Meditation won't make you happy. It will help you deal with stressful situations so you can make better decisions. And that as a result makes you happier.
Hate to be that guy - but is there good scientific evidence for your claims?
Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness
21–30 of 129 posts
Re: Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one has attained Enlightenment through Zen nor meditation in human history. Buddha himself never claimed he was enlightened through meditation. That's a fabrication of Buddhist monks whose level of consciousness is quite a bit lower than that of Gautama. Nowadays, the misunderstanding has been passed down for thousands of years, so what I'm saying now seems unacceptable in modern society. If you accept that medita…
what you say makes sense to me. I too doubt that by some chance Buddhism teachings turned out to be better preserved throughout millenia then any other "very old teachings" whatever it may be - Christianity or something else. Any information has the tendency to be misrepresented. where can I read more about your point of view?
Thanks for having an open mind. :) It's hard to meet someone like you.
I learned like this from my teacher, a man who claims Supreme Enlightenment. He says that he is a Tathagata. It's the same name that Gautama Buddha said others should call Him while he is alive. All His teachings are free and for a while before he passed away he was available for answering the public's questions.
Here's one site with some decent English translations,
Re: Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness
#23Your Zen is showing :) I really enjoy posts like this which take a subject which is usually discussed from a "mystical" or "spiritual" perspective, and instead attempt to approach it from a physiological perspective. This pleases the knee-jerk part of my brain which often screams "skip the mumbo-jumbo and show me the data!" (and I'm slowly working to tame that part of my brain, because I recognize that an "empirical…
"I really enjoy posts like this which take a subject which is usually discussed from a "mystical" or "spiritual" perspective, and instead attempt to approach it from a physiological perspective." The more you understand both perspectives, the more you realize that the differences between them aren't actually that big. If you listen to enough buddhist geeks talks this becomes apparent pretty quickly. I'd also recommen…
" the only difference between spiritual beliefs and academic ones is the language used to express them"
I'm not sure what is meant by "academic", but if it's a synonym for science then I disagree. Watch the link below (feynman on the scientific method), a little after the 5 minute mark he talks about the problems of "vague" theories. This vagueness is where spiritual beliefs usually diverge from scientific beliefs.
Re: Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness
#24I'm not clear how just internalizing stuff via meditation can possibly help.
To understand and process experiences, you must be able to tell a coherent story about it to other people, ideally in writing. This is another reason I'm so gung-ho about blogging. And there's science behind it too:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/07/nobodys-going-to-he...
Re: Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding is limited, but I thought that enlightenment was a buddhist term used to describe significant subjective perceptual changes which are more likely to occur with enough quality meditation practice. I was under the impression that there are thousands of people alive today, in various traditions like Zen, who claim to have experienced these changes in perception in various guises. a truly enlightened bei…
Good question. Enlightenment, in the context you mentioned, indicates that you abandon one consciousness and get a new one. However, what happens through meditation is not the same as that and it has a different point than Enlightenment - meditation is an activity for changing your mind, and the result of modern meditation is that your mind gets darker and you can lose yourself. People can see lots of illusions in th…
I can see similarities between your views and my views on Buddhism and it's fairly interesting to see how diverse it can be.
For me, enlightenment is a life state that we go through on a moment to moment basis. We go through 10 different life states every moment. It is possible for anyone to find happiness regardless of circumstances. I do agree that abandoning one's self is completely opposite of the Buddha's teaching and in fact, an enlightened person is one who seeks happiness for both him/herself as well as the happiness of all living beings.
Interesting discussion! Thanks!
Re: Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness
#26This shouldn't be surprising given that the traditional maps of the Vipassana explicitly talk about negative stages. The problem is that somehow this information is not commonly known. It would benefit practitioners a great deal. In this vipassana community, for instance, it is considered important enough to be mentioned as a sticky post right at the top, http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_b...
Re: Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness
#27Every time I have tried to meditate I just feel ridiculous and stop. But reading this description of its effects, I really don't understand the benefit.
Re: Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness
#28Perhaps not as scientifically minded, I still think Alan Watts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts) and his accompanying lectures (e.g. http://archive.org/details/BuddhismAsDialogue) are a great introduction to eastern philosophy from a westerner's perspective.
Re: Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness
#29Perhaps not as scientifically minded, I still think Alan Watts ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts ) and his accompanying lectures (e.g. http://archive.org/details/BuddhismAsDialogue ) are a great introduction to eastern philosophy from a westerner's perspective.
The iOS app containing a large number of his talks, while pricey, is very good.
Re: Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness
#30Meditation won't make you happy. It will help you deal with stressful situations so you can make better decisions. And that as a result makes you happier.
Hate to be that guy - but is there good scientific evidence for your claims?
There are studies that show a strong correlation between meditation and higher levels of happiness and lower levels of stress. These studies are a big part of why meditation is sort of trendy nowadays AFAIK. Googling [meditation study stress] (or whichever claim you're interested in) will yield a number of relevant results.