Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast | Hacker News Reader

Meditation Becomes Beneficial Surprisingly Fast

chronicle.com

247 pointsdhimes97 comments

I used meditation in college as a student-athlete mainly to learn how to relax during 800 and 1500m races. Many people believe that in order to run fast you have tense your muscles and push harder but the opposite is true. When you relax and concentrate on your form and breathing the speed flows right through you.

Haven't used it in quite a while but when I did it brought a nice balance to things. Good focus, a gentle calm, better stress management, etc. Nothing mystical. Just healthy benefits.

| For the study, participants were taught to meditate by focusing on the sensation of their breathing, acknowledging and dismissing any stray thoughts that popped into their heads.

For those who do practice meditation, what are other techniques that are effective to you?

Other techniques ? There is only one core technique. Some people do yoga as an adjunct activity. I have an hourly chime that keeps me centered in case I stray. Minimum amount of TV. Walking vs driving. If I have to drive, I stay in the right lane and focus on the sensation of driving instead of pedal to the metal. I throw away stuff or sell them on ebay constantly to keep down the clutter.

That's the essence of mindfulness meditation (the technique used in the paper). There's a completely different school that requires the use of mantras like "om" etc. Transcendental meditation is an example of a mantra-based technique. For myself, I find the mindfulness approach more useful and grounded than the mantra approach. There are also more active techniques such as tai chi, qi gong and yoga but they only qualify as "meditation" if they're done with a very conscious and meditative mindset.

Qi gong, tai chi, and yoga qualify as themselves only if done with a conscious and meditative mindset.

The article describes the basics of vipassana (insight) meditation. The same description applies to zazen, the meditation practice in Zen. I believe it is actually the basis for all meditative practice.

You can layer on certain guided thoughts (like mantras and chants), but meditative practice is more powerful the simpler it is. You must strip away as much as possible -- to just sit and bring the body, breath, and mind into sync using breath focus and an aware non-judgmental mind. There are many books written on the subject; I can personally recommend Mindfulness in Plain English (free version at http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html).

Meditation of this form is key to transforming your entire life. It is the gateway or pathway you can use to find and accept your true self and see yourself and your life for what it is. It is how you truly see that you cannot escape the present moment and that you have the full ability to choose how you relate to it. Sogyal Rinpoche says it better than I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tIBYxed16s.

I practice it as samatha meditation. If this was not HN I would have corrected you and say it was samatha (tranquility) meditation and not vipassana, but on HN I have learned that people usually know what they are talking about ;-) and thanks to Wikipedia I have just learned it is used for vipassana as well. Apparently the Buddha himself regarded it as a Swiss army knife that develops all "seven factors of awakening: sati (mindfulness), dhamma vicaya (analysis), viriya (persistence), which leads to piti (rapture), then to passaddhi (serenity), which in turn leads to samadhi (concentration) and then to upekkhā (equanimity)."

As I understand the distinction, samatha meditation develops the ability to achieve mental tranquility and sustained focus, and vipassana meditation develops insight through awareness, introspection, and rational analysis. It's easy to see why breath-awareness meditation can be used for samatha, but I did not understand how it could be used for vipassana. According to what I just read, it becomes vipassana when the meditator takes his consciousness itself as the object of awareness.

That description of meditation uses terms which cause a lot of confusion. Focusing on anything leads to problems. Dismissing thoughts leads to repression and unconscious expression of the thoughts. The way my teacher puts it is "rest in the experience of breathing." That means fostering awareness of every aspect of experience: the physical, the emotional and the mental.

As for "effective," if you practice with any hope for improving your life, you're likely to end up disappointed. That said, I do two hours of dzogchen meditation a day, one hour when I've just gotten up, and one just before bed. This allows me to be highly functional on five hours of sleep a night. (I've always gotten about five hours of sleep a night, but this allows me to function that way) and has opened up a world of new possibilities in emotional awareness and emotional regulation. It does force awareness of the pressing problems in life, which is uncomfortable, but better, in the long run, than ignorance.

