How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body
well.blogs.nytimes.com
well.blogs.nytimes.com
At least in my case—and I think this isn't so unusual—there is a steep learning curve: for most people there's just not enough reason to stick with it. That said, at this point I can hardly imagine something more worthwhile. After acquiring some facility with it, my everyday experience with life feels more substantial—more 'real.' There's a kind of energy, curiosity, and enthusiasm that now often presents itself which I hadn't seen in a long time—maybe since I was ~22 or so (I'm 30 now). I also feel way less need to do things like smoke/drink, and have a restored sense of smell and taste. If you've felt like the world's turned grey at some point, give it a try.
This is my favorite source of info on the subject—very substantial content, yet light and even entertaining at times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEw2mHpVv9A
The results have been profound. My mind is quiet and obedient now. I experience equanimity throughout the day.
I never saw a need to go beyond 30 minutes. In my opinion there is no right way. The breathe is key. Irregular breathing is a problem for many of us if we spend most of our day sitting in front a monitor tightening up.
Just sit.
I would recommend against images. They feel helpful at first but they tend to mislead by infusing the idea that they have something to do into the meditation.
Moreover, as an aside, I didn't see anyone mentioning that you don't force yourself out of thoughts: just let thoughts come and pass without considering them intentionally. (I guess that's what westoncb meant by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11135378)
But what can I say? I felt the way you describe for some time. I can't even say if it resulted of meditation. And it vanished as it came, unexpectedly. I may have considered that I acquired satori and experienced the hard way that satori is not something you possess. But I wouldn't be surprised to hear that my advice is bullshit according to OP.
(To anyone feeling like reading about zen meditation, I would recommend Shunryu Suzuki's book Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen.)
Yes. I'd remember something I had to do or get a great idea and have to pause to write it down. I later realised it was just another trick my mind will use to regain control.
The point of meditation (for me, anyway) is to stop impulsive behaviour. That means everything must wait, even scratching an itch.
Often I feel very stressed and like I'm about to break down due to the boredom. Did you experience this?
Yes. Just yesterday at about the 1 3/4 hour mark I got incredibly stir crazy. I tried breathing myself calm again, but I must have sounded like a marathon runner on the last mile. In the final 10 minutes or so I settled back in.
You just got to ride out those rough patches. The journey is as valuable as the destination.
Escape conceptual thought entirely.
How should I start doing this today (and the next 4 weeks) without doing too much initial research?
Very simple, rewarding stuff. I listen to these from time to time and practice it for a few minutes every day.
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Happiness-Meditation-28-Day-Progr...
Look up Sharon Salzberg. She, along with a few others, helped spread the practice of insight meditation in North America a few decades ago. That book includes a CD containing guided meditations and attempts to provide a framework for practice over 28 days.
He's pretty funny and does a good job of covering the rationale behind Taoist practices, which include meditation and mindfulness.
I recommend you pick a Wisdom tradition with roots in the very ancient past of which there are several, and make a study of it's roots and branches and resist the urge to tightly couple yourself to one teacher until you've read more about the practice and heritage. Buddhism is an example of one such Wisdom tradition.
Since you ask for a jump start here is an introductory book on Zen buddhism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFt1r7eubbc
If you want to do a bit of research there is a YouTube video of a Kabatt-Zinn talk at Google where he leads a short session.
Meditation is substantially observation without identification, nothing more, nothing less.
If you want to start: 1. Sit down with legs crossed (comfortable) 2. Just sit and see thoughts, listen sounds, sense your body 3. Just be. No doing required.
Although a bit drastic, searching for "DBT mindfulness" will provide tonnes of resources that teach mindfulness techniques in a way that's acceptable in a clinical setting. Things such as worksheets, DBT websites, etc.
Headspace is also a fantastic suggestion, as above.
So the first thing you need that's often sadly overlooked is a special place which you make for meditation. This can be as simple as "I am going to set an exercise mat in the middle of the carpet in my living room." Keep the space to be relatively clean. Cleaning is itself a great way to dedicate your mind to wholesomeness and order.
Once you've cleaned a space and imbued it with symbolic power, "here is where I am going to meditate", you sit there. Sit however you like the first several times. There is a special way to sit involving a "Zafu" (a pillow that when compressed is still 4-6 inches wide) that you may want to research, where you sit on the edge of it with much weight resting on your knees, and your feet are in a position that neither restricts blood flow nor pinches nerves. The cushion angles your hips forwards, which keeps your back straight. But if you don't have the disposable income to get the cusion for this, just sit down however feels comfortable. Place your hands wherever feels most natural for you to be able to breathe deeply.
Once you have a comfortable seat in that place, it helps to have a little speech to focus your attention and remind yourself what you are doing and why. One Buddhist pre-meditation speech I heard says (with a bit of misremembering and translation error doubtless thrown in): "I am here to end my confusion and distraction. If ending confusion is more important to me right now than everything else, I will succeed. If it is not more important than something, I won't. I am not here to learn some new ideology, but just to pay attention to my own mind: I want to awaken to the causes of my distraction so that I can learn how they work and restrict their power over me."
