51–60 of 419 posts
as Jung says: the western individual is ready do travel great lengths, go farthest to the east, in the deserts, in the ice, meditate, change what they eat, what they drink, they will do anything, but look inside themselves.
Sublimation and carefully crafted neurosis to turn us all into powertools our society wields?
That being said, I think mindfulness in western countries skips a lot of Buddhist teachings, which are in large part designed to help deal with this kind of experience. I highly suggest that anyone that is going down this path seek out teachers that have experience and can be of aid. There are pragmatic aspects of it that go beyond meditation and in my opinion are just as important if not more so.
And just to contextualize this, I’m a Buddhist. I live in Thailand and it’s something that is part of my normal life. As such, it’s rare the I’m meditating outside of a temple and I have easy access to a whole host of teachers. I would urge caution around retreats and other intensive practices. Mindset and setting are extremely important and should be considered carefully.
I’ve had a lifetime to learn to live like this and I would not want to see anyone dropped in the deep end without proper preparation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the most part, western Buddhism is about good vibes bro and meditating and is, for all intents and purposes, irreligious and more of a general life philosophy (like how waking up at 5 am, jogging, and eating organic isn’t a religion either). Buddhist buddhism involves demons, hell, and more praying or even chanting than meditating for the general population. Most Buddhists probably don’t meditate at all, actually…
> Buddhist buddhism involves demons, hell, and more praying or even chanting than meditating for the general population. You are mentioning Mahayana or later Vajrayana Buddhism. Buddha never asks you to pray, and he did not teach any concepts of hells or demons. Please stop appropriating Buddhism. You have no authority. Just like Christianity practised in the US is not true Christianity, Buddhism practised in East As…
That's the "really existing Buddhism" - the kind that matters, and the only kind with roots in a millenia old tradition.
The rest is either spirituallity tourists using it as a lifestyle accessory (the same way they'd adopt pilates or switch to some new age shit), or spirituallity "nerds" getting into an exotic religion (usually in a bizarro version as landed on their shores and according to the spiritual fads of the time it caught on, mid-20th century) to study the scriptures and debate "ways" and versions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the most part, western Buddhism is about good vibes bro and meditating and is, for all intents and purposes, irreligious and more of a general life philosophy (like how waking up at 5 am, jogging, and eating organic isn’t a religion either). Buddhist buddhism involves demons, hell, and more praying or even chanting than meditating for the general population. Most Buddhists probably don’t meditate at all, actually…
> Buddhist buddhism involves demons, hell, and more praying or even chanting than meditating for the general population. You are mentioning Mahayana or later Vajrayana Buddhism. Buddha never asks you to pray, and he did not teach any concepts of hells or demons. Please stop appropriating Buddhism. You have no authority. Just like Christianity practised in the US is not true Christianity, Buddhism practised in East As…
If Buddhism in East Asia is appropriation and people in East Asia have no authority to talk about it, defending western Buddhism, which is based off the customs of a Japanese interpretation (based off a Chinese branch), is a strange turn to take.
(hell is mentioned within the context of Theravada as well)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you meditate? Because if it leads to an attitude like you're displaying, it's not a great advertisment.
Well. https://www.psychnewsdaily.com/study-links-mindfulness-medit...
Mindfulness meditation made me feel better during and for about half an hour afterward, but it wasn't "me again": it was some altered state that not only wasn't addressing the underlying issues (that I've since made great strides on in psychotherapy). I felt periods of great calm, but it was as if I was taking some drug to achieve an altered state.
I read a lot about how to "bring the meditative state into daily life", and that only made the anxiety worse when it broke through, because it sensitized me to focus increasingly on internal physical phenomena. Yeah, I tried not to "judge" them, to neither anticipate their arrival and to just observe their rise and fall, but the observing meant attention, and the attention magnified them.
I finally beat the anxiety mostly for good by acknowledging and facing the problems in my life. I haven't even solved much of them yet, but I'm pretty honest about it both to myself and the people close to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well. https://www.psychnewsdaily.com/study-links-mindfulness-medit...
I had a hard time with this article. The pool the subjects were pulled from is suspect to me. They also didn’t interview any Rabbis, Priests, Mullahs,…. They study spirituality of a small subset of people pursuing it.
If you want to take something else away or are looking for alternative discussions about the nature of spirituality itself: go ahead, but that's not the study for that.
Only mindfulness meditation as practiced in western society in the fashionable way.
What he experienced is actually expected, deeper states of meditation bring out even harder experiences. Meditation is marketed in the west as some sort of a relaxation pill, designed to cure anxiety and other mental ailments. It's actually not. Meditation is a hardcore exercise for the mind and if your mind is not strong enough then deeper states will break you.
Therapy _should_ bring up difficult emotions and experiences from the past because they are often the root of dysfunction and frustration in the present.
What he experienced is actually expected, deeper states of meditation bring out even harder experiences. Meditation is marketed in the west as some sort of a relaxation pill, designed to cure anxiety and other mental ailments. It's actually not. Meditation is a hardcore exercise for the mind and if your mind is not strong enough then deeper states will break you.