Vipassana Trip Report by Rap Genius Founder

> In terms of benefits, consider meditation a tool to understand your mind and to be better able to understand your drives and motivations, and to learn how to focus your attention on various aspects of yourself. What "result" you get from that depends very much on you and your motivations and desires, but what I feel I get from it is a stronger appreciation of the world around me, better concentration, and better impulse control.

You said that it's a tool which can accomplish better understanding. Did you become to understand your mind and what causes you have? You say you have concentration but I'd like to confirm what you can see with your concentration.

In the world, an answer is determined by a question. Like in math, 1 + 1 is a problem that makes the result 2 according to a fixed formula. If someone finds 1 or 3 from the question then it's either their mistake in calculation or the causes (numbers in question) were misreported.

Concentration is an ability to remain focused on something. It does not have "results" other than the ability to retain that focus for a longer period of time or with fewer distractions.

In terms of understanding my mind, you seem to be very focused on absolute, objective outcomes. It is not that simple. What questions would you ask? And how would you measure the outcomes?

A lot of questions you might ask can only be evaluated by answers your own mind gives you, and you often can't tell if those answers are objectively correct or just rationalizations.

What you can do is observe what you feel (physical sensations, or internal feelings), how you react, what you think, what brings out specific thoughts etc. and try to bring more of your actions under conscious scrutiny and control.

To go back to my example about impulse control and chocolate: If my mind tells me I deserve that chocolate, is it right or wrong? There is no objective truth to that, because the only arbiter is myself, and if there are rules that says I shouldn't have chocolate, they are rules I set myself and rules I am allowed to change.

What meditation as a tool helps with in situations like that, is teach you techniques to "catch" your mind in the act of rationalizations to let you slow down and consciously evaluate those thoughts before accepting them. Instead of accepting that "yes, I deserve that chocolate", I might think "hold on, I have decided to diet; I can have that chocolate, but I'll feel disappointed later that I had it". Or I might go "yes, I do actually deserve that chocolate; I've done very well on that diet, and as long as it is just that one chocolate, it is an acceptable trade off". Neither decision is still correct or incorrect.

It might feel trite and underwhelming, but we tend to walk through our lives following hundreds of impulses a day that we don't question, or even are aware of: We go one route instead of another to get somewhere. We pick one outfit instead of another. We pick certain meals. We say certain things instead of others. We smile at someone, or ignore them.

A lot of the time there are explanations for these actions that are plain as day if you pay attention. You can go through your life oblivious to the reasons, and thus not influence them consciously. Or you can pay more attention and more consciously decide which decisions to take.

The latter is not more correct. But in my experience it feels more rewarding, as I am often able to catch impulses for me to act in ways that counteract goals that I have set myself, and change my behaviour.

One thing I noticed, for example, was how I'd impulsively do small things avoid people to reduce social interactions with people I didn't know well. This at the same time as I was trying to improve my social skills. Consciously paying attention helped me catch those impulses as they were happening and override them.

To be certain, I'm asking happimess how he differentiates between consciously removing an attachment, and abandoning the problems before solving them.

You said, "etting rid of attachments means to reduce the impulses that controls my actions "behind my back". It does not mean not caring, but it means noticing that you care, and noticing how that feels, and noticing what the impulses tell you, and then making a decision based on that information"

What role does the fact that you care, feel, and have impulses play in your judgement about whether to perform a given action?

Those facts by themselves do not reveal the matter connected to the cases that you are judging.

That's why I'm trying to confirm your standard of judgement that you apply.

"But we (or I am at least) are happier when we actively make that choice."

What do you indicate by happiness?

I wasn't saying it was hard either. I was saying it's idiotic to say "it's awfully noisy in my head when I try to meditate, can you quiet it down for me?" If you really think that, then I suggest you've wasted a lot of time pointing at things and calling them arising objects and wasted very little time meditating.