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The new science of meditation

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Re: The new science of meditation

#291

Post by akomtu »

hirvi74 wrote: post #283
akomtu wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A newbie once met a dzogchen master: - Do you meditate? - Why meditate? - So you aren't distracted. - Am I distracted?" It's from one book about dzogchen. Rephrasing it: "- Do you practice balancing? - Why would I do that? - So you can stand upright. - Am I not standing upright?" (while the newbie is still crawling)

I do not think I understand what this means. Is the point that the newbie does not understand what they are failing to achieve? Is the newbie just supposed to know it when they finally achieve whatever the goal is? Speaking of, what even is the goal? I understand mediation has benefits, and people that can succeed at it are usually never shy to sing its praises. However, I still do not understand what benefits one ac…

Books teaching meditation, such as lamrim, usually begin with a list of preliminary work to neutralise the typical negative conditions: lust is neutered by imagining disgusting things, pride is neutered by thinking about the dissolution of elements and so on. Most people will spend their lifetime combating these flaws.

Once they are kept under control, meditation begins. The spiritual part is about the purpose of such interest in meditation.

Re: The new science of meditation

#292

Post by rendang »

Tagbert wrote: post #262
uwagar wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That is just an example of different conventions of romanizations of Chinese characters. Both should be pronounced with “d”.

I thought the consonant there is unvoiced like an English T but without the little aspiration afterward that English speakers use. So like the difference between the ancient Greek Tau and Theta (which was not originally pronounced with an English th-sound)

Re: The new science of meditation

#293

Post by mario-main »

kgwxd wrote: post #290
dorchadas wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly the Tao of Pooh does not outline the basic tenets of Daoism. As van Norden says in the chapter on the Daodejing in his Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy : > The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff ... is a charming work that has attained a wide readership. There is nothing wrong with enjoying it for itself. But it reveals much more about how the Daodejing as been appropriated to illustrate Western Romantici…

Why should anyone care what van Norden has to say on the subject anymore than anyone else? Anyone who adopts an idea to paint themselves an “authority” on it shouldn’t be trusted, especially in this domain.

van Norden is an award-winning scholar who has dedicated his entire life to classical Chinese philosophy. He has taught the subject at universities for decades. I think his PhD earns him the privilege of being seen as more of an authority on this particular subject than Benjamin Hoff, whose credentials are a BA in Asian art and learning a Japanese version of Qigong as a hobby.

Re: The new science of meditation

#294

Post by brightlancer »

safety1st wrote: post #280

I thought this was the most significant excerpt in the article. > Now, as the research matures into controlled studies and meta-analyses, meditation is losing a bit of its luster. It’s beginning to look more like just another decently effective medical intervention. A 2021 systematic review of 44 meta-analyses found that mindfulness was mostly on par with cognitive behavioral therapy or antidepressants in terms of tr…

"A 2021 systematic review of 44 meta-analyses found that mindfulness was mostly on par with cognitive behavioral therapy or antidepressants in terms of treatment effects"

That's not bad company. Compared to the cost and time required for CBT, and the frequent side effects of anti-depressants, teaching folks "mindfulness" to get the same benefit sounds wonderful!

Re: The new science of meditation

#295

Post by mario-main »

brightlancer wrote: post #289
dorchadas wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly the Tao of Pooh does not outline the basic tenets of Daoism. As van Norden says in the chapter on the Daodejing in his Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy : > The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff ... is a charming work that has attained a wide readership. There is nothing wrong with enjoying it for itself. But it reveals much more about how the Daodejing as been appropriated to illustrate Western Romantici…

I know virtually nothing about Daoism, but I know a lot about Christian theology and there is not agreement on what Christian belief _is_. It gets even funnier when we compare Christian theology and its interpretations of the Old Testament to Jewish theology and its interpretations of the Hebrew Bible (which Christians made their Old Testament). So, who decides what Daoist belief _is_? And isn't?