Why not drop the meditation and sleep a more-normal (and certainly more-refreshing) 7 hours a night?

Likely insomnia prevents him or her from getting more than 5 hours of sleep.

Yeah, I'm a light sleeper.

My sleep improved a lot once I started using a white noise generator. It takes about a week to get used to it. Highly recommended:

http://www.amazon.com/Marpac-Conditioner-SleepMate-580A-Mach...

Yeah, I used to use an air filter for this purpose. Now I just use earplugs.

>...but better, in the long run, than ignorance.

How so?

In this case, he/she is probably referring to dealing with things before they have a chance to turn into big issues - remembering to buy toilet paper when you're almost out, picking out clothes the night before when you need to be up early, actually getting enough sleep / exercise, etc.

Uncomfortable and boring sometimes, but you can avoid a lot of stress by catching things before they turn into big issues. Of course, if you thrive on drama, then making a habit of ignoring things until they blow up in your face will feed the fire. (Know anybody like that?)

I think the people at my old Aikido dojo called this "zanshin".

Are you kidding? If you want to see the negative consequences of ignorance, just look at the trajectory of the US over the last decade. All the new problems the US faces today were anticipated by astute Cassandras.

No, the "dismissing" of thoughts goes like this:

1. Recognize you are having a discoursive thought 2. Identify it 3. Release it

It's not repression at all: it's acknowledgment, like saying hello to someone you recognize on the street, but continuing where you are going.

I have not practiced in a long time, but the core idea of mindfulness meditation is to enjoy the "right here right now". If focusing on your breath isn't for you, you can focus on something else that puts you in that state, like closing your eyes and simply listening to the sounds around you.

This should help in quieting your inner monologue. When you find your brain trying to restart that monologue, just acknowledge that it happened and refocus. Remember not to think of these events as somehow being bad or failing since then you are dwelling on the past, just refocus without judging.

Edit: you may find this presentation that Jon Kabat-Zinn gave at Google interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc

I also found his audio book "Mindfulness for Beginners" very enjoyable. The second cd contains 2 guided meditations which may help you get started.

I have been burning birthday candles in little wooden heart shaped blocks. (drill 1/4" hole) They take about 20 minutes, and provide just enough structure and "accomplishment" to keep up the practice. I usually do this in the morning before dressing.

Initially, I would count breaths and see how long I could go without thinking about anything. Over time (years), the "water got clearer" and I usually spend the time drilling deep down to see how I am "really" feeling. It's like practice so I remember to do that throughout the day, and feels like a natural consequence of quieting your thoughts.

As for reading, I recommend "Three Pillars of Zen" to hear about other people's experiences with enlightenment, and www.101zenstories.com for koans to contemplate.

I sit on a cushion for fifteen minutes or so, sitting cross-legged so that my back is relatively straight and my knees keep the whole posture relatively stable.

Beyond that, it's just sitting and observing. If (ok, when) I notice my focus has drifted and I'm getting caught up in thoughts, I stop feeding into them and return focus to my breath, posture, and surroundings.

It can be dreadfully boring, but when I do it periodically, it really does help - like taking the lid off a pot on the verge of boiling over. (It's an especially direct way to train your mind to stay focused, too.)

There's a decent chapter about sitting meditation in Brad Warner's _Hardcore Zen_, which I also recommend because it isn't a bunch of new-age-y sunshine and lollipops. (Looking at a lot of other Western books on Buddhism, you'd think Zen had antioxidants or something.)

I've only read the google books previews of Brads books, but im impressed. As a hardcore punk fan myself i wasn't as surprised as most to the connection the Brad Warner made between punk and zen. Also anybody who puts dirty toilets, and tattooed Buddhas with mohawks on the cover of his zen books gets my respect. People should also check out his blog: http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/

As for meditation practice, just sitting is enough, every time i have a thought or a disturbance of any kind i just readjust my pose.

