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The Problem of Mindfulness

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Re: The Problem of Mindfulness

#61

Post by gdubs »

A long time ago, my advisor in college asked me to help him set up some climbing ropes. They were all knotted up. He said, “instead of trying to pick the knots apart, just pick up the ropes and let them fall to the ground, and keep doing that over and over again — the knots will come undone.”

Thoughts can be like knots: if you try too hard, the knots just get tighter. If you find a way to let go and be loose, the knots can come undone on their own. (Funnily enough, my advisor had spent years in a Zen monestary when he was younger.)

I’ve had the opposite experience as the author and have actually worked through a lot of my own thoughts through meditation. Or, rather, many of those thoughts have worked themselves out.

The thing to remember is that mediation itself is the goal. It’s great that meditating can have a lot of positive side effects; but chasing those side effects kind of misses the whole point.

Re: The Problem of Mindfulness

#62

Post by jonbronson »

hellofunk wrote: post #53
jonbronson wrote: post #8

While there are a lot of truths in this article, there's also a thread of misconception running through it, embodied most prominently in the line "Without some ownership of one’s feelings and thoughts, it is difficult to take responsibility for them." Mindfulness is about creating space between you and your thoughts, not ignoring or discounting them. It allows you to look at them subjectively, rather than being carri…

> allows you to look at them subjectively I think you meant, "objectively"?

yes indeed!

Re: The Problem of Mindfulness

#63

Post by mistermann »

gridlockd wrote: post #54
edejong wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlightenment.

If you want to feel "enlightened", you can just drop some acid and be done with it in an afternoon. No need to turn it into a major life commitment.

An acid trip only lasts a short term.

But you're right, there's no need to make it a life commitment. There's no need to do anything, really.

Re: The Problem of Mindfulness

#64

Post by wavefunction »

gdubs wrote: post #61

A long time ago, my advisor in college asked me to help him set up some climbing ropes. They were all knotted up. He said, “instead of trying to pick the knots apart, just pick up the ropes and let them fall to the ground, and keep doing that over and over again — the knots will come undone.” Thoughts can be like knots: if you try too hard, the knots just get tighter. If you find a way to let go and be loose, the kno…

Climbing ropes shouldn't be stored like that for safety's sake. Knots should always be unknotted by hand when putting away ropes and dropping the ropes on the ground repeatedly is not a good idea.

Re: The Problem of Mindfulness

#65

Post by dboreham »

JamesBarney wrote: post #28
jonbronson wrote: post #8

While there are a lot of truths in this article, there's also a thread of misconception running through it, embodied most prominently in the line "Without some ownership of one’s feelings and thoughts, it is difficult to take responsibility for them." Mindfulness is about creating space between you and your thoughts, not ignoring or discounting them. It allows you to look at them subjectively, rather than being carri…

Exactly the definition of mindfulness is literally being aware of your mental state. If being carried away by emotions is like being lost than mindfulness is developing a good sense of direction. And mindfulness meditation is the practice through which one develops this skill.

The tcpdump of the brain.

Re: The Problem of Mindfulness

#66

Post by lukaa »

I don't understand fuss about meditation. There are a lot of alternative states of consciousness and many ways to achieve them with different benefits in them. Why put one state on throne? For example drinking green tea, exercise, sleeping, anestesia, different drugs. If there is one alternative state in which quality you should invest your time than that is good night sleep because it is most natural and necessary for both mental and physical health.

Re: The Problem of Mindfulness

#67

Post by andreilys »

argd678 wrote: post #60

It’s mystifying how something so simple can be turned into something so complicated. Just pay attention, that’s confusing now?

Lol I couldn’t agree more. How can anyone be against paying attention?

Keep in mind this publications whole brand is posting “contrarian” articles, so it’s not surprising to see this article which seems to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

Re: The Problem of Mindfulness

#68

Post by zzzeek »

gridlockd wrote: post #29
hooch wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This brings to mind an illustrative example made by the Buddhist teacher Alexander Berzin: “You’re driving down the road, and another driver is doing something crazy, swerving about and you almost have an accident, and you think what an asshole! Having the thought that the other driver is an asshole is the first obscuration that prevents omniscience. Believing this thought to be true is the second obscuration (paraph…

> Having the thought that the other driver is an asshole is the first obscuration that prevents omniscience You know what else prevents omniscience? The second law of thermodynamics. So what? > It’s not that “you” don’t exist. It’s that the conditioned and conventionally accepted ways that we think we exist (and by extension the ways that we project that others exist) are ultimately false and don’t correspond to real…

So...it might help you to realize that other people who you would normally think are "assholes", people who you don't know yet hate nonetheless, are nothing like that, and maybe you've been making all kinds of judgments about people that aren't really true, and that in fact, reality calls for a vastly larger degree of love and compassion for others, even people who cut you off on the road. You treat people completely differently, you become kinder, more courteous, less hateful, and more patient, at larger scale animosity and hostility between peoples decreases to zero and world / universal peace is achieved. No biggie, so what!

Re: The Problem of Mindfulness

#69

Post by kranner »

strictfp wrote: post #5
badpun wrote: post #3

I've had very similar thoughts about mindfullness. Mindfullness tells you to observe your fears and other feelings and see that they come and go, while it does not focus at all on whether and to what degree they are actual valid and important. Feelings are often signals from your subconsciousness, which is trying to tell that something. Of course, a lot of the time these signals can be BS or blown out of proportions…

The same coping mechanism is being used in NLP. I have a feeling it's just a way of dealing with an environment which isn't healthy for the human being. It would be better to adjust the environment.

> It would be better to adjust the environment.

Adjusting the environment is much more difficult and, in many cases, simply impossible.

To paraphrase an old folk tale, what is easier: making the entire land-surface of the Earth easier to walk on, or just putting shoes on one's feet?

Re: The Problem of Mindfulness

#70

Post by proverbialbunny »

The author has fallen into nihilism and has mistaken it for Buddhism and mindfulness meditation. Buddhism warns against falling into nihilism like this, but I suspect mindfulness meditation practices do not.

Anatta doesn't mean no-self. It's a complex concept and is often mistaken.

Anatta has two parts to it:

1) Reality is broken up and labeled as two kinds. There is the present moment reality, before it has been labeled by the mind called paramārtha, and a reality of abstractions and labels over the first reality called saṁvṛti. (For further reading checkout the Two Truths Doctrine.)

Self is an idea, so it exists within saṁvṛti. Self is an abstraction, as is everything in this reality.

2) The abstraction of self is a combination of a bunch of elements, eg body, mind, and so on, to make the concept of self.

Anatta, then, is a set (Set Theory). In the ultimate reality of paramārtha there is no self. In the thought form reality, self is an aggregate/abstraction.

"Why teach this?" you might be thinking. Because it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. It's even obvious on a second examination.

The reason this is taught is if one thinks a thing is them (like their work) and that thing gets insulted, they instinctively feel like they need to defend it, which causes a lot of dukkha (psychological stress). If one realizes that thing is not them, then there will be no dukkha when it is criticized.

People mix up anatta (non-self / no-singular-self / no-soul) with no-self. No-self is a meditation practice, similar to noting, which one realizes bit by bit, every single thing that comes into their mind is not self itself, even if it is a piece that makes up the abstraction. All abstractions are made up from a series of parts.

imho, anatta doesn't need to be taught to do mindfulness meditation, but understanding impermanence is important, because without it most people try to fight stressful thoughts and change them, instead of thinking of them like rain clouds, to be observed, not modified.

Once the meditator sees the causal chain from observation to thought, action, or feeling, that is all they need to change their habits and live a happier and healthier life.

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