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Comment by sridca | Hacker News Reader

I thought I'd join, but the more I read the more spiritual and mumbo-jumbo the course appears. From the course overview:

  Week 1. Signature Strengths
  Week 2. Savoring & Gratitude Journal
  Week 3. Kindness & Social Connection
  Week 4. Exercise & Sleep
  Week 5. Meditation & Gratitude Visit
  Week 6. (It's a SURPRISE!)
  Week 7. Rewirement Challenge Part 1
  Week 8. Rewirement Challenge Part 2
  Week 9. Rewirement Challenge Part 3
  Week 10. Rewirement Challenge Part 4

Just for starters, what's the deal with "gratitude"? Isn't that a spiritual concept? Why not go straight to the root and dislodge the root cause of resentment itself? Gratitude treats the symptoms -- it counters resentment -- but does not eliminate it. As an intelligent HNer we should not fall for these superficial traps.

EDIT: So a group of people have taken to downvoting my comments, instead of intelligently addressing them. Apparently I made a blasphemy, attacking a religious concept (gratitude). LOL.

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Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvotes like that. It's tedious and self-referential.

Your original comment also broke the site guidelines by calling names and being a shallow dismissal and flamebait. If you'd made your substantive point about gratitude without all that, and neutrally, it might not have been downvoted, though even then it's kind of a generic tangent.

So far, that's at least five site guidelines you broke. Would you mind reviewing them?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I think gratitude is part of mindfulness. It means appreciating the smell of fresh air, the taste of your go to breakfast beverage, the sounds of the birds chirping or the smell of your partner. These are things we can get used to day after day, and so it’s useful to take a moment or two to appreciate them. That’s at least how I interpret it...

I mean the whole idea of "mindfulness" and "meditation" are the sort of pseudoscientific bullshit that just plain don't belong in a scientific class.

Sure, they may have some benefits, but they're essentially just placebo effect. There has to be more interesting science on the topic than that...

I'd happily take an effective placebo. Remember, placebo effect is real and apparently the reasons for it are psychological.

To say mindfulness and meditation is pseudoscientific is totally absurd. There's has been a ton of proper science aimed at it, all the scientific consensus is that it has an effect far beyond placebo.

You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater just because some "out there" people also like it. You might as well stop eating healthy because Acai berries are hip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness#Scientific_researc...

Note that most of the research referenced there isn't properly controlled - it's sort of hard to control for something like that, you'd have to have a therapy that could offer something comparable without matching it, so comparing it's effectiveness to placebo seems in some ways quite apt.

Did you read your own link? One line from it mentions the study that actually brought me to this conclusion:

"A meta-analysis on meditation research published in JAMA in 2014,[167] (that included a combined total of 3515 participants), found insufficient evidence of any effect of meditation programs on positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep, and weight."

While there may be other with differing results it's... pretty sketchy in any case. I would hardly say scientific enough to belong in such a class.

I had a look at this when I considered meditation once but found it'd most likely just be a waste of my time. I'd rather not flush my time down the toilet.

Finally someone on HN who is not gaga about meditation. :-P

In my understanding, meditation simply enables one to develop a heightened form of emotional detachment that may help deal with life's vicissitudes. Of course, that's again treating the symptoms and does nothing to cure the unhappiness.

That quote is very dishonestly misleading, as the same study found it had evidence of improved anxiety, less depression and pain.

You also cherry picked the negative paragraph for some reason, despite the above paragraph on the Wikipedia article citing a newer meta study with other positive results.

I only focused on the JAMA study as I'd seen it before, sorry about that I see it may have looked pretty slanted now, I wanted to have a better look at the positive metaanalysis, however the link on wikipedia was broken, look at where it points on wikipedia, you'll see "Cite error: The named reference Gotink was invoked but never defined (see the help page)."

I'm not disagreeing with you about that depression and anxiety thing, but it seems a bit of a stretch to suggest it to a generally mentally healthy person.

I started practicing mindfulness after seeing a cognitive behavioral therapist for anxiety. One of the core parts of CPT are learning how to relax your mind (I’d literally have all these thoughts racing through my head that were barely grounded in to any kind of reality). Practicing mindfulness instead of letting my mind wander into dark places effectively cured me of my anxiety. And that’s not just one anecdote, CBT is the gold standard in science-based therapy right now.

