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Poll: Do you meditate?
101–110 of 233 posts
Re: Poll: Do you meditate?
#102I haven't yet been able to decide whether meditation is legit or not. I keep reading about how awesome it is, how much "scientifically proven benefits" it has. But as soon as you try to learn a little more, everything is mingled with bullshit religious mumbo jumpo. It's difficult to find nice rational sources about the subject.
I've pre-emptively excluded meditation from my set of legitimate things, because it pattern-matches to white people taking something non-white people do and finding "deep wisdom" in it. It's the same reason why various fruits and berries that are common and worthless in south africa sell like hotcakes in the US, and the same reason why anime has so much Christian imagery.
There is definitely a lot of "orientalism" surrounding Buddhist practices. And yet, there are other ways to approach meditation. I entered meditation the same way I entered running: I saw people around me doing running and enjoying it, thought I would see if I enjoyed it too, did a little research, asked some questions, and tried it out. And yet running isn't for everyone.
If you were ever to try meditation, you sound like you might get the most out of Mindfulness in Plain English. The author presents meditation as a practice which serves a philosophy. The philosophy is that as a species we suffer from our emotional attachments to the outcomes of events, to the objects around us, etc. In geek parlance, we have stress responses that were appropriate in our evolutionary environment but are unadaptive to modern life. Meditation is a practice that helps us override these stress responses, and for many people meditation is a better tool than attempting to override those stress responses with thoughts. And even if you don't consider yourself particularly stressed, a Buddhist might suggest that overriding those responses can help remove the weight of attachment from your decision making process and make you into a more rational person.
Re: Poll: Do you meditate?
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you, I'm going to check that book out. Like you, I'd like to learn more but the religious aspects are a turnoff. When I think about it, it's hard to believe that improving one's state of mind and mood wouldn't have a number of benefits.
> I'd like to learn more but the religious aspects are a turnoff. This is a shame. Within the frivolous details we debate so much religion holds a wealth of wisdom and value that anyone can apply to their lives and benefit from. I took a similar stance when getting into meditation. I was looking for a way to deal with stress and I was certainly not "religious". I quickly found that modern/western Buddhism is stripped…
"This is a shame. Within the frivolous details we debate so much religion holds a wealth of wisdom and value that anyone can apply to their lives and benefit from."
I have to agree. Many of the fruits of the Enlightenment[1] have been very positive, and the oppressive and totalitarian aspects of what passes for organized religion deserve to be rejected in the strongest possible terms.
However, the viciously anti-religious attitude that the Enlightenment has spawned and which has had a resurgence recently thanks to narrow-minded bigots like Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, the mainstream media's relentless focus on church scandals, some forms of religious extremism and supposedly religiously inspired terrorism (all of which I condemn in no uncertain terms) has led a lot of people to reject all of religion wholesale -- which is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
There are many profound, thought provoking, inspirational, and beautiful ideas, images, and messages in religion. And there's an incredibly wide and varied range of different types of religion -- to an extent that most people are simply not aware of.
Despite what we may see on the news or read in books by the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, or Harris, religion is not all about domination, pedophilia, or unquestioning obedience to some leader or dogma.
Unfortunately, many people do buy in to such myopic visions of religion, mostly through ignorance and propaganda. As a result, they're really missing out on the parts of religion which are positive, constructive, profound, and even liberating.
That said, I'm not a believer myself. I'm agnostic, but a student of the history, techniques, and beliefs of religion (among many other things). I want to learn about every aspect of religion -- good and bad, light and dark. Few fields as large as religion are as simple as they might first appear.
Re: Poll: Do you meditate?
#104I try to, once or two a week
Re: Poll: Do you meditate?
#105I was practising meditation quite a lot, and I fell out of the habit. I'm now using it as a precursor to trying to sleep, and it helps a lot (I presume by unwinding excitement and/or depression at the thoughts I was having just before coming to bed). The last couple of days I've fallen asleep and woken up in the same position (this never happens) and I attribute this to deeper sleep from calming myself beforehand. This many be nonsense of course.
Re: Poll: Do you meditate?
#106I try to meditate about twice a week, but I haven't been keeping it up lately, so I put once a month. I started because there was a thread here where people described the benefits. I was (and still am) very skeptical of the self-reported effects, since there's a strong possibility of placebo, but at the same time, I figured if all these people like it, it's worth a try. Maybe it's just a placebo, but it sounds like a…
If it's a (successful) placebo, then surely it's worked just as planned?
Re: Poll: Do you meditate?
#107I try to meditate about twice a week, but I haven't been keeping it up lately, so I put once a month. I started because there was a thread here where people described the benefits. I was (and still am) very skeptical of the self-reported effects, since there's a strong possibility of placebo, but at the same time, I figured if all these people like it, it's worth a try. Maybe it's just a placebo, but it sounds like a…
I'm not a zen master or yogi, but I can promise you that if you try to measure the results of meditation (Am I feeling better yet? How about now?) you'll wind up chasing your own tail and giving up. Anyone promising wonderful results through meditation is very likely selling you something. The effects of meditation are best compared to those of sleep. A good night's sleep doesn't make up for lousy sleeping habits the…
This attitude of "you can't measure it, don't even try" really bothers me. You can measure the benefits of both meditation and sleep, and there have been studies that do so. This wikipedia article is pretty well-cited, and outlines many of the studies that have been done on meditation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_on_meditation
Re: Poll: Do you meditate?
#108I recently started meditating, using the method in "Mindfulness in Plain English". So far, I've been able to meditate for between 1 to 3 hours at a time, every day. I do feel quite a bit of calm afterwards and during the deep parts of the meditation, and have also experienced some occasional hallucinations (like a feeling of intense bliss, like my arms are floating, like my chest is a hundred feet from my head) when…
Wow, I started at 10 minutes a day.
Did you have much difficulty working up to sitting in meditation for 1 to 3 hours?
Re: Poll: Do you meditate?
#109I meditate about twice a day, once in the morning and once before bed. Sometimes I get lazy and just meditate in the morning. My typical amount of time is 30 - 40 minutes. I typically use my breath as a concentration object and go into vipassana, though I have done others. I supplement with the teaching from Tsultrim Allione's _Feeding Your Demons_.
If I don't meditate, I can feel my mind subtly destabilizing. It may not be apparent to other people, but it is apparent to me.
But beyond that, I've had realized some insights to know that mindfulness is the base reality of which everything else is a play, a story.
As far as benefits that others can see: I am less crankier. I am more empathic and occasionally intuit other people's motivations. I can see into other people's shadows and assuming I don't start resonating with my own, they don't upset me as much as it used to. With more space or more need, I can listen mindfully to someone else thrashing out their rejected shadow.
It's still a work in progress. I'm still working on being fully mindful while coding. I know the theory. As always, the practice is harder.
Re: Poll: Do you meditate?
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you, I'm going to check that book out. Like you, I'd like to learn more but the religious aspects are a turnoff. When I think about it, it's hard to believe that improving one's state of mind and mood wouldn't have a number of benefits.
> I'd like to learn more but the religious aspects are a turnoff. This is a shame. Within the frivolous details we debate so much religion holds a wealth of wisdom and value that anyone can apply to their lives and benefit from. I took a similar stance when getting into meditation. I was looking for a way to deal with stress and I was certainly not "religious". I quickly found that modern/western Buddhism is stripped…
To be clear, I think the philosophical and some of the metaphysical ideas that come with meditation have a lot to offer as a way of thinking about the world. I'm talking more about the stuff like "aligning chakras" and "energies" and all that.