Now, have something repetitive that you can come constantly back to. Distraction works like alcohol works: if you ingest a little, it subtly compromises your mind in just the sort of way that makes it more likely to ingest more. So this is why the space is clean and you are sitting with good posture without pain, so that you remove the most common distractions of mess, sleep, discomfort.
Many people use the rhythm of deep breaths as the repetitive thing they can come back to. If you are a more visual person, you might want to instead put an object of religious veneration, be it a cross or a Buddha or what-have-you. Someone whose peacefulness you can study is good.
I once helped develop a more "active" picture for a friend who had grown up with either ADD or ADHD, I don't remember which. She said she needed something more like a wholesome movie. We tried to structure it so that it could still be repetitive. Then a week later neither of us could remember what we had done the week before, so we created a new one but as a mnemonic we structured it around 5 elements. It looked something like this:
Dwell on each of these for 10-15 minutes as a way to eliminate
distractions. If you find yourself thinking about something else,
allow yourself to think about it for a little, then return to the
element you're on.
1. (Air) You are walking through a forest, and the wind is blowing
through the trees, blowing through your hair, removing any
impurity or distraction that is an obstacle to your growth. You
settle on a direction where these winds of change are at your
back, letting them push you wherever they need you.
2. (Fire) There is the smell of smoke, then a feeling of heat
behind you, then light, and you find yourself running, running
through this forest which lights up, needing to take swift,
dynamic action to dodge the flames and keep ahead of the blaze,
to get to safety.
3. (Water) The fire opens up into a clearing with a river. There are
some scared animals: a fox, some bunnies, a squirrel. You are
holding them to your chest to reassure them, and then you lay on
your back in the river, rafting them safely downstream. Your
compassion brings a calm, soothing rain which starts to fall,
extinguishing the blaze into steam.
4. (Earth) You get up and set the animals free as the river bends
near a rock face, and walk along the side of the hill. You find a
trail that goes up it. You feel these smooth, ancient, unmoving
stones beside you as you ascend this cliff. You feel calm and
relaxed with these stones that never need to be anything other
than what they are.
5. (Void) The trail opens up to a landing. You sit down on the
landing with this solid rock beneath you and look up at the night
sky. You see the valley in front of you, even more mountain behind
you, and are struck by how big this place is and how small we are.
Just sit and focus on letting your lower jaw hang open for, say 5 minutes ...all the slack you can get...I think you'll find it's very hard to worry, or think about much anything else while consciously doing this...
It's very typical for the average person to go through the day with their jaw at least lightly clenched...more tightly when under stress...
Try it..consider it open source...
To increase the benefit breathe in deeply and force yourself to exhale for twice the amount of time it took you to breathe in...or, do this separately...
Basically my routine is 10 minutes a day (in the mornings) and after one week doing this in a row I've already started to notice how differently my body react to anxiety.
Later on, how I handle stress changed completely, I started to become numb to harsh events.
Basically, it should improve control over the brain, very similar to meditation:
Why is that guy dressed in some comical outfit, I can't take him seriously.
Those are normal clothes for monks. You won't take someone seriously because they wear different clothes than you ?
After doing meditation for a while, I found it was much easier to just breathe and calm myself while going about my daily life.
Once you know how to do it on purpose, it's easy to do it in the moment. I don't feel like I really need to actively meditate -- I habitually focus on my breathing, and re-center myself all day long.
I may not get to Nirvana this way, but it makes my day easier, and that's all that I was looking for.
You are actually able to do proper meditation -- the removal of all focus on thoughts -- for 1.5 hours at a time? Or do you mean several times a day, a few minutes each time?
I was more responding to hellofunk when they said "1.5 hours per day is a very impressive accomplishment. Even some serious gurus don't pull that off on a daily basis." This make me think that meditation is viewed as something you can check a box for, or as a goal to be achieved, which isn't really quite right.
Particularly the use of the word 'accomplishment'... If meditation is something to be accomplished, then if you thought about that noise your transition is making on steep hills for 60 seconds in the middle of a sit, you got distracted, and thus you did not successfully meditate today. I don't view it that way.
We often find ourselves in stressful or difficult situations, we are constantly bombarded by external worries, and we think it is difficult to deal with our problems. However, no matter how big external issues are, the way that we ultimately interpret these problems is up to our mind. At times we might find a dark joke about death incredibly funny, and at other times it may make us cry. Meditation takes a break from dealing with these interpretations of the world for a moment (instead concentrating on something basic like breathing) and in doing so, gives us a way to acknowledge the fact that our interpretations of the world are all in our head. So even if we can't extend full control over them, these thoughts and feelings are still ours and we might have some influence over them, and it turns out even briefly having this feeling can affect your mind in the long term.
