Is Mindfulness Meditation Bullshit?
wired.com
wired.com
And to the comment above about "doing something more productive with your time". Would you say the same thing about exercise? For me, it's like exercise for my brain. I also feel similar after meditation as I do after a good workout. Working on myself in my opinion, is probably the most productive thing I can do.
> All of which raises a question: Is mindfulness meditation, as it’s practiced by millions of Westerners, bullshit? Not bullshit in the sense of being worthless. Even Adam Grant admits that meditation has benefits and that, for some people, it’s the best way to get them. But has meditation practice strayed so far from its Buddhist roots that we might as well just call it a therapy or a hobby... Is there any good reason—in ancient Buddhist philosophy or for that matter in modern science—to consider mainstream mindfulness practice truly spiritual?
The author then goes on to say:
"...the average mindfulness meditator is closer to the ancient contemplative tradition, and to transformative insights, than you might think. Though things like stress reduction or grappling with melancholy or remorse or self-loathing may seem “therapeutic,” they are organically connected to the very roots of Buddhist philosophy. What starts out as a meditation practice with modest aims can easily, and very naturally, go deeper. There is a kind of slippery slope from stress reduction to profound spiritual exploration and radical philosophical reorientation, and many people, even in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, are further down that slope than they realize."
I find it extremely helpful in regulating emotions, especially during times of heightened stress (i.e having small children freaking out on you, and acting appropriately).
Whether you hate the word or not, mindfulness, meditation, zen, don't discount the activity.
There is zero downside to becoming more self aware.
> [Mindfulness is] about much more than living in the moment. Mindfulness, in the most deeply Buddhist sense of the term, is about an exhaustive, careful, and calm examination of the contents of human experience, an examination that can radically alter your interpretation of that experience.
> It begins with one of the more striking claims made by Buddhism—that enlightenment and liberation from suffering are inextricably intertwined. We suffer—and make others suffer—because we don’t see the world, including ourselves, clearly.
As for meditation, there's a lot of value in practicing sitting still without fidgeting, by focusing on one thing and, most importantly, bringing the attention back when the mind wanders.
This builds up strength in typical problem areas such as racing thoughts, impulsiveness, restlessness.
The only thing that's difficult is remembering to do it and building a habit. It doesn't help there and that's one thing that is a big problem for me, perhaps you and many others with ADHD!
The mindfulness prescription for ADHD is a great book :)
I've even had Tibeten monks come up to be and say they notice I have problems sitting still.
I hate it, makes me want to jump of a cliff sometimes. But that's part of it - you learn to stay with the u comfortable and learn about yourself and the thoughts that make you run.
Man, the benefits of meditation for me now far outstrip medication. Like, I found it enhances my concentration like no medication has because I'm able to do the work.
It takes practice, we all zone out loads when we first start. It's not zoning out you're trying to stop, you're training yourself to come back.
When I stop practicing though, takes a few weeks(or a month or two if I've been on retreat) and my brain goes back to normal.
I have to practice around other people, else I won't do it.
Oh and yoga is insanely useful for me, moving meditation!!
Briefly, or maybe not so, what was taught to me was an excercise to sit down and experience myself emotionally and physically, with a focus on the latter, and without judging or interpretation.
Thoughs may come and go, I don't cling to them, but neither do I force them away.
There is a physical part in an intention, a will to let the body find a posture that feels both solid and effortless where the respiration movement is not isolated to a small part of the chest or abdomen. The breathing is hard to describe, but when it works right it barely feels like I'm breathing at all, as although most of the chest, back, and abdomen is somewhat involved - breathing becomes so smooth and effortless compared to what my otherwise tense body usually do to breathe.
Immediate effects for me is that the world feels more real, solid, and even that the floor feels softer. Sometimes I think that maybe this is what feeling both relaxed and alert means? Neither is something I think I have felt more than very rarely.
Otherwise, regulating emotions, tuning out noisy environments etc is long term effects.
To me the excercise appears to reinforce the importance of body perception, raw unprocessed emotions, and physical stimuli over internally generated feelings and thoughts. A stillness to listen to even when I'm not doing the exercises, a recliner in my mind to lean back into when there is too much chaos around me. Not to flee, but to hear and see without getting overwhelmed.
As ADD is characterised by a mind constantly jumping from thought to thought, one that is never still, it's conceivable that some kind of balance between various parts of the brain gets upset, somewhat like when everything becomes a nail because all you have is a hammer.
Previously posted under its URL title, "The Science and Philosophy of Mindfulness Meditation", here:
Surrounding workers with the noise, distractions, disease, and lack of privacy of an open office environment, and then telling them that — if they only practiced mindfulness for a few minutes a day, how much less stressed they'd be! — is grade A capitalist BS: the cost of mindfulness tutorials is < the perceived cost of better real estate. (And I use perceived, as I think most companies are weighing only the actual cost of the real estate; they are not considering the cost of lost productivity.)
If employers weren't stressing their employees so much, so unnecessarily, perhaps mindfulness would not be so needed?
(I write this on a 1 hour (one-way) train ride from work, for which the majority of the ride there was no available seating.)
(I will admit to not having read the entire article yet. But the above occurred to me, and felt relevant. Perhaps mindfulness works; the author seems to have gotten something from it. I never have.)
Maybe it's not for you, but it's definitely helped me in everyday life, not just with work stress. Also, I didn't start done this path due to my employer suggesting it.
I suspect biological diversity also applies to our minds (mental diversity).
Slatestarcodex often talks about psychotropics affecting people differently.
Please reread the comment you just replied to.
I've also met certain people who claim to practice "mindfulness" but in reality just lack reflection. (I'm not saying anything about mindfulness per se.)