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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

#321

Post by neltnerb »

lukasb wrote: post #206
neltnerb wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue with this specific concept is that lots and lots of people are lazy and instead of doing compassionate things, they "feel compassion" as a generic emotion through the use of meditation. I studied Buddhism quite a while pretty seriously, and I know that a lot of the meditations involve practicing loving yourself, and your friends, family, community, and that these feelings of love are a core thing to have in…

Yeah fair. I asked a teacher once, "seems like Buddhists don't have the best record at service, should I be concerned about that?" and he just replied "yes." That said, I wouldn't be dismissive about people learning to forgive themselves for their flaws ...

Nah, I'm not dismissive of it, it is extremely important. Self-love is critical to be able to love others. Still, my point is that compassion and actually helping people should be taught in parallel. It is better in a Sangha, of course, at least mutually.

Consider the story of Buddha’s Dog as my go-to story about how Buddhists are definitely saying you need to actually take action to help people in the world for your own self improvement, it's not enough to just feel sad about things and "want to help".

https://theosophywatch.wordpress.com/2019/06/05/tales-of-enl...

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#322

Post by jondeval »

It would seem that G.K. Chesterton had a sense of the implications of these overly inward looking practices:

"Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of representation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The mediaeval saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily we shall find some interesting things."

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#323

Post by ThePrankster »

pqs wrote: post #280

I'm amazed by this paragraph: "He’s examined a technique known as ‘loving-kindness meditation’, for example, which is inspired by the Buddhist practice of Metta Bhavana. The practice involves contemplating people in your life – from friends and family to acquaintances and strangers – and cultivating good wishes and feelings of warmth for them." This is regular Christian prayer. We Catholics pray for other people, eve…

Buddhist also pray for others. Metta Bhavana is not the same as regular prayers

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#324

Post by zmgsabst »

bowsamic wrote: post #274
zmgsabst wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We must have different teachers, as I heard it differently: No Self is the path to Intentional Self. The goal isn’t the deconstruction of the self, but rather, that through the deconstruction of the self we can act from a place of intention rather than bias and preconceived notions. And in doing so, no longer engage in the random suffering that was thrust upon us — but the intentional suffering that comes from our ch…

> Life is suffering — the only escape to that is death; instead, we should seek to choose our suffering, as befits our goals. I don't know what this is, but it isn't Buddhism

Seems awfully egocentric to declare other people’s beliefs “aren’t Buddhism”.

Perhaps you should read more if you haven’t encountered the teachings on not becoming disconnected, but instead present and purposeful post enlightenment.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#325

Post by stevebmark »

zmgsabst wrote: post #209
stevebmark wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no choice. There is no intention. There is no you.

Like I said, you seem trapped in a poor vision of what enlightenment means — the goal isn’t to burn down your inner garden, but to tend it. :)

It sounds like you’re talking about Buddhism. I’m talking about the recently popular mindfulness practice.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#327

Post by zozbot234 »

jondeval wrote: post #322

It would seem that G.K. Chesterton had a sense of the implications of these overly inward looking practices: "Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of representation, but in the…

> The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards.

This is not so surprising, seeing as Buddhism developed and distinguished itself from its neighboring religions (Hinduism, Chinese folk religion, Shinto etc.) precisely by being more inwardly focused, and not defining itself as community oriented. Practically speaking though, the Buddhist sangha does fulfill the expected roles for its surrounding communities - and Christianity has its own traditions of solitary hermit asceticism. So the difference is not so large.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#328

Post by jamal-kumar »

jackdawed wrote: post #172
danuker wrote: post #112

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?

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…

24/7 360 degree vision? Sign me up!

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#329

Post by neltnerb »

LightG wrote: post #299
haswell wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rest: conflation. Conflation with what?

As above ... The major issue raised here (mindfulness and selfishness in general, etc) with SF homelessness and peoples response to it.

It was a story that happened in San Francisco, I don't know what else to tell you. You can't decouple homelessness from the reasons why you might need to help someone in an emergency in that city.

Draw what lessons you will, or tell me that I'm making it up wholesale if you seriously think it's implausible if you feel the need. All I can say is that it happened and stood out as particularly strange to me. I didn't take cell phone video to prove it six years later to a stranger on the internet, I just wanted to know who to contact for help in an unfamiliar neighborhood and city.

What I took from the situation was that if you're going to seriously practice compassion in meditation it needs to also be coupled with action or else you end up getting disconnected and numb to the world around you. I don't blame anyone for their responses, and definitely don't judge them as bad people or anything. We're all human and the best of us are open-minded enough to our failings to improve.

I'm saying that if you're going to practice "feeling compassion" you should also practice acting on it. Otherwise when you need to act you will freeze. Acting on compassion is a reflex, a habit, a muscle that needs development as much as the ability to accept that you aren't perfect.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#330

Post by manmal »

WalterSear wrote: post #315
manmal wrote: 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.

That wasn't the shitty part.

So you are discrediting without giving the actual reason?
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