A side effect of meditating is that you might learn to replicate the sense of "stepping outside the situation" even outside of meditation, allowing you to relax and consider the big picture rationally in intense moments in which you might've been originally felt too caught up "in the moment".
I don't think most people are stressed because of "interpretations" of the world rather than very real problems like paying the bills and terrible working conditions.
Paying a bill should never be so stressful that it causes a person to override their innate self-preservation and start thinking about suicide.
The problem is a real world problem. The reaction to it is in someone's head.
Sometimes people get overwhelmed by the feelings created by negative life events, and mindfulness style meditation is one way for people to calm those thoughts and emotions and allow them to work out more reasonable solutions.
This is important because sometimes cognitive behaviour therapy is sold as "fix your broken thinking". Imagine someone has a history of abuse - they often say that their thinking is a reasonable result of the abuse.
But then again, there is pain that doesn't indicate something fixable. Like chronic back pain. Then it's best to just reduce the pain itself.
Now, how do you differentiate in case of worrying? Probably by asking a trusted friend or family member or someone else if they think your worries are legitimate and what they suggest doing.
But not all stress has a concrete cause, like bills. Sometimes people just get stressed and anxious in general.
I'd wager that some general base level of worry exists in all humanity that comes to surface regardless of wealth and security. I mean, the magazines in rich countries (especially Western Europe) are full of "how do I get happy", "how do I become myself", "how do I unfold my potential" etc. At least in poorer countries people can always point out why they are stressed. They can blame the bills, the credit, the other political side etc.
In places like SV, people live so well, they are past the point of realistic worries, so they don't understand why they don't feel fully happy.
If you have a shitty life in a poor country, without any hope of stepping forward, nobody will think you're depressed. Everyone, including you, will think it's just a natural reaction. I guess this is why depression is such a big topic in rich places and is seen as some whining and bitching in less developed places.
The only mechanism by which 'worry' might be useful is if it triggers the problem-solving part of the mind and ultimately leads to actions that solve this problem. In my opinion this mechanism is highly inefficient and in fact often backfires: we focus on the worry instead of thinking about solutions, let alone implementing these solutions.
Meditation, and a mindful approach to life is first of all useful as a debugging mechanism. As you train your ability to direct your thoughts and pause them, you learn to discern what kind of thinking is useful, and what isn't.
So, for example, you might realize that you've been caught up in worry and just the act of being aware of this pointless train of thought might prompt you to sit down and create an action list of how to get out of this situation.
Another benefit is that frequent meditation somehow improves the connection between the thinking mind and the subconscious, as well as the body. I've had moments where meditation helped me suddenly realize a solution to a problem that I couldn't previously solve. And almost every time that I meditate, I will be aware of hunger, or thirst, or some other feeling or physical need that I would otherwise completely neglect.
Now I'm a particular type of person, so these benefits might be more explicit to me, but from what I understand most people will experience these things to some extent.
Furthermore, it is hard to claim that one would be able to "alter their thoughts" as directly as your sentence suggests, but meditation at least allows the recognition of separation between the "worry" in the mind and the "problem" in reality.
For some people, this recognition leads to a sense of control over that worry, which might be one example of your "how".
Imagine you've got a bill due that you know you're not going to have money to pay no matter what you do. This is a significant amount of stress that you're going to be carrying with you over something you really don't have the power or situation to do anything about.
Hence: Change your sail. The consequences of missing that payment are insignificant in the long term, and dwelling on it is going to do you more mental damage than moving a number in a database down a few ticks.
Same with a horrible job. Even when you get time off, there's that sickening dread at the edge of your perception that soon, you'll have to go back. And it eats on you like nothing else.
Change how you think about it. You can dwell on it and be stressed out, or you can recognize that this, too, shall pass.
That sounds trite and blasé.. and it probably is, until you really internalize it, and realize that you ultimately have control over what you choose to dwell on.
I'd rather go out and walk, and think about problems I want to solve. Or use the time to get something done.
So about a quarter of available time.
I would be a bit more relaxed, I know, it might have other benefits. But not enough, I think.
"You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day -- unless you're too busy. Then you should sit for an hour."
While I don't think it's necessary to sit an hour every day, it does inspire me. In my experience, if you meditate every day for a few weeks/months, you will start feeling more 'grounded'. You'll be more calm in most situations. You will be chasing external happiness less, and just be more content with being. It's pretty hard to describe, but to me, it seems like a good thing.
Zen is a form of Buddhism. Buddhism is interesting and many of the things is says are wise, but ultimately it sees life as suffering and its aim is to reduce suffering.
As interesting as it is, I come from a culture that is too different. No matter how futile it ultimately is, I want to _achieve things_. Being at peace with life feels good but is ultimately not enough.
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/01953...
[2]: http://www.amazon.com/Obstacle-Way-Timeless-Turning-Triumph/...
