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Sit.

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Re: Sit.

#81

Post by maxbond »

hnfong wrote: post #76
hombre_fatal wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's hear it. How are we going to hurt ourselves by waiting for a timer to tick for a minute or two without the safety blanket of scrolling Twitter?

[flagged]

They did ask the question in snarky way, and it isn't cool to disrespect people's spiritual/contemplative practice, but in fairness to them it does sound a little silly. Especially if you haven't had any powerful experiences with meditation, I would have had a hard time taking the suggestion seriously a year ago. And I think they were genuinely curious about the answer.

We don't know if they're gunnuh use the app or not, either. They're here and asking questions, right? So they're at least curious about it. I have no idea if this is the case for them, but sometimes snark is even a defense mechanism for people who are a little embarrassed to be curious about something.

I think telling a story about them like that makes things personal and confrontational in a way that's unhelpful. In order to understand your point, they'd first have to discard any feelings of insult that might arise. Which I at least find taxing.

But all that said, I understand why it upset you, and in truth the snark did bother me as well.

Re: Sit.

#82

Post by jsn »

w10-1 wrote: post #54

I like the simple approach. And as a practical matter, just chillin' is safe. But still: [sitting] can get uncomfortable. But when you finish, for some strange reason you feel better Meditation requires some guidance appropriate to the person. Some people are attracted to meditation for the wrong reasons; encouraging them without proper direction can make things go badly for them. Zen shinkanzen in particular is cons…

> Zen shinkanzen

You probably meant to say "shikantaza", I don't think "shinkanzen" is a word.

Re: Sit.

#83

Post by dang »

hnfong wrote: post #76
hombre_fatal wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's hear it. How are we going to hurt ourselves by waiting for a timer to tick for a minute or two without the safety blanket of scrolling Twitter?

[flagged]

Please don't post in the flamewar style or cross into personal attack. You can make your substantive points without that.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Re: Sit.

#84

Post by fnordian_slip »

jsn wrote: post #82
w10-1 wrote: post #54

I like the simple approach. And as a practical matter, just chillin' is safe. But still: [sitting] can get uncomfortable. But when you finish, for some strange reason you feel better Meditation requires some guidance appropriate to the person. Some people are attracted to meditation for the wrong reasons; encouraging them without proper direction can make things go badly for them. Zen shinkanzen in particular is cons…

> Zen shinkanzen You probably meant to say "shikantaza", I don't think "shinkanzen" is a word.

Shinkansen is the name of the famous Japanese high speed train model :) GP probably got the words mixed up in their mind, or it was autocorrect.

Re: Sit.

#85

Post by kelnos »

maxbond wrote: post #81
hnfong wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They did ask the question in snarky way, and it isn't cool to disrespect people's spiritual/contemplative practice, but in fairness to them it does sound a little silly. Especially if you haven't had any powerful experiences with meditation, I would have had a hard time taking the suggestion seriously a year ago. And I think they were genuinely curious about the answer. We don't know if they're gunnuh use the app or…

> it isn't cool to disrespect people's spiritual practice

Scrolling Twitter is a spiritual practice now?

(I assume that's not what you meant, but I didn't see any disrespect of spiritual practices from that post.)

Re: Sit.

#86

Post by kelnos »

calderknight wrote: post #57
w10-1 wrote: post #54

I like the simple approach. And as a practical matter, just chillin' is safe. But still: [sitting] can get uncomfortable. But when you finish, for some strange reason you feel better Meditation requires some guidance appropriate to the person. Some people are attracted to meditation for the wrong reasons; encouraging them without proper direction can make things go badly for them. Zen shinkanzen in particular is cons…

I don't get what you're saying. Anyway, I think meditation is best when used for thinking, not for not-thinking.

Isn't the entire point of many types of meditation to not think? There's value in that, at least for some people.

Re: Sit.

#87

Post by maxbond »

kelnos wrote: post #85
maxbond wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did ask the question in snarky way, and it isn't cool to disrespect people's spiritual/contemplative practice, but in fairness to them it does sound a little silly. Especially if you haven't had any powerful experiences with meditation, I would have had a hard time taking the suggestion seriously a year ago. And I think they were genuinely curious about the answer. We don't know if they're gunnuh use the app or…

> it isn't cool to disrespect people's spiritual practice Scrolling Twitter is a spiritual practice now? (I assume that's not what you meant, but I didn't see any disrespect of spiritual practices from that post.)

I think it was the minimization of meditation, not the part about Twitter. There's a subtext that meditation is too trivial for anything bad to happen.

Or at least, that is one reading.

Re: Sit.

#88

Post by kelnos »

thunkle wrote: post #63

I can't explain it but my brain can't handle that this is a website and not a mobile app.

That's a shame; quite a few apps should just be websites.

Re: Sit.

#89

Post by OvbiousError »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #66
w10-1 wrote: post #54

I like the simple approach. And as a practical matter, just chillin' is safe. But still: [sitting] can get uncomfortable. But when you finish, for some strange reason you feel better Meditation requires some guidance appropriate to the person. Some people are attracted to meditation for the wrong reasons; encouraging them without proper direction can make things go badly for them. Zen shinkanzen in particular is cons…

Let's hear it. How are we going to hurt ourselves by waiting for a timer to tick for a minute or two without the safety blanket of scrolling Twitter?

It's anecdotal of course but during a first body scan for a mindfulness course I got a panic attack. I stopped and on subsequent days did shorter meditation exercises before attempting another body scan (guided by audio, think it took like 35 mins), which was ok. It's not hard to imagine that if I would've tried to "push through" and hadn't stopped the body scan the first time as well as continued doing it on following days that this would have negatively affected my mental health.

Re: Sit.

#90

Post by rpastuszak »

justinl33 wrote: post #37

Okay so > I was in a (unnamed cafe) browsing HN. I clicked on 'sit'. didn't expect the gong noise & my headphones weren't connected - got strange looks from a couple people. > I'm usually super hyperfixated with things but I immediately just snapped into a zone. the 'you can stop looking at the screen for now' prompt was super helpful. > so just I let my eyes just wander, it felt weird to do so, but slowly felt those…

Thanks for the comment. I've been feeling a bit down recently and I feel like I needed to read this.
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