Yeah, usually when my mind starts to wander, it's reflected in slouching. I don't know which (if either) comes first, though.

BTW, if you're getting hung up on having a perfect cushion, let it go. You can sit zazen on the corner of a couch cushion. Seiza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiza) works, too, but I wouldn't unless you're already used to it.

You needn't sit on a couch, cushion cross-legged .. You can very well walk in a park and keep your focus on breath or feet or on the ground in front, or the bushes and greenery, all the while ignoring any thoughts that come up. You can also sit on a park bench looking at the trees, focusing on the looking, being aware of looking.

This is known as awareness of awareness, or consciousness of consciousness which does sound fake but its very simple and effective. You soon start getting a feeling of what you really are as opposed to the belief of being a body/mind.

Being aware of this "I-feeling" is considered by many to be the fastest or direct path. This I-feeling is also found in the present moment when there is no past or future.

or Be aware of what is present between thoughts.

or Put your focus on what is conscious of existing.

There are tonnes of references that point to the same thing in different words:

- Power of Now (Tolle) - Michael Langford (albigen.com - full book available) - Youtubes of Papaji, Mooji, Tolle and many others

I highly recommend http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion as a forum for open and fairly nondogmatic discussion of practice. The existing threads have a huge variety of practice techniques and discussions/diagnosis for their results.

I listen to binaural beat loops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats). It works great. I use Holosync (http://www.centerpointe.com/) for meditation and for short power-naps/quasi-meditation, I use Pzizz on my iPhone (http://www.pzizz.com/). I can especially recommend Pzizz.

It's worth spending a bit of time reading on, as I find the descriptions here to be overly superficial, perhaps largely because meditation is more defined by what you do not do, than what you do. It's also worth noting that there are many types of meditation. Years ago I read "Buddhism without Beliefs" (on "agnostic Buddhism"). Bullshitty as the title may sound, the major thing that I came away with was a decent meditation practice that I stuck to for a few months.

Sadly, I've found even for those convinced of meditation's benefits, like exercise, knowing you should do it doesn't mean you do.

http://monkeymindonline.blogspot.com/2008/04/critical-analys...

As a side note, the all time best quote on meditation, from Tom Robbins' Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates:

"Meditation hasn't got a damn thing to do with anything, 'cause all it has to do with is nothing. Nothingness. Okay? It doesn't develop the mind, it dissolves the mind. Self-improvement? Forget it, baby. It erases the self. Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass. What good is it? Good for nothing. Excellent for nothing. Yes, Lord, but when you get down to nothing, you get down to ultimate reality. It's then and exactly then that you're sensing the true nature of the universe, you're linked up with the absolute Absolute, son, and unless you're content with blowing smoke up your butt all your life, that there's the only place to be."

I highly suggest "The Tibetan Book of The Dead" and "The Power of Silence." Try to find the TBOTD version translated by W.Y. Evans-Wentz if you're not one for happy meal, watered-down philosophy. Take these texts with a grain of salt at first only because they will be thoroughly alien to your mind; once absorbed use wisely.

"...that which clingth not no fall can come. Where no fall cometh, there is rest, and where rest is, there is no keen desire. Where keen desire is not, naught cometh or goeth; and where naught cometh or goeth there is no death, no birth." -GB, TBOTD

"Cutting our chains is marvelous, but also very undesirable, for nobody wants to be free." -CC, The Power of Silence

EDIT: btw yogic flying is for idiots. Those who've practiced meditation for years and those fewer who've reached Nirvana have accessed and gained control enough to manipulate what they call the dharmakaya which is connected to the right temporal lobe I believe (also referred to as the silent mind). Those with this degree of mastery have OOB experiences with great maneuverability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmakāya

I had a great experience with a very simple practice called Vipassana. I wrote about it straight after doing a 10-day course of meditation - 9 days of no speaking was an event in itself: http://weblog.squareapple.net/archives/2004/11/26/art_of_liv...

