in the present is that it completely transcends your life experience. It is not in human nature to fight with the inner workings of your own psychology, and for me - meditation really amplified all that I had been trough or was going through at the time. I really don't understand why the world just accepts that meditation as a whole is not just another versi…

Unfortunately, for that view at least, brain scans and experiments by notable scientists have shown incredible effects when meditators/meditation are put under the spotlight. For example, from[1]: > From studies with thousands of people, Ekman knew that people who do better at recognizing these subtle emotions are more open to new experience, more interested and more curious about things in general. They are also con…

n = 2.

If that's the best you've got I'll pass.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#226

Post by bayesian_horse » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 9:09 AM UTC

Such a claim can't be disproven. But the author doesn't have any really good argument why somebody shouldn't try meditation.

In my opinion, if you can "think" yourself into something like a dangerous psychosis, then that is not a problem of sitting down too much, it is a problem that should be addressed through other channels like proper medical help.

Yes, there are sharlatans, sects, whatever, but that's not what I mean by "meditation".

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#227

Post by iLoveOncall » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 9:12 AM UTC

skilled wrote: post #33

iLoveOncall wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The strange thing about meditation and the idea of living in the present is that it completely transcends your life experience. It is not in human nature to fight with the inner workings of your own psychology, and for me - meditation really amplified all that I had been trough or was going through at the time. I really don't understand why the world just accepts that meditation as a whole is not just another versi…

Snake oil implies you're being sold something, doesn't it? All I am saying is that meditation brought up a lot of things that I had buried in my past. Anger (being betrayed by people), hatred (being whipped with a leather belt by my step-father when I was a kid) - these are all real emotions that you have to process because in small little ways they do have an influence on your psychological behavior. And, thus, on t…

Meditation is a billions dollars business each year.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#228

Post by bambataa » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 9:13 AM UTC

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 often tell myself I'm smart and that I deserve my very comfortable life, but I also have to wonder if something about my brain chemistry or environment makes me enjoy reading HN and coding all day, while others hate that.

There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that you live in an environment that plays to your strengths, and that it’s somewhat arbitrary.

I have an aptitude for academic study and have always simply enjoyed it. Happily, I live in a society that rewards that. I’m also short, left handed and wear glasses. I would have fared less well in pre-industrial times. I’m extremely fortunate to have been born when and where I was.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#229

Post by leobg » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 9:16 AM UTC

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…

Carl Jung used to compare thoughts with deer in a forest: If you sit quietly and observe, you will notice that they will come and go all on their own.

Re: Not everyone should meditate

#230

Post by eurasiantiger » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 9:18 AM UTC

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…

There are levels to meditation.

Deep down, everything you know to be real is a thought in your head.

The joy of being close to someone. Pain and suffering.

Ultimately, only NULL is kind of real, and even that representation is too much of something to really be real.