It's true, the Buddha taught the cessation of suffering. But he said to do it by really understanding what's going on. You can achieve things either way. But you might choose to achieve different things if you have more insight into the nature of reality.
It is notable that Steve Jobs was a Buddhist and seriously considered becoming a monk. His Buddhist teacher recommended that he continue with his computers.
It's just not the goal, it's ok to have a different goal. Not everybody wants a calm, peaceful life.
Now I have a couple of hours spare a day. I work for about 8.5 hrs and sometimes spend a bit of time in the even programming but mainly find time to exercise/see friends and wife/read or watch TV. It seems to improve as the children get older. I've enjoyed meditating and yoga in the past and I think I will do more in the future, but I also find things like playing an instrument, programming, walking outside to be equally helpful.
If that pans out, you'd get better mental well-being with the same amount of daily time for other stuff as you had before.
I think the idea in the end is, the mind is a tool. If you spend time developing the tool you'll get better results out of it when you're not spending time developing it.
So even if you could use that thirty minutes to do something else, you might, in the end, be able to get more done, with a more sharply honed (clearer) mind.
That being said, is it right for you? I have no idea.
Meditation is not limited to strictly sitting indian style in a dark quiet room. Find your own style. If taking a walk calms you down then do that. If you like laying on your back and staring at the stars, then do that. Don't rely too much on how others tell you you should do it
I frequently spend long moments in silence "doing" nothing, but thinking about a lot of things; when I try to not think, I tend to fall asleep quite rapidly; I wonder how to not think and yet not sleep...?
The practice, btw, is the whole point, it's not a means to getting to "the real part." That's a difficult point for some to grasp. Every time you sit and your mind wanders, that's the practice right there. This might be the most accurate image of what meditation is: http://www.highexistence.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/medi...
A few links that might help: http://buyalex.com/2015/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/breatheAw...
I think something key is to concentrate on something simple and constant (such as breathing in, breathing out) rather than not thinking about anything. Then, inevitably thoughts will arise, but when we think of something while meditating, we acknowledge it ("ok, I acknowledge that I'm thinking about this right now") and let the thought go, returning to focus on the breathing. That might keep you from falling asleep.
I didn't do that shit for 20 minutes to be now on Facebook—and closed the tab.
Admittedly, I stopped actively practicing shortly after the course ended, but do find it extremely helpful when my mind is racing and I can't fall sleep. 5-10 mins of breathing exercise and I'll be fast sleep.
[1]https://stanfordhealthcare.org/events/scim-mindfulness-medic...
Do you realize you are probably suffering every minute even when you don't have to sit quietly? It is enough to be away from the rich source of distraction and immediately a kind of anxiety appears, making you seek the next stimulus. Is it ok to live with such a constant need to be fed with this stream of data?
Why? Because it's not possible to enjoy it? Because desire is linked to suffering?
Here's the thing. I get why ego can get in the way of enjoying things more fully, and that meditation can help give you a broader perspective on life, but I don't buy into the whole superiority that comes from self-denial. I don't think there's wisdom in shutting yourself away from the world. You can enjoy the chaos, not in some limited way, but fully enjoy it. If you need a simple life to get your kicks then fine, but that's just one model of a fulfilling life, there are others.
Unfilled desire is linked to suffering. Filled desires are linked to pleasure, but after fulfilling one desire, another one appears.
It's life. So it's not fulfilling desires but being conscious about how desires are born, and consciously choosing which one to fulfill.
Desire is a misused word. It's used as a catch all for all pleasure seeking, but in reality it's a special type of pleasure seeking, a directed form of pleasure seeking based on craving. If you're a pleasure seeker that doesn't have any strong craving for one type of pleasure over another you're still grouped in with those that are addicted to certain types of pleasure.
In other words, if you enjoy life as it comes, you aren't plagued with the problems of craving, therefore the same rules don't apply.
>> I was suffering every second, >Do you realize you are probably suffering every minute even >when you don't have to sit quietly?
This wasn't about enjoying "life as it comes". This was about being addicted to the next stimulus; exposed by just trying to sit down and meditate for 20 minutes.
You're conflating being able to handle and enjoy some chaos with the inability to tolerate a few moments of peace.
The suggestion was that you suffer even when your mind is engaged in something where this suffering was not apparent. In other words, even when you don't feel like you're suffering, you probably are. I disagreed with this by pointing out that even though meditation has its merits, there are other ways to enjoy your life, and therefore this assumption that you're 'probably suffering' is somewhat of a stretch.
The biggest problem around meditation is that most are not able to clearly express what meditation is really doing with you.
Second, it's not about 'not thinking'. It's about being aware of your thoughts, as if watching them from a distance.
Third, you can't not benefit from taking some to sit and quiet your mind. That's as absurd as saying you don't benefit from sleep or rest.
How do you know this?