A book I've really appreciated on the practice is called "The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation" - http://www.amazon.com/Art-Living-Vipassana-Meditation/dp/006...

Both the practice and the book are honest and simple in approach. I used to hunt for complex, cerebral stuff, dismissing anything else, but have slowly realised the error of my ways.

Your problem is that you thought understanding could guide you in meditation. It can't. But it's still necessary for advanced techniques. Anything worthwhile takes time and discipline--don't give up. Real meditation isn't a weekend retreat. Sorry yuppies. :(

Why on earth would an old translation in that kind of Biblical language be preferable above a newer translation? That kind of language is perfect for suggesting wisdom, through age, where there isn't any.

That final quote is a mind-blower, could not have put it better myself. Hits the nail on the head. Thanks a lot for it.

    > It doesn't develop the mind, it dissolves the mind. Self-improvement? 
    > Forget it, baby. It erases the self. 
   > Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass.

This doesn't sound like it fits the western culture at all. I'd think twice about going down a path that is so fundemantally different from what we've learned since kindergarden.

I don't mean to offend, but kindergarden teachers are rarely cognitive neuroscientists. The whole idea of having no idea, of having nothing and no ego is to get you out of your own way. People get caught up on the words, concepts, and ideas of things, which are not actually the things they point to. There is no spoon because a spoon is only an idea, a socially acceptable approximation in a particular context, while what you hold to eat is unspeakable.

The key to proper meditation is a good view and three well made cocktails. For the view your choices run ocean, mountain, or city. In each case, classy hotel rooftop works well.

For the cocktails, the importance of quality vermouth and bitters cannot be overemphasized. A top notch Americano requires both and will aid you greatly in your meditation.

Wow, I've been doing daily meditation all these years and didn't even know it!

If you can see through the language, repetitiveness and overlook some of the context setting, the best resource is here.

http://www.greatwesternvehicle.org/ati_website/canon/sutta/m...

It is supposedly a transcript from the buddha discources.

There is nothing "spiritual" about it and is very systematic (basically lists of what to do) and worded very carefully. Most practaces I have gone to seem to lack the precice details.

Here is the main part, sorry for the length, but I tried to summarise and it would not do.

"Now how is mindfulness of in-&-out breathing developed & pursued so as to be of great fruit, of great benefit?

"There is the case where a monk, having gone to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree, or to an empty building, sits down folding his legs crosswise, holding his body erect, and setting mindfulness to the fore.[1] Always mindful, he breathes in; mindful he breathes out. "

"[1] Breathing in long, he discerns that he is breathing in long; or breathing out long, he discerns that he is breathing out long. [2] Or breathing in short, he discerns that he is breathing in short; or breathing out short, he discerns that he is breathing out short. [3] He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to the entire body,[2] and to breathe out sensitive to the entire body. [4] He trains himself to breathe in calming bodily fabrication (the breath),[3] and to breathe out calming bodily fabrication.

"[5] He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to rapture, and to breathe out sensitive to rapture. [6] He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to pleasure, and to breathe out sensitive to pleasure. [7] He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to mental fabrication (feeling & perception), and to breathe out sensitive to mental fabrication. [8] He trains himself to breathe in calming mental fabrication,[4] and to breathe out calming mental fabrication.

"[9] He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to the mind, and to breathe out sensitive to the mind. [10] He trains himself to breathe in satisfying the mind, and to breathe out satisfying the mind. [11] He trains himself to breathe in steadying the mind, and to breathe out steadying the mind. [12] He trains himself to breathe in releasing the mind, and to breathe out releasing the mind.[5]

"[13] He trains himself to breathe in focusing on inconstancy, and to breathe out focusing on inconstancy. [14] He trains himself to breathe in focusing on dispassion [literally, fading], and to breathe out focusing on dispassion. [15] He trains himself to breathe in focusing on cessation, and to breathe out focusing on cessation. [16] He trains himself to breathe in focusing on relinquishment, and to breathe out focusing on relinquishment.

