Poll: Do you meditate?

One paragraph into your response, I thought "hey, that's good, he's finding a way to reduce his suffering with meditation. That's a great start."

Then I got to your second paragraph. Yes. You're on the right track. Buddhism and Hinduism are "designed" not only to demonstrate the "true reality" beyond appearances, but to show that the end of suffering lies in that direction.

It is true that mindfulness as it is commonly understood may not lead to what you seek. The primary obstacle you'll face is that mindfulness is typically dualistic -- there's a _you_ observing a _that_. If the true nature of existence does not distinguish subject and object -- that is, if it is nondual -- then this will always be a stumbling block.

I eagerly recommend to you two similar paths. One is Advaita Vedanta. Examples of sages and teachers would be Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and more recently, Greg Goode and Rupert Spira. Check out Goode's "Standing as Awareness" for the most clearheaded investigation I've found.

The other path is the pinnacle of Tibetan Buddhism: Mahamudra or Dzogchen. You can find a Mahamudra manual online at chagchen.com. It was authorized by one of the great living masters of the tradition, so it's legit.

In both cases, having a teacher to keep you from wandering off into nonsense may be critical. Check out "the Advaita trap" on YouTube for a somewhat humorous example of that.

As you investigate Buddhism more deeply, never forget that the different schools have more philosophical differences than commonalities, despite the kumbaya face they present. The mystical traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism are far more similar to each other than to their parent traditions, and folks from neither school will openly admit this. And if you continue to follow the Theravada tradition, make sure you understand the difference between being an arhat, bodhisattva, or Buddha. If you're into "seeing through the illusion," this will be important.

I found that whatever thought is eagerly bubbling to the top is probably something I should think about why it's surfacing. After you deal with the issue (which may take a while) it is less buoyant and bubbles up less.

However, I do meditation in the sense of asking God to communicate and then listening for him. It's even more helpful to ask him what he wants you to change and then listen. I cannot speak to what is helpful for Eastern meditation, though.

I think you're going to need to deal with the buoyant thoughts (regardless of whether you are religious or not), though, otherwise what is underlying them is going to drive your actions without you realizing it.

I've been meditating about twice daily (15-30 minutes) for about two years, and more sporadically for a year before that. I started because I was feeling really confused and anxious and desperate about stuff in general, and needed some kind of anchor or Regular Good Thing in my life. I could go on and on about the various benefits and so on, but I've rarely found that type of thing very interesting to read about myself, so...

Here's a thought. There's a bias in the current "secular" discourse about meditation, probably inherited from the psychiatric perspective of the "mindfulness" movement. Let's call it the emotional bias. The whole discussion seems to revolve around "emotional benefits." This might seem like a natural given, but let's question it.

Just to shake things up a bit, let's compare meditation to some other activity. Say, reading. It would be weird to talk about reading only in terms of "emotional benefits." Like, "I read twice a day and I have found that it gives me a noticable increase in feelings of joy and wellbeing." You would say, "okay, but what are you reading? Is it interesting? What have you learned?" Of course meditation and reading are not the same thing, but I just want to point out that it's not immediately obvious that everything people do intentionally is for "emotional benefits."

For me, while I do appreciate emotional benefits, the fascination of meditation for me is more cognitive. It's almost like a puzzle. I can't really explain it. It's not clear what the puzzle is about, but if I had to say something, I'd say it has a lot to do with the relationship between myself and "phenomena." Maybe between my mind as such and its specific manifestations -- I'm aware this might sound pretty crazy. It has to do with figuring out (or penetrating or unravelling or getting to the bottom of) some kind of fundamental confusion.

So, I'm not very impressed by the dogmatic version of secular meditation. I caricaturize this dogma as saying "meditation is purely a technique for improving your emotional life and your career performance, anything else is religious woo-woo bullshit nonsense." It's such a cocky attitude. "Alright religious people, you've been messing around with this stuff for thousands of years, now we'll take over, throw out the weird stuff and do it properly."

Thanks! I appreciate it ;-)

That's a great way to bring a racist, closed minded attitude into something that you apparently know nothing about. Way to go.