>there is not agreement on what Christian belief _is_

this isn't true at all. It's quite simply an Abrahamic religion based around following the teachings of Jesus Christ. There are plenty of different doctrines and interpretations but you can tell what is and isn't a Christian church.

Same thing with Daoism. Daoism is both a religion and a philosophy with very specific teachings and traditions. You can argue about how to interpret it, but that's not what pop philosophy books like The Tao of Pooh are doing.

Re: The new science of meditation

#296

Post by currymj »

the trend laid out in this article seems like a good thing.

Zen people talk about meditation being "useless" which is kind of true I think. It's not literally a complete waste of time. But if you have any specific problem (in your life, mental health, or otherwise), you have to take specific actions well-suited to solve that problem, meditation actually just cannot accomplish specific goals like that.

At most depending on the tradition, you can reliably put yourself into specific altered mental states. But these don't have much practical use either.

So I think selling people meditation as a practical, reliable mental health treatment was just never a very good idea and I am glad consensus seems to be moving away from it.

Re: The new science of meditation

#297

Post by coldtea »

spandrew wrote: post #239
opportune wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you recommend as an introduction to Daoism, even if academic? I am not an expert on the subject but IMO Taoism has a very similar phenomenon to Buddhism (and indeed all religions or popular philosophies really) in that the “classical”, original, core teachings are pretty different from the organized later movements under the same name. So the context - philosophical, historical, sociological, spiritual - i…

This is fine though. All of these things, including the original sources, are philosophies as product of the time they were written. Ie. It makes sense for them to change as the society around them changes. If one guy reads the Tao of Pooh and it helps him 'be' — that is the point. Laozi would likely agree: don't overthink it.

>If one guy reads the Tao of Pooh and it helps him 'be' — that is the point. Laozi would likely agree: don't overthink it.

That's still a Western way to see it.

For Laozi that wouldn't "be the point". The point of his teaching was not to help people "be" in any which way, but to be in a particular way, within a certain philosophy of the world and our duties in it.

Re: The new science of meditation

#298

Post by coldtea »

dorchadas wrote: post #152
everydayDonut wrote: post #142

I've practiced mindfulness and meditation for many years until I found "The Tao of Pooh", which, if you're not familiar, outlines the basic tenets of taoism. It has completely changed me and made me feel whole for the first time in my life, and I don't have to practice anything to achieve it. Early on in my life I was drawn in by proverbs and other pieces of wisdom, in an attempt to fill in the gaps of what I thought…

Sadly the Tao of Pooh does not outline the basic tenets of Daoism. As van Norden says in the chapter on the Daodejing in his Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy : > The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff ... is a charming work that has attained a wide readership. There is nothing wrong with enjoying it for itself. But it reveals much more about how the Daodejing as been appropriated to illustrate Western Romantici…

>Sadly the Tao of Pooh does not outline the basic tenets of Daoism.

I mean, one would surely expect a certain amount of straying from scholarly excellence and some limits to its historical accuracy on the subject, given the book features Winnie-the-Pooh...

Re: The new science of meditation

#299

Post by Nemrod67 »

swayvil wrote: post #106
choxi wrote: post #57

I’ve been meditating casually for almost 10 years, I couldn’t sit still for a minute when I started and can sit regularly for an hour now. I still have a lot of skepticism about the sensations that other meditators describe feeling, like jhanas and profound states of tranquility and whatnot. I have experienced deeper calmness and have made some insights about my brain (eg thoughts are like a sensor organ not unlike a…

Meditating for 30 years. "Psychedelic experiences", superhuman, supernatural, crazy magic out-of-matrix stuff. Ya. It's real.

I'm gonna need some evidence that's not just "trust me bro"

Re: The new science of meditation

#300

Post by Tao3300 »

fuzztester wrote: post #254
Tao3300 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do not need to sit down to mediate. I find that if I try to mediate standing up I come across as aggressive.

Some things are better done in private, because some people don't get what you're doing and feel fazed or threatened by it, for whatever reason, typically ignorance or intolerance.

Yes, usually privacy is valued over transparency in mediation. It depends on the parties involved and their concerns, naturally.
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