Do you mean other meditation techniques? Or other techniques, outside of meditation?

I can't speak to the non-Buddhist traditions, but within Buddhism, there are literally hundreds of different meditation techniques beyond the technique described above.

There's a lot of breath-based techniques, but there are also a lot of techniques that use other objects of meditation. Personally, I find walking meditation to be quite effective, for a change of pace.

An equally valid interpretation is that Tolkien rots your brain. This is shoddy science, because their "control" experiment is little more than a fig leaf.

It seems unlikely that Tolkien rots your brain, but I agree that it would have been more useful to compare meditation to just sitting quietly or taking a nap (and to reading Tolkien). I recall some previous studies on meditation found that it didn't make much difference if you were doing specific meditation or just spending some quiet time.

I don't see how that is an equally valid interpretation. In the abstract all they claim is that both meditation and listening to a recorded book improved mood, but only the meditation group improved along other dimensions. It did not note any negative effects from listening to Tolkien. The aim was to have both groups engaged actively on something (meditation vs listening to a recorded book) and to compare the outcomes. Why is that an invalid comparison?

Controls are always the toughest issue in experimental research.

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

What would make a good control group against meditation?

Sleeping? Sitting quietly? Playing cards? Deliberately "carrying on" doesn't suggest anything in particular. Tolkein is a funny choice, though.

I used to meditate but no longer do since I'm starting to trip (audial/visual hallucinations) very fast and the trip is usually not a good one. It is a very powerful natural psychedelic experience, comparable to third plateau of DXM at least... but controllable, unlike DXM.

I don't think the idea is to get hallucinations?

I believe he's saying that he'd love not to.

Hallucinations are very common once you get high enough concentration. For example simple visual hallucinations (lights) is commonly associated with the onset what is called "access concentration". Complex hallucinations are also possible, visiting eg the "realm of the hungry ghosts" . A lot of this kind of stuff is talked about in http://www.interactivebuddha.com/mctb.shtml

That definitely does not happen for me. Do you close your eyes while meditating?

were you on nutmeg?

Nope and I stay the hell away from deliriants.

Some people react poorly to meditation -- even having hallucinations. See this story for more examples:

http://www.sfweekly.com/2002-08-28/news/bad-vibes/

So sure, try it, but if it doesn't feel right, don't force it.

That article is shocking, in the sense that most of the meditation teachers are unaware of the bad side effects. Basic relaxation techniques are mostly harmless, but "serious" meditation very often leads to profound challenges to one's sense of self and perception of the world. In the religious traditions that cultivate it, that is in fact the point, and there are many stages that are highly challenging and unpleasant.

If you're forcing anything in meditation, you're doing it wrong.

And of course some people will 'react poorly'. For most people it's the first time in their lives they've actually sat down and looked at themselves. This can be shocking.

Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away though. That's just 'treating' the symptoms and ignoring the causes, just like we do with modern medicine.

> just like we do with modern medicine.

I think you mean, "just like we do when we misuse modern medicine."

I can't tell if you read the article -- but anxiety attacks, hallucinations, and seizures are reported in some percentage of people who engage in meditation.

There are an amazing variety of human brains, and if you accept the results that meditation causes measurable physical changes in brain structure, you should also be open to the idea that for some brains, those changes might interact badly with other preexisting (and quite possibly inherent) brain tendencies.

People should know that if they have bad reactions, it's not necessarily a matter of 'doing it wrong', or just fighting to get over an initial challenging hump. Stopping might be the right thing for their brain health.

Psychologists at Virginia Commonwealth University monitored 30 chronically anxious people during guided meditation. Seventeen percent indicated that their anxiety got worse.

17% of 30 = 5.1 people. Why not just say "five out of thirty indicated ..."?

