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Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

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Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#261
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still meditate daily, but more in a maintenance manner, the same way a power lifter goes to the gym out of habit, for health, without the goal of setting new PRs. Most of the time, my mind meditates itself automatically. I am very good at deep work, and concentrating on stuff. It is also easy to deal with stress and emotions in my day to day. My life feels like playing a third person video game with the FOV slider…

> My life feels like playing a third person video game with the FOV slider turned to 360 degrees. Every sensation comes discretely where I can see the beginning and end. 1 second is a really long time, enough room to fit 1000s of sensations, bounded only by your speed of perception. That sounds absolutely terrifying to me. [1] All these articles about the downsides of meditation and the above statement just keep push…

> That sounds absolutely terrifying to me.

+1 Sounds like some rather scary dissociative experiences I've had (without drugs, or meditation)

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbf it's not your English that's lacking. It's just that translation from Buddhist term (pali) to English (or other language) is hard or they have no direct translation. Dukkha is one of them.

I think ethics is closer than Morals in this case

Well, that's a big dispute – are "ethics" and "morals" synonyms, or do they differ in meaning?

The traditional answer: they are synonyms. English (and many other European languages too) often has pairs of words with interchangeable meanings, one of which comes from Greek ("ethics"), the other from Latin ("morals"). The traditional identification of the two terms comes from the fact that when Cicero sought to explain the ancient Greek philosophical tradition on ethikos (ἠθικός) in Latin, he coined the Latin word moralis to translate that Greek term – hence, the Western philosophical tradition (and the Western intellectual tradition more broadly) begins by treating the two terms as essentially synonymous – the idea that there is some difference between them did not arise until over a millennium later

Most popular contemporary answer: they are two different things. However, while many (maybe even most) people agree they are two different things, there is much less agreement on what exactly is the difference between them – some say one is religious and the other secular; some say one is personal and the other public (confusingly, some say morality is the personal one and ethics is the public one, others say the opposite); some say one is about detailed rules and the other is about principles; etc. (I'd also note you can find innumerable web pages claiming to explain the distinction – but if you read them carefully, they often contradict each other in various ways, and rarely do they cite any kind of authoritative source in support of their claims.)

I think a large part of what has happened here, is "morality" has picked up a lot of connotations of (Judaeo-Christian) religious and social conservatism, of which "ethics" remains relatively free. Since for many people (especially secular/progressive people), "ethics" has positive connotations, "morality" rather less positive ones, people assume there must be some difference in denotation as well. But, while that assumption is widespread, there is far less agreement on what exactly that difference in denotation is. Indeed, I think attempts to give them different definitions are somewhat of a retcon.

Personally, I just stick to the traditional answer. My impression, is that among professional philosophers (especially of the analytic tradition), the traditional answer is the more popular one [0]. "Moral philosophy" and "ethics" (in the sense of the philosophical discipline) are two different names for the same thing, albeit the former name sounds a little old-fashioned, the later a bit more contemporary.

[0] To quote the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – "The term ‘morality’ as used in this entry will not be distinguished from ‘ethics.’" – https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religion-morality/ – the same entry also notes, that while some philosophers have attempted to distinguish the two terms, including even such illustrious figures as Kant and Hegel, there is a lack of consensus among philosophers who believe them to be distinct as to what the distinction actually is.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've experienced all these interpersonal deficits after meditating seriously 2 hours every day for 2 years straight. Wow! I haven't meditated before. That sounds like a lot of time. Do you still meditate? What does it offer you? Has it offered you what you expected?

"Do you still meditate? What does it offer you? Has it offered you what you expected?" I'm not the OP, but after I practiced meditation intensely for a few months I found two huge benefits: First: before I meditated I used to get annoyed and bored when I had to do chores like washing the dishes or standing in line. But after meditating for a while, when I had to do such a chore I'd just focus on my breath and I'd no…

I've had a bit of a similar experience in reference to the mundane. As a kid, I absolutely hated doing the dishes or laundry (as most kids do). However, around when I turned 19 I started listening to music (sometimes a podcast) while doing the dishes and everything changed. I realized I can basically mentally automate the process of doing dishes, and almost completely shut my brain off. I'm a habitual over-thinker and usually quite anxious, so this was absolutely amazing for me. Its gotten to the point now where I almost get excited to do the dishes.

