121–130 of 185 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't it strange that people are using meditation to make more money, achieve material success, perpetuation of "self". The very idea of self that meditation is supposed to examine. I will never understand western obsession with finding meaning in everything materially. Idea that if it doesn't give you something in return then its meaningless.
> The very idea of self that meditation is supposed to examine. Meditation is 'supposed' to do something?
I've been using the Headspace app ( https://www.headspace.com/ ) for a few months now and LOVE it. I highly recommend giving it a try. They have a free introductory course you can try too.
What is the best way to learn how to meditate? Any good resources?
In the Christian West, there are several schools of "discursive meditation", or mental prayer, which developed over many centuries. This kind of meditation, practiced daily and closely connected to regular examination of conscience, is seen as an important component of the struggle to overcome vice and cultivate virtue.
Two resources you might find helpful in learning how to go about discursive meditation are a short essay on Lectio Divina and the Fifth Treatise from Fr. Rodriguez's Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues:
https://archive.org/stream/PPCV-Manresa#page/n273/mode/2up
See also Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange's overview of mental prayer in his classic work The Three Ages of the Interior Life:
http://www.christianperfection.info/tta47.php
In the Christian East, meditation generally takes the form of "passive contemplation" rather than discursive meditation. The Philokalia is probably the best resource for learning more:
https://archive.org/stream/Philokalia-TheCompleteText/Philok...
Make sure to keep handy the glossary at the back of the book:
https://archive.org/stream/Philokalia-TheCompleteText/Philok...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't it strange that people are using meditation to make more money, achieve material success, perpetuation of "self". The very idea of self that meditation is supposed to examine. I will never understand western obsession with finding meaning in everything materially. Idea that if it doesn't give you something in return then its meaningless.
Seems to me me you're juggling several straw objects here. Obsession? What's your evidence for this? Who knows what people are finding meaning in, and not necessarily reporting that finding to you? People's internal life sometimes remains internal with certain elements permanently so. I may be wrong but I suspect that you don't want to understand; rather you want to find fault in a raw naive meme that you think is he…
There have been many ways of thinking before our current materialistic western thought that were not merely primitive forms of current thought. For example in Vedic thought 'life-after-life' is just a fact and meaning in life is the lasting benefit we can accomplish for our consciousness. Can you imagine the transformational change in our society if we go from current view of life as "end all be all chance" to a "continuum".
In my view, meditation is examination of thought, not something that helps you make more money.
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Not clear what distinction you are trying to make. They practiced mindfulness meditation according to a specific, published plan, and brain anatomy changes were noted. It doesn't seem they are making any claim other than, this series of exercises produce this effect. The paper doesn't seem to be available, but the abstract at the author's page[0] says "Healthy but stressed individuals are randomized to either a medit…
If the control group were doing nothing for eight weeks, they would expect no change. An expectation of change can illicit substantial differences. That's the placebo effect. When administering medication and checking for results, the control group is given a sugar pill rather than nothing. If they were given nothing it would not eliminate the placebo effect.
Placebo might be a fair critique if we were talking about people's self-reported stress or well-being. Here we're talking about physical changes in the amygdala.
I have been practicing mindfulness meditation for the last 14 months - 30 minutes, everyday and I have to say that it has been virtually the most important skill that I have picked up. Because it's essentailly that - a skill. I was very stressed and the anxiety started to affect virtually every aspect of my life. My family wanted me to seek professional help (take pills), but I decided to try to take care of it mysel…
Thanks for the comment. Are there any books or resources about mindfulness that you found particularly helpful?
I have been practicing mindfulness meditation for the last 14 months - 30 minutes, everyday and I have to say that it has been virtually the most important skill that I have picked up. Because it's essentailly that - a skill. I was very stressed and the anxiety started to affect virtually every aspect of my life. My family wanted me to seek professional help (take pills), but I decided to try to take care of it mysel…
Thanks for the comment. Are there any books or resources about mindfulness that you found particularly helpful?
Are there any other training programs for better memory?
Domonic O'Brians methods work like magic with relatively little practice. They're also a form of meditation in some sense because of the concentration required to use the imagination so vividly. He has a six cd course I've never gotten all the way through but the techniques I employed helped me remember french vocabularly, art history (dates, names, etc), people and their names, and phone numbers with relative ease (…
There are different types of meditation styles. I had experience with a type of meditation mentioned in the article. It is known as mindfulness meditation. Even in mindfulness meditation there are different approaches. Mine is mindfulness through the awareness of bodily sensations. http://www.dhamma.org/ This is the 10 day course I underwent. It is pretty brutal and intense. You meditate for 8 hrs a day in total sile…
Thanks for the excellent description! Beyond the ten days, have you done any other retreats?
The thing i don't like about the term "meditation" is that its too closely intertwined with spirituality. Where meditation should actually be associated with relaxation. This article only mentions the control group twice, once to say "None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time". This is just bad reporting - How about telling us what the…
They weren't expecting to see changes in the control group. Control groups represent the baseline, untreated state. Also, meditation and relaxation are not the same thing.
A result over a non-treatment group in this case is scientifically noble, but practically useless. All it tells us is that doing something has an effect over doing nothing.
Can I get the same effects from 15 minutes of walking a day? 30 minutes? We don't know, because that wasn't compared. It should have been.