Perhaps it's overwhelming those who use dissociative drugs in high doses like yourself. I'm sure it's a good trip for those who have decided that they would rather not drink gallons of cough syrup. http://www.erowid.org/dxm

Its funny, the first time I had a visual hallucination when I was meditating I thought I was watching one of those trippy music visualizations in my mind.

They are called Makyo in Zen (check wiki).

They are just another distraction, like any other thought but visual. Just let them go. The bigger a deal you make of them, the harder that will be. Acknowledge them and let them go.

As you progress in your practice you might have spacial and auditory hallucinations too. The same thing applies here. Just let them go.

Yeah, it's just mental noise. Do you ever think you're hearing voices as you drift off to sleep, misread something you saw briefly as saying something very different, or mistake someone in a crowd for someone you knew?

Our brains constantly seek patterns in a sea of stimuli, and sometimes they create meaning out of noise. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia)

"We are all greater artists than we realize." -Nietzsche

If I relax and continue with hallucinations I start vibrating and having an out-of-body experience. It's fun and great but I like normal reality more :)

My wife was raised Buddhist. We talked extensively about the affects of meditation after reading an article on the over-use, abuse and misunderstanding of meditation in some Western mainstream practices. The article covered a few obvious but damaging cases: depressed and marginal personalities attempting to meditate for hours during a first attempt. What struck me when talking about it with my wife is that meditation is a skill; it's something you have to learn to do and something someone else should probably teach you so that you use it responsibly.

Check out Vipassana meditation: http://www.dhamma.org. They offer 10-day residential courses for no charge at centres worldwide.

Be aware that there are some reports of these Goenka retreats being cult-like and involving some aspects of brain-washing. Additionally they may force a particular style and experience of meditation.

http://melissamaples.com/how-not-to-do-a-goenka-vipassana-re...

http://www.greatwesternvehicle.org/criticism/goenka.htm

(I do not wish to start an argument, I am just pointing this out so that readers might be better informed. I have considered going, and did some research online looking for accounts of the experience. I am not decided yet, but time-wise it is not possible for me at the moment.)

I've done it and I didn't find it at all cultlike. They had a donation booth at the end with no pressure to actually donate, and that's it. Nobody's tried to contact me or pressure me or anything like that. Most of the retreat is spent in silence.

As for the links you posted, the first one had a bad experience at an incompetently run retreat (it was tl;dr so I didn't finish it - maybe there were more problems). I can say that I was well fed at the one I went to. The second one is by an obvious lunatic who was mad that they didn't recognize that he's many times more egoless than they are. Other reports trashing the retreat that I've seen (and I read a ton of them before signing up), with the hindsight of having actually done it, mostly come across as people who feel like losers because they couldn't finish the retreat, so they blame it on anyone but themselves.

Since you say yourself that you are not speaking from personal experience, perhaps it would help to have the words of someone who is speaking from experience.

The meditation retreat is difficult and uncomfortable because of its unfamiliar rules: no interaction with other students, no talking, very strict schedule of waking, meditation, food, and breaks. All of these are tools to eliminate distraction from the reason you are there: to develop a basic capacity to perform the meditation technique properly.

The course materials and instructions repeatedly stress that nothing they say is important; there is no philosophy you have to accept, no ideas you have to believe. As someone who is very logical minded and anti-all-"isms" and beliefs, I would have left after the first day if they didn't stress that you can ignore 100% of everything and anything they say if you just do the meditation technique.

The entire benefit of the experience is derived within you, in the same sense that no matter how many books you read about how touching a flame "burns," the experience of touching a burning stove is how you actually learn "ah, fire BURNS".

Ten days seems a long time to devote to learning "how to meditate", but it simply isn't possible to do in any shorter length of time, nor would it work if you simply did several 1-day sessions.

Suppose you went to the gym every single day, but you only did 1 pushup and 1 crunch every day. You might complain that this whole exercise thing is pointless. This would be a great loss.