It makes you feel better, even if unmeasurably. It belongs more with the arts rather than sciences - people will do it even if there's never any p-value that gets significant. The "is good for you" in the scientific sense aspect is not that important.

Again, just to stress it out - the scientific aspect is not much relevant. From the science department I only care about it not doing harm.

The broad dismissal of entire fields of practice as placebo effect is itself a pseudoscientific reduction of science to a narrow band of European cultural practices labeled “science” then used to indulge discriminatory impulses against other cultures. The sense of certainty and self-satisfaction derived from this destructive effort is, itself, placebo.

If you don't believe me, I'd highly recommend checking out this paper:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

"We found low evidence of no effect or insufficient evidence of any effect of meditation programs on positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep, and weight."

As for "destruction of other cultures" - well, people use the same excuses to say that homeopathy is great and crystal healing will cure your cancer. It's a non-sense argument. This has no cultural bearing at all, just a rejection of bullshit. I have no interest in blindly approving things without analysis just because they came from other cultures. Study them. The results here are sketchy at best.

"he broad dismissal of entire fields of practice as placebo effect is itself a pseudoscientific reduction of science to a narrow band of European cultural practices labeled “science” "

It can be, but it doesn't have to be.

'Traditional Chinese Medicine' is effectively bogus, or what we would call 'placebo'. It's not 'racist' to point that out. Chinese Emperor's in the 19th century knew that and banned it, Mao knew it as well (he had a Western doctor for himself) but re-introduced TCM after the civil war because it's the only medicine he could afford. And 'it does work' (i.e. placebo) for quite a number of things.

But 'mindfulness' crosses reasonably into the domain of legit psychological and mental well being and frankly it's not rocket science to start to conceive how 'clearing one's mind', and 'being in the moment' as opposed to living in constant anxiety can be an issue in one's mental well being, just as an example.

So yes, it's soft, and susceptible to a lot of hocus pocus and probably some 'believers and hypers' etc., but that doesn't in and of itself abnegate the real opportunities from it.

A good book to go down a scientific path is "Why Zebras don't get ulcers" by Dr Robert Sapolsky. Dr Sapolsky is professor of biology, and professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford.

His book helped me understand the physical effects on my health caused by my stressful company work environment. In short - our primate bodies have a fight or flight response to stress resulting in spikes in blood cortisol, muscle tension, gastrointestinal changes etc.

Once you understand how mind affects the body then it becomes possible to see how breathing and relaxation (mindfulness/meditation) can undo the effects of stress that we battle in our daily lives.

Of course there are other ways towards well-being. I found the tips in 'Getting Things Done' very useful in reducing anxiety. Switching to 'Eat food, mostly plants' advice is helping in mood and energy levels.

Then why call it "gratitude" instead of calling it what it is, to wit: appreciation? Obviously the proponents of gratitude meant something more than appreciation.

I'm doing this class and I don't think there's any essential difference between gratitude and appreciation. Call it however you want, those are just names for particular practices anyhow.

What is a "non-essential" difference, according to you, between gratitude (defined as: "the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.") and appreciation (defined as: "recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something.")?

The "gratitude" definition you give seems to be a special case of "appreciation"; I honestly don't see how appreciating and returning kindness could be objectionable.

Do a bit of reading by the proponents of gratitude and you'll see that it is not the same as appreciation. For example, here's a quote from a link someone else posted on this thread:

  People feel and express gratitude in multiple ways. 
  They can apply it to the past (retrieving positive 
  memories and being thankful for elements of 
  childhood or past blessings), the present (not 
  taking good fortune for granted as it comes), and 
  the future (maintaining a hopeful and optimistic 
  attitude).

Would you use "appreciation" to describe that?

Also here are the ways to cultivate gratitude per that same link:

  Write a thank-you note.   
  Thank someone mentally.
  Keep a gratitude journal. 
  Count your blessings. 
  Pray. 
  Meditate.

Is that how you'd describe "appreciation"? The spiritualists, and their secular friends, choose "gratitude" for a reason--they recommend a specific emotional state.

