If anyone is interested in developing mindfulness, I like Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
'Mindful people' feel less pain
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Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#42> "Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment," said the study's lead author, Fadel Zeidan I've always thought of the word "mindfulness" as one of those vague, new-age nonsense terms, like "psionic body energy" and "ethereal consciousness". Even given the above quoted definition, I still have no idea what it means. Does anyone know what is an example of…
I find Sam Harris to be helpful here. He's an athiest intellectual and speaks a language closer to HN than hippies. https://samharris.org/podcasts/chapter-one/ ctrl-F "mindfulness" if you don't want to read the whole thing, though I'd suggest it. Even better, this is also available as a reading on spotify. He's got a really soothing, compelling voice. Worth a shot.
Thank you for this. I found the most precise and concise definition of mindfulness on this page.
> MINDFULNESS
> It is always now. This might sound trite, but it is the truth. It’s not quite true as a matter of neurology, because our minds are built upon layers of inputs whose timing we know must be different. [11] But it is true as a matter of conscious experience. The reality of your life is always now. And to realize this, we will see, is liberating. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand if you want to be happy in this world.
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#43> "Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment," said the study's lead author, Fadel Zeidan I've always thought of the word "mindfulness" as one of those vague, new-age nonsense terms, like "psionic body energy" and "ethereal consciousness". Even given the above quoted definition, I still have no idea what it means. Does anyone know what is an example of…
Washing dishes, thinking about dishes at hand - mindfulness.
Washing dishes, thinking about the plot of a movie involving dishes - non-mindfulness.
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#44I've definitely felt this. I'm more 'mindful' as the article says.. in the sense that I can step outside my emotions and control them.
As in, if I'm getting angry, I can step outside the anger and evaluate whether it's necessary or helpful at the moment or not. If it isn't, I stop it. Otherwise, I let the anger creep into my voice to make the other person more receptive to the urgency of the situation.
It works similarly for other emotions: like, fear, shame, jealousy, frustration or even sadness... which is why I don't often cry at funerals.
I don't know if that makes me a sociopath or not, but it definitely makes me more rational.
That said, I also seem to feel a lot less pain than my wife who tends to panic easier. If I stub my toe, cut my finger or even accidentally grab a falling soldering iron from the wrong end, I can disassociate from the pain, or at least give it a back seat. The hand is mine, but the pain feels like someone else's.
As such, I get a lot more cuts and bruises than my wife. I've even had instances where I had bleeding cuts on my hand that I kept thinking were itches.. I kept confusing the blood for mysterious coppery liquid oozing out of the device I was repairing. Turns out I'd nicked my fingers prying it open.. explained how the liquid kept coming back after I wiped it.
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#45> "Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment," said the study's lead author, Fadel Zeidan I've always thought of the word "mindfulness" as one of those vague, new-age nonsense terms, like "psionic body energy" and "ethereal consciousness". Even given the above quoted definition, I still have no idea what it means. Does anyone know what is an example of…
What do you see now? What is the position of your head, your shoulders? How your breathing goes? What do you smell? What sound you hear? What are you thinking right now?
Do you sometimes eat while watching a movie, actually not tasting the food fully? Or when in a rush ignoring all what and whom you meet on the way to the target, not happy where you are at the moment? Are you aware of the reasons why you take certain decisions? Is it really your decision, or is it just because of some inner monologue that you are not aware of? Do you sometimes step in a dog shit on the pavement?
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#46Mindfulness meditation taught me something that Haruki Murakami describes well about running: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
That's a well-known Buddhist proverb but I don't know what the textual source is, or if there is one. This is the sort of thing one can email to the Quote Investigator. Maybe I will.
Apparently the earliest known source is the book The Promise of a New Day (1983) by Karen Casey.
https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/pain-is-inevitable-suffering-is...
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just curious what the difference is? Suffering is your reaction to the pain? Like if you're stoic you acknowledge the pain but continue on with out suffering?
Think of it this way: Pain: My head hurts. This sucks. Suffering: My head hurts. It's not going away. Maybe this means something is wrong with me. Maybe it means I have some kind of disease or disorder. What if there's something wrong with my brain, like a brain tumor or a blood clot? What if I suddenly die next week? etc. etc.
Even "This sucks" is adding suffering.
Pain: My head hurts.
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#48Mindfulness meditation taught me something that Haruki Murakami describes well about running: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
That's not a terrible one-line summary of stoicism.
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#49Mindfulness meditation taught me something that Haruki Murakami describes well about running: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
Is that true if your being tortured by someone other than yourself? I've seen the picture of the monk who set himself on fire while meditating in protest. I wonder if suffering is only optional if you inflict it on yourself.
People do tend to have an easier time enduring things they inflict on themselves than things inflicted on them by others, but perhaps you can trick this mechanism by accepting what is inflicted onto you by others.
Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain
#50Mindfulness meditation taught me something that Haruki Murakami describes well about running: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
Just curious what the difference is? Suffering is your reaction to the pain? Like if you're stoic you acknowledge the pain but continue on with out suffering?
I think the suffering is the result of your desire for things to be different than what they are. It's natural to feel like you want a headache to go away, but it seems to me that the more I accept that this is just the way it is right now, the more I embrace the pain and accept it as a part of me, the less power it has over me. And conversely the more I try to push it away like it's some kind of monster that's torturing me the more it becomes one. I have actually had that experience while meditating with a headache. Fully embracing and identifying with the pain makes it hurt less. It's a weird paradox because you can't start by thinking "I want this pain to go away so I'm going to embrace it". That doesn't work. You have to start with the attitude of "I'm going to be fully present for this moment, whatever it is". That is the path that leads out of suffering.