Feel free email if anyone has questions. I'd be happy to discuss but the topic would overflow many pages so I'll just leave it for now.

I started daily zazen meditation about 6 weeks ago, having tried it on and off before. The effects are subtle but powerful, providing me with patience and a hightened state of relaxed alertness. Combined with Yoga ever other day, it feels great!

If anyone is interested, I built this webapp for myself to keep track of my progress. My meditation training can be found at http://stepset.com/habits/efac7b8e-6446-11df-ab99-7f306a906e...

it's 4 x 20 minutes, according to these articles about the paper: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100414184220.ht... http://living-mindfullyblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/cognition-a...

This one claims to have the fulltext, but their webpage is broken for me: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/42975499_Mindfulness...

I once went to a lecture given by a psychoanalyst who was also a Buddhist. His main point was that Buddhism and analysis were very similar means of self-introspection.

Does anyone here have a perspective on both to share?

The Dalai Lama says pretty much the same thing quite a bit. A quick read along these lines would be The Universe in a Single Atom.

Well, oddly enough, I'm midway through an M.A. in Buddhist Studies, and did my undergraduate thesis on psychoanalysis, so, yes, I have a perspective.

I'd argue that the differences between the disciplines outweighs the superficial similarities. If one is so inclined, one can definitely make lists of similarities, and can stretch the interpretation of the doctrines of one field to fit the other, but what would be the point, really?

The point from the Dalai Lama's perspective? To defend his culture in the face of modern science.

The point from the perspective of the rest of us? Analogies and recognizing analogous forms are a good way to expand one's mind. Gaining respect for introspection as well perhaps. What's the point of asking what's the point, except to come off sounding like a conceited ass? (And I'll be the first to admit here, it takes one to know one.)

I think you're trivializing a whole list of things here.

The Dalai Lama may think that he is defending his culture in the face of modern science, but reducing Buddhism to a branch of psychoanalysis is not an effective way to do so in the long run.

By the same token, reducing psychoanalysis to a modern manifestation of Buddhism isn't doing psychoanalysis any favors, either.

In cross-disciplinary studies, it's important to resist the urge to reduce the strange to the familiar, as it is only in doing so that one is able to fully appreciate the richness of the traditions being compared.

In other words: analogies are useful, when starting out, to help one get a vague impression of a new territory, but (unconsciously) clinging to these analogies serves only to mask one from actually expanding one's mind.

Asking "what's the point?" may have the unintended side-effect of making me sound like a conceited ass, but the intention was more philosophical.

For anyone interested in trying meditation, I found this podcast useful: http://www.audiodharma.org/series/1/talk/1762/

Mattheiu Ricard on Meditation - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZwnXj0Ck1k

I'm working on a startup/iPhone app that is tangentially related to meditation. I've been meditating off and on for fifteen years now and as part of the app development I took it up again, as a kind of dogfooding approach. I've successfully used meditation in challenging sport situations (mountaineering, skydiving, swimming) but I've also had moments where everything in my life was going wrong except the meditation. Meditation can help you stay healthy, focussed and relaxed but anyone claiming it will fix your life is a charlatan.

For me as a one who lives in Eastern country and practiced breathing, I can really say that it helps your body and mind. It is far old tradition to practice some kind of breathing(or zen you say, or yoga for more physical). After a few months of daily practice, I myself experienced amazing response of my body. But never attend classes that has some kind of religious color or ask you to buy some products. They might not be a hoax but some were reported as hoax and made some news in here.

Meditation stripped to it's core is good. All the religious hokum that often seems to surround it I find a bit nauseating.

I can say it's true that meditation does help with insomnia. In my case, it has made me sleep easily. Give it some time to relax and breathe, next thing you know you are feeling groggy. I know some serious meditators avoid falling asleep if they want to do these for hours, but it can be a challenge achieving that.

