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Vipassana for Hackers [pdf]

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Re: Vipassana for Hackers [pdf]

#81

Post by Legogris »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #55
curun1r wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important distinction between the Goenka retreats and other dogmatic religious organizations is the instructions to only accept what you find palatable...you're free to pick and choose what you find valuable and what you can validate through personal experience and ignore the rest. If you'll remember the story of the kheer and the cardamom seeds, it's meant to encourage you to be as skeptical as you feel you need…

> it's meant to encourage you to be as skeptical as you feel you need to be to get value out of the retreat. On the other hand, if you're spotted walking slowly back and forth along a line, you'll be criticized for introducing walking meditation. So while Goenka retreats might encourage skepticism (this has not been my experience), they severely discourage experimentation. They are highly authoritarian environments.

The teacher in my center even encouraged meditating while walking when I asked. I saw other students doing the same and no one made anything out of it. Same in Japan, where I also sat. Sounds like an unfortunate interpretation at the particular center you where at.

Re: Vipassana for Hackers [pdf]

#83

Post by sorokod »

monktastic1 wrote: post #71
sorokod wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you briefly explain what spirituality without religion is? How is it different from psychology?

I'd like to take a stab. We all carry around a default metaphysics -- a deep belief structure about the nature of reality. It is possible to transcend these beliefs in a way that allows you to grok (not just understand ) that they're not supported in the way we normally assume. That transcendence is often accompanied by an overwhelming gratitude, joy, awe, and wonder that are normally inaccessible. Of course, our bel…

Do you think humans are exclusively entitled to "grok"? Can ants transcend as well or was reallity waiting for us to come along and access the normally inaccessible?

Re: Vipassana for Hackers [pdf]

#84

Post by samsord »

I had a limited experience with this type of meditation/abstinence. I called it something like "pleasure/ sensory reduction" and sought to re-sensitize myself to stimuli. I didn't talk, accept by accident or for my part time job for 2 weeks. It was an excellent experience. My main take away was that we often are compelled to speak but it adds nothing and is somehow typically better remaining silent where you instead become a better listening. So my experience may have been more to do with the social dynamics of speaking. I also abstained from other forms of pleasure, all drugs and mindless recreation things (TV, music etc) which continued for 3 months afterward but I worked on writing and music projects or anything I deemed productive rather than mindless. The whole experience was interesting but I returned to my normal state soon after as though it had all been a dream. I think a true silent retreat would give you a more internally focussed experience which would be wholey different. Either way you may benefit. Try to experience lower-level stimuli for extended periods as there is a tendency to filter out (or turn the gain down on) experiences when we bombard our senses constantly.

Re: Vipassana for Hackers [pdf]

#85

Post by vram22 »

sampl wrote: post #12

I highly recommend the book Mindfulness in Plain English if you're interested in meditation. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XF1LKW/ It strips away a lot of the "woo woo" kooky stuff and clearly explains what meditation really "is". I just finished re-reading it, and must have highlighted every other sentence.

Another interesting book about meditation is The Mind Illuminated:

http://themindilluminated.com/

by Culadasa (John Yates):

http://culadasa.com/about/

He has both a scientific and a meditator background. Not checked the book out in depth yet, but going to.

Re: Vipassana for Hackers [pdf]

#86

Post by nugga »

skosch wrote: post #25
nabla9 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has practiced over 19 years very intensively, my opinion is that pop science and culture overplays the effects of moderate meditation (say 30 min per day) in a short term and mostly misunderstand the effects of long term meditation. The starting assumption of a secular meditator (like me) usually is that we want to develop some abilities. You are you, just better. If you meditate a lot, or very long ti…

> Eventually you are going towards direction where you don't want to go ... this is the end of the road for many people. It sounds like you're saying that moderate meditation is overrated, and more intense meditation is outright detrimental in the long term. That is surprising to me. Is this an inevitability? Did you experience this, and how did you push through it?

You may uncover so much mud that you stumble and fall but if you're so inclined you just need to remember to get up and keep going every time.

Re: Vipassana for Hackers [pdf]

#87

Post by gerbilly »

MichaelGG wrote: post #33
sgentle wrote: post #16

This paper is a pretty comprehensive take on Vipassana, so in case anyone's looking for something a bit more general, I'd like to offer a complementary summary based on my own experiences. Vipassana is a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Silent in this case really means distraction-free, entertainment-free, or stimulation-free. Think of it as the diametric opposite of social news. No noise, no conversation, no instan…

Excellent review, thank you. You capture the vividness of it very well. I will add a disclaimer, if you are talking about Goekna / Dhamma.org retreats. They are absolutely not just about technique or dogma-free, despite their marketing. They are overtly religious and the entire retreat is couched in hand-wavy woo. The retreat itself was amazing. I went to one in Quebec. Excellent facilities, crystal clear skies (it w…

I have to laugh a bit when you guys complain that they talk Buddhist metaphysics at Buddhist meditation retreats.

For a view on what the Buddha himself suggested about how to evaluate claims, see the: Kalama Sutta[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalama_Sutta

Re: Vipassana for Hackers [pdf]

#88

Post by RichardCA »

MichaelGG wrote: post #33
sgentle wrote: post #16

This paper is a pretty comprehensive take on Vipassana, so in case anyone's looking for something a bit more general, I'd like to offer a complementary summary based on my own experiences. Vipassana is a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Silent in this case really means distraction-free, entertainment-free, or stimulation-free. Think of it as the diametric opposite of social news. No noise, no conversation, no instan…

Excellent review, thank you. You capture the vividness of it very well. I will add a disclaimer, if you are talking about Goekna / Dhamma.org retreats. They are absolutely not just about technique or dogma-free, despite their marketing. They are overtly religious and the entire retreat is couched in hand-wavy woo. The retreat itself was amazing. I went to one in Quebec. Excellent facilities, crystal clear skies (it w…

Everything in the Goenka system of Vipassana is "open source". You can listen to the discourses and decide for yourself whether it feels too much like a sect.

And this is precisely what makes it friendly to the Hacker mind-set.

Re: Vipassana for Hackers [pdf]

#89

Post by vram22 »

atulatul wrote: post #61

Interesting article. Not written in the same way but an interesting earlier HN post on similar topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8877737 -- I think Indians(maybe Asians) get this detachment philosophy as a cultural gift. Practicing it is of course a different matter. But it is easier for me to understand (or at least not have too many doubts about) the Samkara/Sanskara/Karma thing. For example, when the lin…

IIRC, it (detachment) is called vairaagya in Sanskrit. I remember from reading the Bhavagad Gita, that Krishna says to Arjuna, that abhyaasa (practice) and vairaagya are key. (I've used my own version of the spelling of those words to emphasize the pronunciation, since I don't know how to put those accent marks on top.)

Re: Vipassana for Hackers [pdf]

#90

Post by ieatfood »

sampl wrote: post #12

I highly recommend the book Mindfulness in Plain English if you're interested in meditation. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XF1LKW/ It strips away a lot of the "woo woo" kooky stuff and clearly explains what meditation really "is". I just finished re-reading it, and must have highlighted every other sentence.

I have also enjoyed "Buddhism Without Beliefs" by Stephen Batchelor. It breaks down which parts of buddhism are socio-cultural concepts inherited from the cultures where it developed and what is the core wisdom.
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