I personally don't consider what I was doing meditation, but I wouldn't be surprised if I accidentally mimic'd some meditation-like behaviors to aid in this.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that Western Christianity has pretty much the same underlying message - you simply can't reach salvation and union with God without starting from right morals. (This might be why Stoicism with its meditative and contemplative traditions, and a similar focus on divinely-inspired "right/moral action" was a key ally of early Christianity.) Islam of course has its own Sufi traditions, the Biblical prophe…

> you simply can't reach salvation and union with God without starting from right morals. This is almost the opposite of Christianity, depending on what you mean by "right morals". Christianity says you simply can't reach salvation and be with God unless you are flawless, which is humanly impossible, so unless God does something... hence Christ.

> Christianity says you simply can't reach salvation and be with God unless you are flawless, which is humanly impossible, so unless God does something...

Thing is, Buddhism makes very similar claims. That's what the Bodhisattva vow is all about; a commitment, made out of pure loving-kindness, to delay ultimate enlightenment so as to accumulate a store of merit (good karma) that other beings can freely call for and attain their own enlightenment. For all we know, every practitioner of Buddhism who actually manages even the slightest semblance of enlightnment might be tapping into the power of countless bodhisattvas.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that Western Christianity has pretty much the same underlying message - you simply can't reach salvation and union with God without starting from right morals. (This might be why Stoicism with its meditative and contemplative traditions, and a similar focus on divinely-inspired "right/moral action" was a key ally of early Christianity.) Islam of course has its own Sufi traditions, the Biblical prophe…

> you simply can't reach salvation and union with God without starting from right morals. If you are willing to confess your sin and repent for your mistakes with godly sorrow, God will forgive your trespasses. Even the most handsy of trespassing priests is forgiven.

Yes, but true repentance and sorrow is taken to involve concrete steps, such as doing restitution and changing one's actions in the future. Confession and repentance are not separate from a path towards purification.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#266
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My life feels like playing a third person video game with the FOV slider turned to 360 degrees. Every sensation comes discretely where I can see the beginning and end. 1 second is a really long time, enough room to fit 1000s of sensations, bounded only by your speed of perception. That sounds absolutely terrifying to me. [1] All these articles about the downsides of meditation and the above statement just keep push…

For me, the biggest appeal of programming as a career is getting into flow state - becoming so absorbed in what I'm doing that I lose all track of time. Which sounds like the exact opposite of mindfulness. Mindlessness?

Same. ADHD medication lets me live outside my head, reducing the focus on my senses and feelings so I can concentrate on what I'm doing. That kind of "mindlessness" feels great.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a passage by Chesterton where he jokes that many of his contemporaries had simply become bored with Christianity and would happily embrace it again if it came wrapped in the exotic garbs of a far away land.

An interesting anecdote I've experienced on this topic living abroad is how many Buddhists, in an almost exclusively Buddhist nation, have some degree of admiration for Christianity while having some degree of disdain for their own religion or philosophy. I think it's the foreign aspect, but also another one is that when you have limited experience of what a casual Christian (or Buddhist) is like, it creates a falsel…

Yes, the sangha in natively Buddhist countries can be a rather mixed bag but that's just as true of the various churches and other religions in the West. These things are somewhat natural when you have a religion in a "popular" role.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a balance to be struck with anything. On the one hand, teaching meditation outside of the context of religion might increase the likelihood of the purpose of the practice being misunderstood. On the other hand, any religious practice runs the risk of breeding a sense of self righteousness in the practitioner. With meditation and mindfulness, I've seen both. Also, I gotta say that language like "moral deficien…

Forgive me, English is not my first language so at times I struggle finding the right word for it. The pali word is "sila", the closest translation is morals. To be deficient in sila is to be deficient in morals, was my thought process. One example is do no harm, or avoid lying. If all your daily life is filled with causing harm, and deceit, then it will be filled with chaos and end up making it harder for you to mak…

Are rent controls a good policy or not? Are unrestricted free markets a good thing or not? Is killing a tiger good when the tiger is about to each your child?

Morals are easy (and clear) once you don't have to deal with the real world.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#269
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain why one would be a shitty person if one tried to start a business that is sustainable on a few hours of work per week.

His business was selling generic "herbal remedies" IIRC. Which is bad/predatory IMO. And going further to meta-hustle that this is salutary enough to recommend to others without any seeming compunction is meta-bad. (I know it's bad posting something this dismissive in deeply nested comments, but I believe it is relevant information to the discussion which hasn't been mentioned elsewhere. I tried elaborating but the e…

Are you referring to BrainQuicken? They sold regular supplements, mainly B vitamins and alpha lipoic acid, marketed as nootropics (which they are). I can't see what's wrong or unethical about that. Unless you think all kinds of resale are unethical?
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