Personally in my mind appreciation is a matter of fact straightforward activity of ongoing enjoyment (of activities, things, events, people, etc.). Gratitude is not even close to that as illustrated above ... one I find little to no value in exemplifying (as there are superior ways of experiencing life such as appreciating being alive having a cup of coffee on a sunny terrace!).

> I honestly don't see how appreciating and returning kindness could be objectionable

Where did I write that they are objectionable? I said that gratitude is ineffective when you could be going straight to the root cause of resentment and dislodging it from your life.

> Write a thank-you note.

> Thank someone mentally.

> Keep a gratitude journal.

> Count your blessings.

> Pray.

> Meditate.

I don't really see the first two things as being specifically spiritual, and I don't see it as much of a stretch to see that they can help with mental well-being. The third one is somewhat recursive, so I obviously can't argue that it isn't specific to gratitude.

The next two definitely feel spiritual, but I feel like they could pretty easily be expressed with "appreciation" and still be spiritual, e.g. "appreciate your blessings" or "appreciate the presence of god".

I'll be honest and say that from my naive understanding of meditation, I don't exactly know how it falls into the "gratitude" bucket. If I were asked to describe what "meditation" is in the spiritual sense, I definitely would have been more like to use the word "appreciation" than "gratitude", e.g. "appreciate one's place in the universe", so I don't really know enough to understand the distinction here.

Overall, to me, this list seems to be a mix of things that are overtly or mostly spiritual and things that don't seem particularly spiritual to me. Maybe it's just my lack of knowledge about this sort of topic, but I'm still not seeing any huge distinction between the two terms based off of those quotes. I definitely agree that from them, the course definitely seems to have a spiritual bent, but the word "gratitude" at least to me doesn't have anything to do with it.

> Where did I write that they are objectionable?

Fair enough; I may have been inferring a tone that wasn't present. It just strikes me as a bit odd that you feel so strongly about the differences between gratitude and appreciation when they don't seem that different to me (and from reading other comments, others seem to share this confusion).

> I may have been inferring a tone that wasn't present.

That's most likely the case. From my experience with talking to people on this topic I've noticed that anytime I point out the shortcomings of meditation and the like, people--no matter how intelligent they are--tend to get very offended and then proceed to respond to me in anger without even realizing that they are feeling anything but good. (The very fact that this otherwise reasonable thread has been flagged to death is a testament to that).

> I'll be honest and say that from my naive understanding of meditation [...]

If you do your research beyond the watering down of eastern spirituality to fit the western secular mind (which is not, actually, secular) then you may very well see that there is in fact no connection whatsoever between gratitude (i.e., writing thank-you notes, thanking someone mentally, keeping a gratitude journal, counting on one's blessings, praying, meditation) and enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive while say drinking a delicious cup of coffee on a sunny terrace, as the former is designed specifically to attain a specific emotional state to counter, and keep at bay, the feelings like resentment.

You're raising a lot of interesting points; I appreciate it! (No pun intended)

I think that meditation might be better viewed as a practical tool that assists in doing what you are suggesting. The idea would be that meditation trains you to focus on the present, objective reality which would in turn make you more likely to appreciate a cup of coffee. My understanding is that at least in the Buddhist tradition that is the stated purpose of the basic breathing meditation that most people are familiar with.

Thats not to say that it might not be an ineffective tool, but I don't think its necessarily contrary to the approach that you are talking about.

Could you explain more about how you would approach things as opposed to gratitude? I think I'm understanding now what you are getting at, but I'm not sure I'm understanding the practical steps that you are advocating as an alternative to meditation.

> Could you explain more about how you would approach things as opposed to gratitude? I think I'm understanding now what you are getting at, but I'm not sure I'm understanding the practical steps that you are advocating as an alternative to meditation.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19905620

Have you had a bad experience with spirituality or something? You sound hella mad my friend and it's not a good look.

People invested their time and effort in this course. The least you can do is be grateful that there are such people on the planet who care about the wellbeing of others.

Who hasn't had a bad experience with spirituality?

This is the same kind of thing that's used to promote anti-vax campaigns and scam people out of thousands of dollars for fake medical treatments.

