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Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

bbc.com

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Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#301

Post by nprateem »

jackdawed wrote: post #167
nprateem wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it worth it? Does it live up to the hype of bringing incredible peace and happiness?

It is like living in a video game with the FOV slider turned to max. It has made me very good at "deep work" and I have a much easier time managing day to day stress and emotions. However, it brought out immense periods of suffering (dark night) followed by immense peace in cycles. The biggest inconvenience to me is the sleep disruptions, which is why I'm taking a break from deeper insight practice, and just try to m…

Thanks, I'd always wondered whether it'd affect my day job

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#302

Post by skinnymuch »

marcusverus wrote: post #119
ramraj07 wrote: post #51

Whenever someone talks about mindfulness or stoicism, the name that pops to my head is Tim Ferris. Like a less crappier Joe Rogan with an actual brain maybe? I still listen to some of his podcast episodes because he gets guests who I want to learn about. But oh my god the narcissism! I get it the podcast is about success and how to succeed, but for the love of god try to take your head out of your own ass for a minut…

This seems like a weirdly vitriolic post. It's bursting with negative characterizations, (he's a narcissist, he's up his own ass, and that he's not a good person deep down) and the support you offer for these hateful words is... the fact that he doesn't talk about philanthropy? I mean, it's not that he doesn't engage in philanthropy, because he does[0]. It's that he doesn't talk about philanthropy? Is it possible--an…

This is a pretty weak example of philanthropy. Or a great prime example of what we consider philanthropy. Regardless the OP didn’t say philanthropy. They talked about general compassion. There is a lot that doesn’t overlap between the two.

Why don’t people generally call someone making $40K donation $10K philanthropy? It’s just charity. However Tim Ferris does some tepid Ukraine stuff and it’s philanthropy.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#303

Post by mapcars »

jackdawed wrote: post #82

This is a forefront issue that Buddhism tries to address, both modern pragmatic Buddhism and fundamentalist Buddhism. It's why right speech, right action, and morals is one of the first things they drill into you. Most pragmatic practitioners will refuse to teach you if you indicate that you have some mental problems or moral deficiencies that should be addressed by a professional first, as mindfulness may end up doi…

Are you sure that right things and morals have anything to do with Buddhism or meditation? For "serious meditators" - seriousness is one of the first things one drops when practices start working.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#304

Post by DeWilde »

bschne wrote: post #17
rjh29 wrote: post #5

10-20 minutes/day was enough to teach me how to be 'mindful' on demand and mitigated a lot of mild ADHD-type problems in my life (impatience, anger, finding queues unbearable, high sensitivity to noise etc.). I spent a few months doing more, and it may not be related, but I became increasingly detached from the outside world, more self-absorbed and less motivated. Spent a lot of time just sitting and being content wi…

Mind sharing your routine? Dealing w/ similar issues and been meaning to try this sort of thing for a while after a few friends have recommended it…

Besides the 10 minute morning breathing meditation exercise I constantly strive to be in the moment by manually breathing during the day. This especially helpful in stressful situations.

EDIT

Also consider the progressive muscle relaxation meditation technique. It greatly helps with anxiety and I still benefit from it today even though I did only for a few months about 4 years ago. I can recognize when I am tensing up due to anxiety and immediately relax myself.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#305

Post by NateEag »

manmal wrote: post #272
NateEag wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not read the book, but IIUC _The Four Hour Workweek_ has as its central idea that you can outsource most of your actual work to other people while accruing most of the wealth those others are creating. Not exactly a mark of great compassion or kindness, if that's actually what's presented.

Well you can't scale a business if you rely on only yourself as the workforce, so you will at some point have to outsource work to other people. It doesn't matter where those people are located. It's certainly unkind to overwork or underpay people, no matter where they are in the world (which must be looked at relative to local salaries). But that's not at all what the book recommended. We all profit off other people…

right, profiting from other people's labor is certainly not inherently wrong.

Collecting most of the income from a project while putting very little effort into it feels kind of skeezy to me, but I'm not sure I can tell you precisely what bothers me about that. There may not be any actual problems with it.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#306

Post by skinnymuch »

BjoernKW wrote: post #137
ramraj07 wrote: post #51

Whenever someone talks about mindfulness or stoicism, the name that pops to my head is Tim Ferris. Like a less crappier Joe Rogan with an actual brain maybe? I still listen to some of his podcast episodes because he gets guests who I want to learn about. But oh my god the narcissism! I get it the podcast is about success and how to succeed, but for the love of god try to take your head out of your own ass for a minut…

> I’ve listened to tens of hours if not hundreds and haven’t ever heard him talk about a single act of kindness or help he or his guests have ever done to strangers. In that case, you might want to listen to the episode with Will MacAskill (of effective altruism fame): https://tim.blog/2015/11/22/will-macaskill/ Many other guests who seem to be genuinely kind people come to mind as well (e.g., Derek Sivers, Seth Godi…

How does having one guest or a couple guests who may be good people, change the general issue? A couple of people vs the majority doesn’t change the general sentiment.

