41–50 of 368 posts
Vipassana style meditation (minfulness) should always be combined with Metta (lovingkindness), especially for westerners. That's the advice I keep seeing.
Bound to happen. Why do you think Buddha has to leave all his wealth and kingdom before even starting the journey of mindfulness, leaving everything behind? The western adaptation is reducing meditation and mindfulness to a "tool" of relieving stress and better ones mental well-being. As easy as downloading an app and stay calm for few minutes. Unfortunately, this is not ideal. The traditional way is to seek a guru w…
I don't know that it's necessarily fair to describe this as a purely Western phenomenon. The Lamas were a hereditary elite who ruled over Tibet in a brutal caste system which reduced most of the people in it to the status of serfs, and all with their own particular strain of Buddhism used to justify and excuse it all. On our fridge, my wife has a picture of the Dalai Lama wearing a big fancy watch on his wrist. I alw…
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…
Having lived in Boulder CO for several years, which is basically the Mecca of Americanized mindfulness, I can attest that this is true. The most ardent practitioners that I met were invariably self obsessed.
Practicing mindfulness is not just letting your mind wander. It’s practice, just like exercising or coding. You get better at it with time, not just a Homer Simpson moment of following your thoughts after being asked a question about being a decent human being.
The whole idea of mindfulness is to get to know yourself better and work on the not so great parts such as when your ego gets involved. If you practice it today and have found tremendous results, great! Also if you tried it and it didn’t help much, that’s okay too.
I’ll continue to do it because it’s what I believe separates good from great in my life and helps me accomplish more. I’m glad they mentioned this:
> “The effects are much weaker than had been proposed.” Like Hafenbrack, he suspects the practice can still be useful – but whether you see the desired benefits may depend on many factors, including the meditators’ personality, motivation and beliefs, he says. “Context is really important.”
If you want to see if there is connection, you should study people who have meditated 20 years or more.
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…
Very few people are equipped to handle crazy people on the street, even among people who are trying to become better people, whatever that may mean to them.
You yourself attended the seminar on "loving-kindness" but couldn't resist dunking on these people some time later. But the thing is that I don't consider that inconsistent just because you were trying to improve yourself.
Even if the seminar were about helping crazy people that were standing in front of self-help seminars, it's still an unfair standard.
Bound to happen. Why do you think Buddha has to leave all his wealth and kingdom before even starting the journey of mindfulness, leaving everything behind? The western adaptation is reducing meditation and mindfulness to a "tool" of relieving stress and better ones mental well-being. As easy as downloading an app and stay calm for few minutes. Unfortunately, this is not ideal. The traditional way is to seek a guru w…