It was like ibuprofen for my suffering mind. Not that it helped immediately - but after a prolonged practice I noticed that suddenly my mind was not in psychic pain and I could just take the situation at hand without unnecessary added stress.
So, I suppose the perceived results might depend on the life situation at hand (ambient stress factors, so to speak).
For me, this is one of the main reasons I want to try to take up meditation (I still haven't). It just seems so absurd that simply sitting down and doing nothing would feel so uncomfortable. So, why not do it and maybe discover what is going on.
A friend taught me this: Sit or lie still. Burn your body with a white-hot fire, starting at your toes. Incinerate yourself. Visualize intense fire with a child's pure unfettered imagination. Let that fire burn your body slowly, creeping up inch by inch with its quiet impersonal anger. When your body has burnt up, the fire quiets down and the weightless ash blows away. Then you open your eyes.
This worked for me - I felt it! - and opened up meditation for me. I have since had very good success with the Headspace app, for instance.
Another important thought for me was "Meditation is watching your thoughts go by like the bubbles in a glass of champagne."
Overall, in a nutshell, what meditation has done for me is: There is more of what should be. There is less of what shouldn't be.
That has been my experience. I've done meditation retreats and the like. I do find it slows down my mind, but can also surface things that frankly I'm perfectly happy to leave under the surface.
I also don't believe every trauma or internal struggle can be answered or managed, or should be at a given time. Sometimes the best sanity-preservation mode is to ignore it until enough time has passed when we have the mental tools to face it. Mindfulness and meditation both make it hard to bury stuff til you're ready to mentally dig it up. Perhaps day-to-day stress benefits most from it.
I think it's a great idea for some people and I can see the attraction. But I also get tired of people suggesting it to me.
Massage on the other hand...that's like miracle medicine.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but to me, that sounds less like meditation and more like sitting with your eyes closed. If thoughts arise that cause feelings of fear, anger, shame, panic, etc… those thoughts and feelings can be noticed and observed (just like breathing or any other sensation). Once you do notice them, the experience is very different.
> Sometimes the best sanity-preservation mode is to ignore it until enough time has passed when we have the mental tools to face it.
I think Eugene Gendlin[1] put it best:
> What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.
– "The Listening Manual" in Focusing (1978), p. 138.
I like the quote :), but I also believe there's value to postponing interacting with said truth. IMHO sometimes the best medicine is avoidance, at least until enough time has passed that the horror and truth can be acknowledged without causing one to lose their mind.
I don't recommend stuff like that to people, because in most cases it's presumptuous. I don't know what your mind is like, I don't know what's going to happen when you use any particular method, I don't have a wide experience with teaching meditation, I'm just some guy living my own life the best I can manage it...
There's a lot of the same effect as with people who recently started running, or recently started some particular diet, or whatever it may be... for some reason that thing fit into their ideas and lifestyle, and it coincided with a hockey stick point in their satisfaction, or something, and they feel the urge to recommend—for benevolent reasons, since they just want other people to get that satisfaction, too.
There's a difference because meditation, in the most taught forms, is very intimate, as you describe. Its "subject matter" is basically the entire life of the mind, emotions, thoughts, memories, everything, so unless your psyche is squeaky clean like Mr Flanders (who in that one episode of course turned out to have some heavily repressed traumas), meditation is not going to be a nice walk in the park.
Almost everybody who starts doing it finds that they for some reason can't do it as often or as much as they'd like to... it's often unclear why... but could it have to do with the fact that you're sitting down in utter silence and facing like everything at once? And it's kind of intense, and sometimes very painful?
Then there's also the whole "happiness" aspect of the hype & marketing, where everybody imagines that the ideal to aspire for is a happy, smiling, Thich Nhat Hanh type, or something, and all the rhetoric becomes infused with this naive optimism, everybody knows this caricature. So then if you sit down and you find that you actually feel very lonely, or very confused, or very anxious, very angry, very horny, or very whatever... then what? "Just breathe, let it all go..." Ugh!
Sorry, I'm just ranting. For me it's one of these situations when you're very interested in something but the way other people advocate it makes you just cringe.
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki...
Now, for me the experience was really good, actually, because it felt like a relief to let these feelings out. But I can definitely imagine more intense and complex feelings coming to the surface that don't lead to relief but would require professional help and guidance.
This is generally acknowledged by many meditation traditions especially ones which incorporate vipassana, but perhaps less so by the scientists who write papers about meditation. At some point in the practice all your "inner stuff" can come up: fear, confusion, uncertianty, memory of trauma, etc. Jung called it the "shadow", a popular spiritual teacher Eckart Tolle calls it the "pain-body", and in some Christian traditions they use them term "dark night of the soul". Psychologists may call it PTSD-like-symptoms.
Buddhists believe that one has to purge the mind-body of the three poisons as part of the process of awaking, and during this process it's normal for unsettling mental fabrications to arise.