I learned to relax many years ago using one of these that a friend had:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000E22DFE

It's a galvanic skin response gadget. There are others (I got one from radio shack too). Search for GSR.

It basically lowers a tone when you relax. It takes almost no time at all to learn to relax with the immediate feedback the device offers.

When you lower the tone very low, you have basically relaxed your whole body and can easily fall asleep.

I have no idea if this is like meditation or not, since I don't know how to meditate. It could be, because you concentrate on the tone the device makes.

It's almost like it, and that is an awesome gadget. You basically lower your body's frequencies - more like into a theta state. And that's when you can easily get into superlearning mode and/or eventually fall asleep.

I learned Transcendental Meditation about a year ago, and it has had a seriously profound effect on my life.

I tried to look up more info about it but it seems like to learn anything, one has to take some $1500 course. Can you summarize how it differs from the standard meditation (i.e. zen meditation)?

Zen meditation isn't really "the standard meditation", American culture just has an infatuation with Zen because the Beats and Hippies drew a lot of attention to the San Francisco Zen Center at the right time, while otherwise Buddhism and Hinduism have mostly stayed in immigrant communities. (I don't know enough about the Hare Krishnas to say anything either way.)

AFAIK, Hare krishnas do not practice "raja yoga" the Hindu school of philosophy that deals with "Yoga" and "meditation" as people know of it popularly. Hare krishnas practice the "Bhakti" (devotional) school of philosophy.

Zen meditation is a japanese adaptation of the chinese adapation of the Raja Yoga techniques of Hinduism/Buddhism.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja_Yoga

As others have pointed out, Zen is not "standard", but just one variety of meditation among many.

However, to answer your question: TM is focused on the internal repetition of a one-word Mantra, given to you by a teacher, and in that regard is not very different than mantra meditation you'd find in some Buddhist (Thai, Tibetan, Indian, Chinese) traditions.

(I should point out that I do Buddhist meditation myself, but I've had friends and family members do TM, and we've compared notes.)

If you are interested in meditation in general (and not TM specifically), there are a lot of meditation centers offering free (or nearly free) courses. I've never heard of a Buddhist center turning anyone away for lack of funds.

No, what I wanted to say is that I'm familiar with meditation but I was trying to figure out what is the difference between normal meditation and TM but all TM websites described how TM will influence your life without actually explaining how is it different.

Can you elaborate on the practical effects TM has had on your life? I've begun a meditation practice in the past year and I'm finding that I am much more patient and present with circumstances and people, and rarely have moments of anger or negativity any more.

I have been practicing TM regularly for 38 years. This practice has given me a pervasive perspective on life. I know just a moment away is bliss. This sense of certain security is constantly in my awareness.

Focusing on breathing is great, I was thought that at meditation class, with more details of course. But it's really important to keep your eyes almost closed, not open nor closed, almost closed. You have to be aware of the world, meditating is not about shutting yourself from the world

  It's so dope when I focus on my breath
  'Cos I floss all the time and I chew Big Red!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gCU5uplB4A

I posted this question to HN a few weeks back - also related to meditation in a way. Some useful information posted by HNers... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1398844

A plug for a meditation resource that I help maintain:

http://diydharma.org

including a comprehensive howto guide:

http://diydharma.org/how-meditate

I learned to meditate as a child. Independently discovered it you might say. I had no fancy terminology for it, no official system. I just did it. But I agree, it's very very helpful and healthy.

Carl Jung said that it was scientifically provable that yoga and meditation help physical and mental health - he probably made that comment 60 years ago, but it is still true today.

Carl Jung and science do not belong in the same sentence.

Should be "Surprisingly Quickly". Just saying.

This is a temporary, not lasting effect, just a glimpse that 'it works'.. After a short time the state of dullness will return.

It's a very common phenomena, when people were achieved temporary insight and thought they were got enlightenment or some high state.

Actually it is not even a the first step. It is just a temporary result of the effort, while true meditative state is effortless and natural, like breathing itself.

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