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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

#331

Post by bowsamic »

zmgsabst wrote: post #324
bowsamic wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't think so, words have meanings, Buddhism refers to a group of sets of ideas and doctrines.

Buddhism encourages disconnection, in fact the Buddha said that withdrawing is good and that sense pleasures are dangerous.

What you said is wrong because it implies that suffering is NOT something we should seek to be free from.

I take it you're a beginner to the practise?

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#332

Post by jackdawed »

cyberpunk wrote: post #229
jackdawed wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the third stage of enlightenment, if you have any questions about my day to day experience.

Clearly not Soto then. Which tradition? :)

Originally Theravada Thai Forest tradition, under Ajahn Dune's lineage, but now I'm more aligned with this https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-v-awakenin...

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#333

Post by jackdawed »

sph wrote: post #235
jackdawed wrote: post #172

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…

Totally understandable. Complete awakening isn't for everyone, and highly realized people are often an obsessed minority of deeply devoted yet tormented people who were willing to do anything necessary for liberation, including "dying" or the cessation of all experience. Towards the later stages it is like an intense 5-MeO-DMT trip over and over.

Here's a video of it captured live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t8KvdMtT4A

When I first reached stream entry, or the first stage of awakening, a slightly less filtered state, it felt like a massive relief and dropped a huge weight out of my body. My day to day is filled with far less suffering and I would rather die than return to how I was before.

On the other hand, simple guided meditation by a licensed therapist, or the many apps out there are great introductions to the vast majority of people, without the risks that come with insight practice. It's especially important to be cognizant of when you get into "insight territory", which a good teacher should be equipped to deal with safely. The sad part is some Goenka retreats completely neglect this concern for safety.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#334

Post by jackdawed »

suzzer99 wrote: post #257
sph wrote: 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?

It's very hard to describe the quality of this flow state or concentration. But I can get completely absorbed in work that I forget to eat or sleep. Food hits different.

This article comes close to describing how I experience "Attention Deconcentration" http://deconcentration-of-attention.com/deconcentration-soft...

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#336

Post by jackdawed »

depressedpanda wrote: post #292
jackdawed wrote: post #172

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…

> One thing that is keeping me from progressing further is the inconvenience that comes with sleep alterations caused by meditation, and how it affects my work as a programmer. How has meditation affected your sleep?

Like this https://www.mctb.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/%C3%91anas-a...

I let my manager know that there may be times where I have sleep issues. Sometimes it lines up with a 2-week sprint cycle. When I meditated seriously, it was +/- 4 hours. Now it's more like +/- 2 hours. So if I normally wake up at 9am, sometimes I wake up at 7am, other times at 11am. I actively search for companies that are flexible with core hours, and have a later standup (>11am).

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#337

Post by jackdawed »

TriNetra wrote: post #260
jackdawed wrote: post #172

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…

There are four stages of mental stillness as per an awakened meditator mentioned in his book [0]. As per my understanding, you seem to be at stage 3 which is a great achievement. > On your journey so far, you’ve come off the freeway and you have driven through a suburban road. Now, you’ve hit the countryside road, the third stage of mental stillness. Just like effusive rivers rush into the sea but the sea remains unm…

I've had several, intense Kundalini experiences! I know for certain that I can achieve a classical Buddha awakening in this lifetime, as long as I take care of myself.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#338

Post by cutler »

There's one thing I don't get about mindful detachment and worldly renunciation - it denies the value of many of the world's greatest achievements and relegates genuine creative passion to mere ego. The western world was built by pioneers who followed their passion for grand projects. Like it or not we all depend on an increasingly sophisticated package of products and services just to lead a normal life. Those facilities were built by people with a passion for industry - people who were goal-driven, not disappearing into their navel. Detachment, I'm sure, can be great in small doses for curing the excesses of negative emotions but to build a life-path out of it just doesn't make sense. If you live in some third world country in the East maybe you can survive on what you can grow and live alone in some remote shack but how is that relevant to the world as a whole? How many great films and how much great music would have been created if their creators had lived a life of detachment? Very little, I suspect. Great art comes out of a deep emotional involvement with life.

Re: Emerging evidence that mindfulness can sometimes increase selfish tendencies

#339

Post by jackdawed »

mapcars wrote: post #303
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.

Serious in the sense that, "I'm going to put some effort to investigate what is going on, seek out teachers and resources, and apply my knowledge through daily practice". The actual meditation itself is very playful but focused, like getting good at a competitive video game.

> The five spiritual faculties are said to be like a cart with four wheels and a driver. If any of the four wheels is too small, wobbly, or not in balance with the others, then the going on the spiritual road will be rough. The four wheels symbolize faith, wisdom, energy, and concentration. If the driver is not paying attention there will also be problems. The driver symbolizes mindfulness. [See SN 48.18, also Visuddhimagga, IV, 45.2.]

> The five spiritual faculties have also been presented in another order that can be useful: faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. In this order, they apply to each of the three trainings, the first of which, as discussed earlier, is morality. We have faith that training in morality is a good idea and that we can do it, so we exert energy to live up to a standard of clear and skillful living. We realize that we must pay attention to our thoughts, words, and deeds in order to do this, so we try to be mindful of them. We realize that we often fail to pay attention, so we try to increase our ability to concentrate on how we live our life. In this way, through experience, we become wiser in a relative sense, learning how to live a good and useful life. Seeing our skill improve and the benefits it has for our life, we generate more faith, and so on.

https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-i-the-fund...

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