Some practitioners in America feel like they did not sign up for a deep purge/cleanse of their dark inner content because the whole meditation affair was pitched to them as a form of gentle relaxation therapy. For many people however it can become almost a sort of all-encompassing, existential, ground shaking, transformative process which can sometimes feel like a burden when viewed from a lense where you only indicator of progress has to do with how socially well-adjusted you are in terms of finance, social signals, dating, etc.
Plus statistically speaking some percentage of the people who have their untamed mental processes come up are likely to be ensnared by these creepers in some way and perhaps spiral out of control or go off the deep end. However the meditation dharma-sword is an approprate instrument to hack your way through the mental jungle, and come out the other end which opens up to reveal a mountain. Whether you climb to the summit of your mountain, or just make a cave dwelling within is up to you, but at least you have an elevated perspective relative to the jungle of untamed body consciousness below.
Mind you they _will_ hurt you over time if you just push them away. You probably should get professional help first before trying to meditate.
Because sometimes it takes time to be able to face your demons.
Life doesn't stop when bad shit happens. You still have to go to the grocery store and do laundry. You still stub your toe on a curb. People still fart on the subway. Sometimes you can let life happen for awhile, let your body heal and your emotions level and your mind strengthen before diving into the reality of what happened. There's no timeframe for this. Days, weeks, months, years. Depends on the person.
How do you know that? (I'm not being facetious.)
I seem to recall there being reasonably solid[1] evidence that thinking about traumatic experiences can actually worsen anxiety and other PTSD symptoms. (Too lazy to look up references, and I don't have access to any paywalled journals anyway, so...) The evidence seems to point to just leaving things be may be better (well, less bad) than trying to "work through" the issues because it means that you'll be wallowing in the traumatic experience over and over.
[1] By psychology standards.
Similarly, I'm sure that some form of meditation is healthy for the vast majority of people, even if it's just five minutes of staring out your window and focusing on your breath, or at least not getting wrapped up in a thought. I know quite a few people (including myself pre-meditation) who run a constant internal monologue, and even that little bit can be hugely beneficial.
But fundamentally I do agree that going off to something as intense as a retreat is probably not a good idea for everyone. It's just not either/or, in my view.
For those who are not aware of Sci-Hub:
Setting knowledge free: Sci-Hub is The Pirate Bay for research papers http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/Sci-hub-research-pira...
During a drive or commute
While you play a video game or sport
When you're cleaning your house
Some people find it helpful to run through Maslow's Hierarchy as a guide for this mental checklist: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)
It might take a few tries, or maybe many, to run through this subconscious checklist of side-thoughts, but the goal is to run out of them. Then you're left to yourself, no side-thoughts to distract you.
This, in itself, can be worrisome because many people aren't comfortable with what it feels like to "just be," so hack your discomfort by creating another checklist: how does this make me feel physically? Is this state of mind stressful to me? What would it feel like if it wasn't? How would it look if I were the kind of person who handled this particular stress easily?
Point is, don't rush it.
Give it several tries. You probably need more repetitions to consciously break down your own checklist of thoughts.
Much of meditation's benefit (to myself) is in learning to handle decisions and worries as they happen, and removing them from my checklist of things to meditate over when I actually do take the time to meditate later in the day. Most things people worry over don't matter.
Hopefully my lens helps someone.
Meditation is about not responding to internal or external stimuli which is the antithesis of the mindset you should be driving with.
I just point this out because the basics of what meditation actually is are widely misunderstood by most Westerners -- and even some I met in Asia.
It's quite fair to say that the word is a misnomer. My Zen-practicing friends do not say they meditate. They say they sit. (as in "practice of sitting")
Then you learn to just peacefully keep trying. Thats when you get to start letting go of your pent up mental baggage.
Now that you feel reasonably lighter. You can concentrate more easily and maintain a calm mind while deliberately thinking about specific topics. After you shed that baggage that built up from the last time you meditated.
I don't understand how have you got this notion about mediation. What you have mentioned can be useful for relieving oneself of thoughts which are a burden.
On the other hand, mediation is to concentrate on a purpose, directing everything towards the purpose, even the thoughts sprouting from your subconsciousness, all which eventually fade away.
Your (mis)understanding (that meditation is spacing out and "not thinking") seems to be the common western one. In my experience, this is usually due to misunderstood ideas about practices like dzogchen or philosophical concepts like dependent origination.
Concentration is actually at the _heart_ of meditation and is a key element of the Buddhist noble eight-fold path.
Mindfulness is merely well-concentrated investigation. Once someone has developed an ability to cultivate sustained, one-pointed attention - they can use this attention to clearly investigate internal and external phenomena.
Many Asian schools have the first four Samatha Jhanas (deeply-concentrated states) as strict prerequisites for beginning Vipassana (insight / mindfulness) practice. Others regard "access concentration" as the only prerequisite.
