meditation helps empty hippocampus. its pretty close to what sleep does. 15 mins a day is plenty.
its good to realise its called a practice since u practice it. no one every really things of nothing
Men who stare at walls
221–230 of 346 posts
Re: Men who stare at walls
#222I've recently realised that the biggest problem with smartphones is not that they steal your attention (which is bad enough), but that they steal your disattention I don't know of a better word for it than disattention. Perhaps downtime? But it's not so structured. It's just those moments where you'd previously let your mind wander. Gone forever.
It's called default mode thinking. Or the default mode network [1]. And I agree, not letting your mind do this from time to time results in higher stress and less ability to focus. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network
"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." -Blaise Pascal
Re: Men who stare at walls
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's it. I've never been one to shy away from any difficult emotional experiences I have (maybe I'm wrong though who knows) I just end up feeling emotionally "flat" after doing it. Which sometimes feels like that's the goal, but I don't like the feeling
Ah, I see, that's also very common. Taken all the way it can develop into nihilism, which is one of the two extreme views in Buddhism [1]. I fell into that early on and abandoned my practice for many years. I found that once I found the Mahayana teachings on emptiness [2] and then the stories of the Vajrayana masters [3] the practice became joyful again and not bogged down by some narrow view of what meditation is. […
Did you noticed the Sri Yantra pattern in the Prajnaparamita article?
Re: Men who stare at walls
#224Re: Men who stare at walls
#225For me it's driving. My best thinking and my best zoning happens on the road, especially if it's limited access highway with low traffic.
Re: Men who stare at walls
#226This is extremely true. The instinct to fill every bit of downtime with a quick bit of doom-scrolling is very hard to kick. It's something I have made a point of working on; giving my mind space to just do nothing and let all sort of mental detritus process itself.
Re: Men who stare at walls
#227I've recently realised that the biggest problem with smartphones is not that they steal your attention (which is bad enough), but that they steal your disattention I don't know of a better word for it than disattention. Perhaps downtime? But it's not so structured. It's just those moments where you'd previously let your mind wander. Gone forever.
diffuse attention is the technical name. it's contrasted to focal attention
Re: Men who stare at walls
#228i thought it was called "rawdogging" these days
Re: Men who stare at walls
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I swear every day I see a "new" fad targeted at fixing one's attention and every time they're doing so much mental gymnastics to not use the word "meditation."
The problem with the word meditation is that, if this counts as meditation, then I meditate every time I take a long train trip or go for a walk. That might actually be true! But there are people who claim they cry, or experience infinite bliss, or that meditation gave them long lasting mental health problems and is dangerous. When I've emptied my mind and let the trees and houses fly past on train trips, I've neithe…
Meditation, like exercise, can be a lot of things.
Choosing a brief walk can be exercise, or a brisk walk that's a little longer - maybe doing some forms of housework can be exercise. But exercise can also be running marathons, swimming laps, playing street hockey, dancing in your kitchen, skateboarding or messing around on the monkey bars. Those would all make you feel your body in various ways, both during and after the fact.
I do think your empty mind train rides can be meditation. The fact that much more intense or demanding forms of practice exists does not invalidate that.
(To belabour the metaphor a bit, regarding potential dangers - if somebody has a knee injury, some forms of exercise will be safer for them than others. Take care of yourself!)
Re: Men who stare at walls
#230Is this not a form of meditation? I've never been able to keep a meditation habit, but my understanding is that meditation techniques often feature closing your eyes and focusing on breathing, body parts or some other irrelevant thing, it sounds like staring at a wall would serve the same purpose.
Look up "wall-gazing meditation".