I think a lot of people have had both positive and negative experiences with spirituality (which I want to emphasize is not synonymous with "religion", which I think provokes stronger emotions for a lot of people). Similarly, I've had both good and bad experiences with public transportation, which I think is also fairly common. There are plenty of things that I've had bad experiences with that I still find useful due to other experiences that were better.

Why not just intelligently respond to my questions/ comments instead of projecting your feelings ("hella mad") onto me? Did what I write offend any of your sensibilities?

You inserted the concept of spirituality in an attempt to take some kind of stance; that was never present. You fabricated that, then complained when you were downvoted for being obtuse, and you keep complaining about lack of intelligent discourse while ignorantly hammering at a point that doesn't exist here.

> You inserted the concept of spirituality in an attempt to take some kind of stance; that was never present.

Incorrect. Gratitude, along with other meditative practices, is a spiritual notion.

> You fabricated that

Fabricated what exactly? Quote the exact words I wrote.

> then complained when you were downvoted for being obtuse,

If what I wrote was obtuse, the intelligent response is to ask for clarification instead of emotionally lashing out onto me with downvotes, sarcasm and projections.

> and you keep complaining about lack of intelligent discourse

Indeed. Just for one example, where is intelligent discourse in your comment? Do you have anything to say directly in response to what I actually wrote? Instead you are just trying in vain to intuit what "stance" I take.

> while ignorantly hammering at a point that doesn't exist here.

What point is it that I am "ignorantly hammering"?

Would you please stop with this flamewar? You've posted 20 times in this thread already and taken it way beyond pale. HN isn't for this kind of thing, so please don't do it here again.

Edit: I had to warn you about this just two days ago. If you keep doing it we are going to have to ban you, so please review the site guidelines and don't do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Look, just because a handful of commenters reacted in heated fashion to my comment does not make it a flamewar. Have you actually read this thread? You may want to reevaluate your moderation abilities.

I'm not going to compromise on my principles, so go ahead and ban me (I see that you have already put a posting limit on my account).

My understanding is that gratitude is the standard term for that in the context of mindfulness.

Gratitude and appreciation are different things. I can appreciate an piece of art, it doesn't mean that I am thankful/ grateful for it. There are many things you can appreciate without being grateful - infact, this is inherently the issue that gratitude is addressing, which stems from ego, self-centeredness, thoughtlessness. An easy place to fall into.

What are some examples of things you appreciate (without being grateful) that stem from ego, self-centeredness, thoughtlessness?

The word comes from the Latin appretiare, 'to price' or 'to appraise'.

'Only I can truly appreciate your suffering and your needs, and so only I can lead you.'

How about that?

Perhaps some forms of lust?

'Gratitude' or 'thankfulness' sound like they'd induce more humility than 'appreciation'.

To appreciate can mean to understand or recognize. Art appreciation doesn't quite mean gratitude towards art, as far as I can see.

Consider, 'I am grateful for the grace of God' or 'I am grateful that fate has spared us'.

Then try, 'I appreciate the grace of God' or 'I appreciate that fate has spared us'.

Appreciate sounds almost haughty and egocentric in comparison.

If I appreciate my food the focus can still be on me, maybe I can even relish how my oh-so sophisticated palate is able to extract wonders from the food, indeed how amazingly I'm able to appreciate the overall art of cuisine (or anything else).

If I am 'grateful' for the food, such a stance seems difficult. It's hard or silly to think of oneself as excelling in gratitude. Of course it can be done (and is always annoying to witness) but it seems harder to keep up as it's more obviously self-contradicting than garden-variety egotism.

So it seems that 'gratitude' suggests a more measured relationship between object and subject, and does a better job encouraging humility.

Good response, I agree.

Except of course for the connecting of appreciation and egocentrism.

I can appreciate eating a delicious croissant, for example, savouring its buttery flavours as experienced on the tongue without egotistically thinking of "my" oh-so sophisticated palate. Moreover the word "appreciation" does not necessarily imply selfish thinking of any such sort.

Of course gratitude is not taught in such "mundane" contexts of sensately enjoying eating a croissant. It is always about some "higher" things like God or your childhood hurt memories or "food" (as nourishment rather than sensory pleasure).

And humility is a core part of gratitude. Yet humility exists to counter pride (one can't help but be proud of being humble.). Humility and pride are two sides of the same coin, and appreciation has got nothing necessarily to do with either of them.