In any case, a well-concentrated mind is required to clearly observe oneself. Yes, other thoughts will drop away as the mind naturally gravitates toward the joy and rapture of mental seclusion (from disturbing, burdensome thoughts and mental states) - but this is a _byproduct_ of concentration, not a fruit of _avoiding_ concentration.
The concentration states (along with the Brahma Viharas) can also be welcome refuges for when reality starts to come apart as one progresses through the Vipassana Nanas.
These things are very clearly spelled out in the canonical Buddhist texts and especially the commentaries[1][2]. Westerners seeking to "change their brains" do so at their peril without proper guidance. Peeling away the layers of delusion can be a destabilizing process for some[3].
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana's book "Mindfulness in Plain English" is a very accessible (and worthwhile) introduction to the subject[4].
[1] - [pdf] http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/PathofPu...
[2] - [pdf] http://urbandharma.org/pdf1/Path_of_Freedom_Vimuttimagga.pdf
[3] - http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-k...
[4] - http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-English-Bhante-Henepola-Gu...
As written in another post: I started one month ago and then I was frequently meditating with Headspace (which is awesome btw).
While meditation helped me to go through hard times it never solved the underlying problem. It's like taking painkillers without addressing the real cause. I solved the real underlying problem few days ago and I feel like god again.
If I started programming one month ago and I couldn't yet get a high paying job or have a brand new app that is surging on the App Store, would that be a failure? I have been practicing meditation for 25 years and, even though I was earnest, it took me more than 7 years to achieve a state of perfect tranquility. I still have anxious moments in day-to-day life but I mitigate those with meditation. It's like washing your body to keep it clean.
Buddhists say we're still touching stoves every day because we haven't connected cause and effect through experience. That's the point of this kind of meditation, to gain insight into important facts about reality that we might already conceptually accept, but have not yet experienced. When you experience these things, you are redoing the plumbing in the basement of your mind.
So the point really is to attack the roots of the problem. It's not to relax, it's to understand what is going on.
What was your underlying problem?
And once you get the hang of it, you won't feel any external force to drive you in meditation.
I find it helpful to remember that the sentient fraction of matter in the universe is vanishingly small, so your ability to experience is truly a blessing. Mindfulness occurs almost by accident if you just focus on savouring your experiences.
My startup is actually working on something very similar called neurofeedback[1]. Which is very similar to meditation, in that we help users better control the subprocess of their mind. It's not perfect, but it actually helps significantly with people with epilepsy manage seizures (by helping them realize when it is going to happen)[2].
Other conditions, specifically ADHD and anxiety have also been shown to be treatable (to a degree) using this treatment[2]. Treatment using neurofeedback for depression has also been shown to be better than placebo[3].
Unfortunately, there is limited research funds to study this, and there really should be more. My startup is gearing up to do trials shortly, hopefully to make this treatment more available.
[1] http://synaptitude.me/blog/neurofeedback-in-200-words/
[2] http://synaptitude.me/blog/literature-overview-of-using-neur...
If you notice you've lost count, it's ok, just start from one.
If you notice you are lost in your thoughts, it's ok, just try to gently move focus back to counting and breathing. Do not "give extra energy on purpose" to thoughts that pop into your mind, just aknowledge them.
This is, IMO, is the core of the meditation routine - training on introspective perception and association of observation of personal thoughts with calmness.
The focusing of breathing is a hack on autonomic nervous system as I understand it. It's the only bodily function that one can control that backfeeds into the brain, and calming the breath can be used to calm the brain as well.
I'm not an expert, I've just read a few books that I've not double checked - if this is somehow wrong please correct me.
That said, even most basic teachings add a 'warmup' and 'cooldown' to the breathing part. I've been using the Headspace app and the core template always includes the following:
- sit down comfortably, and use a soft focus on some point in front of you - breathe in and out a few times, audibly enough that someone sitting next to you would hear it - close your eyes and focus on the points of the body that connect with the chair/floor/whatever. - do a 'body scan' from the top of your head to your feet. As you do this, make note of tensions, as well as pleasant sensations, but don't dwell on them. - this body scan often leads to a more general awareness of how you're feeling physically and/or emotionally. Make note of that too, but once again don't dwell. - do the 'core part' that you describe - once you're done with this, basically do the earlier steps in reverse. - for bonus mindfulness practicing: think of what you want to do next, and practice maintaining the state of mind you're in (focus only on what you do now, rather than constantly being ahead of yourself in your mind)
Personally, I've found the warmup to be crucial to my own meditation, and the cooldown to be very beneficial in 'maintaining' the calmness throughout the day.
It is a matter of practice, same as for sport. If you go only one time at gym, you will not get so much results.
It would be ideal to meditate twice a day, 20 minutes. If you can move your energy from one chackra to another it is even better. You can also think of chackras as your gland system, it doesn't matter if it sounds crazy for you we have 7 whirls of energy in our (physical) body, if it makes you feel good, it is ok.