It’s a common strategy for podcasters/big personalities and defenses of them to have examples of engaging with another side. Even those examples are few and far between compared to the norm. IE Joe Rogan or Lex Friedman having far more right wing or right wing sympathetic people than left wing people on their shows. That doesn’t mean anything bad in and of itself. The issue is acting like having at least one person from each side means the show and/or host are balanced unbiased people in this regard.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#307

Post by lewispollard »

reggieband wrote: post #29
lukasb wrote: post #4

Mindfulness and compassion are often talked of as "two wings of a bird" by dharma teachers - mindfulness doesn't automatically translate to compassion. This sutta makes the same point: Maṇibhadda Sutta (SN 10:4) On one occasion the Blessed One was staying among the Magadhans at the Jewel-stand Shrine, the haunt of the yakkha-spirit, Maṇibhadda [Auspicious Jewel]. Then Maṇibhadda the yakkha-spirit went to the Blessed…

I think this is partially due to meditation being strongly associated in Western culture with New Thought [1] type movements. This diverse movement is the inspiration for most of the modern self-help ideology. As the quotes from William James in that article mention, the basis is "Mind-Cure", or the idea that thinking the right thoughts leads to physically healing the body. Many people in Western culture get into tho…

You're quite right, and it's something that has basically caused me to stop talking about my vipassana practice to people I befriend unless they bring it up first. When mentioning meditation or mindfulness practice, there are 2 types of people: those who say "yeah, that's nice, I should probably try that out some time" and nod along, and those who say "yeah, I did 16 self-affirmations today and visualised a new car, and listen to how it lines up with my horoscope..."

Mindfulness practice at its core is super simple, there's not much to talk about, but it's been completely associated with the self-help movement to the point that most people can't distinguish it from nonsense.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#308

Post by lewispollard »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #250
Trasmatta wrote: post #74

I've seen a similar effect in a subset of people that get super into psychedelics. In some cases, they seem to lead to a hyper inflated ego. > Yet a growing body of research suggests that such stories may be surprisingly common, with one study from 2019 showing that at least 25% of regular meditators have experienced adverse events, from panic attacks and depression to an unsettling sense of “dissociation”. The 25% n…

Mindfulness the same as wealth, beauty or general success can also be a tool to elevate yourself above others. Especially if your self-perception is that you are very mindful or very empathetic you might easily deduce that you do better than others and have to right their wrongs. There is no golden rule and there are obvious exceptions, but if your empathy comes with a lot of animosity, you probably just deceived you…

Well, right mindfulness would allow you to see that self perception arise as distinct mental and physical sensations, and appropriately calm its fabrication. But, most people aren't practising correctly, I would think.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#309

Post by donatj »

neltnerb wrote: post #22

True Story. I was newly moved to San Francisco and enrolled in a meditation course on literally loving-kindness (they were all mindfulness, this was a focused seminar). When I was on my way in someone was having a mental health emergency right outside the front door and looked to clearly need care. Not knowing who to call for this since I didn't live in the city, and definitely not wanting to call cops, I went in and…

About fifteen years ago, my car broke down in the driveway of a Catholic Church before mass. I’d just pulled into the first driveway I could as my engine was overheating. Something like 40 cars rubbernecked past me under the hood of my car trying to add coolant, and not one stopped to ask if I needed help.

Since then I have realized I think very few people actually care about strangers beyond conspicuously appearing to for selfish reasons.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#310

Post by ramraj07 »

lukas099 wrote: post #234
ramraj07 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a week in Denver and boulder and continuously got the eerie vibe that every person I met who moved there, is an example of the most self centered person I would have met in any other situation elsewhere. I suppose the type of young person who’d move to CO “for the outdoors” is gonna select for the trend. Everything, including the assholish cycling, was indicative of that. Noped out of that place for this reas…

What is assholish cycling?

Not stopping for the red lights or pedestrians crossing when they are allowed to. Being assholes to cars as if you’re better or something.
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