In my personal experience I found that meditation is healthy, so I recommend it. However keep in mind that there is much more than meditation, which is just the first step.
2010: 30 min
2011-2014: 10 min
2015-present: 0-10 min
these are my daily averages. i have one rule: before I go to bed, I must assume the lotus position on the floor in front of my bed.
2015 was particularly a challenging year for me (startup problems), and it was all i could do to even assume the lotus position for a second. so for much of 2015 i really didn't meditate, which was ironically when i probably needed it the most. such is my life.
it takes around 4 minutes for me to reach what i call stage 1. this is when all the normal chatter in your mind ceases and your breathing is synced (i've also noticed that it takes around 40 breaths, which is roughly 4 min, so sometimes for shits and giggles i just count to 40). after much trial and error i've noticed i don't even need to do anything; it's the mere passage of 4 minutes that gets me to stage 1.
thereafter is when the real effort begins. it is a constant effort to reach what i call stage 2, or what i consider the beginning of true mindfulness, which means you are neither thinking of the past nor the future. i would say i only enter stage 2 at seconds at a time, only to fall out again into stage 1 (usually by an intruding thought, and that thought is usually "oh, i've got it!").
to be honest, i don't know what the effects have been for me. i seriously don't feel any different. anyway, how are we to separate the effects of meditation with the normal process of maturation or aging? am i getting calmer because of meditation or because i am getting older?
i take it on faith. faith in data and science. our personal experience with meditation cannot be the guide with which we measure it's effectiveness, because subjective experience is exactly that. i liken it to flossing. i floss my teeth every day but still have worse gum recession than those who do not. my periodontist and dentist chalk it up to genetics, because that is the best they can conjecture based on the current science. we can measure flossing easily; without a brain scanner in our basement we cannot so measure effects of meditation. so from the research i take it on faith that the effects must be beneficial on my brain.
I dont know what the long term effects are, but certainly short term effects are striking. Keep on meditating :)
One alarming detail about the article, however is the mention of "dose", which I think reflects the general Western, mainstream attitude to meditation. Mindfulness and meditation is being perceived as a tool of "relaxation", "reducing stress", dealing with anxiety, and so on. And it might be because of being "marketed" as such.
However, although meditation can in fact help you deal with stress and make you more relaxed, reducing it just to "benefits" is missing the point. After all, it is actually "you" who is dealing with stress, being more relaxed, etc.
Meditation is about paying attention to your thoughts without any judgment, experiencing your immediate thoughts and feelings directly, facing yourself, gently watching your unpleasant feelings, thoughts, memories and embracing them with all their both unpleasantness and pleasant joy. In the end, you get more and more in touch with yourself and the reality, and become more alert, observant, thoughtful, compassionate, etc.
And that actually makes it a practice of not running away from stress, anxiety, sorrow, but in contrast, facing all that with a gentle attitude.
Finally, it is a constant and long-term practice, not something like a "pill" with "doses" to deal with whatever "symptoms".
Pls guys do yourself a favor and listen to JidduK before you embark on meditation
short version - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOLYN64dfKs
long version - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b9E9gz3yTE
In case no one else has recommended it yet - I highly recommend a 10-day Vipassana meditation course: https://www.dhamma.org
They are free and not affiliated with any religious organization. But be warned - it isn't easy! I like to call it "meditation boot camp." It breaks you down, but you grow and learn from the experience. It really is one thing you can try that can have a significant impact on your life and change its course. It is a unique experience - you can't read or write or speak for 10 days.
Meditation is useful, possibly life transforming, and the techniques and effects are available to most people. Unfortunately, this claim exists in a grey area between/overlapping objectivity and subjectivity, and can only really be tested in the laboratories of our own minds.
Guru:Smart Meditation Timer https://appsto.re/us/ukUP-.i
As it gathers more personal data points it predicts more accurately your level of improvement with different length meditation sessions.
It's a little different from other practices, in that it is more "active" (you'll see what I mean) than just sitting there and watching your breath. It takes just 15 minutes once you learn it, and the sense of peace and focus I have after doing it for several months is incredible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVrnTNpVe5I
http://www.amazon.com/Still-Mind-An-Introduction-Meditation/...
I briefly outlined my before and after experience in this blog post: http://nimblegecko.com/you-are-batshit-crazy/
I highly encourage everyone to start meditating.
I mean sure, yeah, but...
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=changes%20brain&sort=byPopular....
so does walking in nature, poverty, cocaine, testosterone, inactivity, porn, drugs, focus, menstruation, Alzheimer's, cellphones, the Internet, The Knowledge, programming, football...
changing it's structure is how the brain reacts to basically any regular stimulus. Thats how it works.
Also n=35, t=3days seems insufficient to rule out any sort of confounding factors.
What I am trying to say is that to someone who has never meditated before, three day meditation may well have a significant impact. However if they do not do it long term, those effects may be temporary.