I think that you may be getting downvoted because your posts are using incendiary language ("spiritual and mumbo jumbo") and splitting hairs over minor issues (should it be called gratitude or appreciation?). This may give people the impression that you are trying to pick a fight.

I also think that by positioning your argument as in opposition to "spirituality" it may call to mind negative experiences that many religious people have had with people who have bigoted views about religion.

Fair enough, good points. Will keep that in mind when writing.

As for "splitting hairs over minor issues" I disagree; the difference is not trivial as explained over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19905418

I recall reading some research on the effects of gratitude. Here's an example:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-...

As soon as you learn to exercise particular feelings you choose (most people believe feelings can only be triggered with external factors and not chosen at their own will but they are wrong) you will find out that feeling (actively) gratitude and pure unconditional love for no reason is extremely pleasurable.

Scientists would probably notice increase in pleasure/happiness-related neurochemicals and particular happy brain area activity patterns when I just choose to feel gratitude if they could put me in an fMRI machine and also perform realtime neurotransmitters monitoring.

Nevertheless I am not sure if this can be considered a reliable medication alternative, it can be hard to switch to these feelings with stressed amygdala and depleted L-tryptophan.

Okay, but what happens to the resentment while you experience the extreme pleasure of gratitude or unconditional love? Are these feelings merely a palliative (a remarkably strong one at that) rather than a permanent cure?

I dunno, I'm not prone to resentment. Anxiety, occasional anger, regret (for my own fails) - perhaps (and the practice helps a lot with these) but resentment - I can only speculate about how does it feel. I just know nobody but me myself, people's illusions (people themselves are perfect, their brains just are prone to misjudgment and unconscious behavior, as is mine although mine is already quite trained and less prone to these this way) and unfortunate consequences (which are nothing but a perfectly neutral manifestation of pure chaos) can be "guilty" in anything I would dislike. Resentment doesn't ever seem making any sense.

Gratitude could certainly be incorporated into a religious or spiritual practice, but it's not inherently a spiritual concept.

The way I was taught to use gratitude to enhance my well being was to consciously think about the things I'm grateful for a write them down. That's it.

'Gratitude' is a mental concept as much as it is spiritual and issues such as this and 'forgiveness' I suggest go far beyond merely addressing 'causes', they represent a certain perspective, a mental posture more than anything.

Gratitude as it's frequently been explained to me just sounds like slave-mentality shaming. There's a strong distinction between it and recognizing and accepting what you can and can't change. Genuine gratefulness isn't a bad thing in and of itself. It's not a forced emotion. Gratefulness as a mantra in practice is just guilt tripping, it informs you to feel shame for negative emotions. It's a healthy response to be upset at some circumstances. Being grateful for being dealt a bad hand is for the birds. Someone might chime in to suggest that's not what gratefulness is about - I'll save you some time, I disagree.

There is no end to potential causes of resentment, and some may not be resolved in a lifetime. It makes sense in the context of psychological health and well-being.

How does it [the necessity of resentment] make sense in the context of psychological health and well-being?

Wallowing in resentment for all the wrongs in the world is an unhealthy way to go through life. Gratitude is about escaping that.

Okay, so you were talking about gratitude. Yes, gratitude counters resentment (you call it "escaping" it). Yet my point was that it is not a cure for resentment; merely a palliative.

Life is a constant stream of potential causes of resentment. Gratitude is not just a palliative for resentment, but also a preventative against future resentment. If you're heavily focused on how grateful you are for the amazing life you live, you will be less likely to fall into a cycle of resentment about the setbacks.

Life is a process of looking for palliatives until we die. Let's not be dishonest about that.

Besides, the only people who promise cures for resentment, etc., tend to be religious.

Expressing gratitude to another, or mindfully thinking about things you are grateful for in the moment, is a recognized technique that has been shown in studies to increase people's self-reported level of contentment. I'm surprised they don't cover journaling, another low-cost, low-effort practice that has been shown to improve subjects' self-reported level of contentment with life.

Could you elaborate on how you would approach getting to the root cause of the resentment? And then once you have identified the cause, how would you go about dislodging that?

> Could you elaborate on how you would approach getting to the root cause of the resentment? And then once you have identified the cause, how would you go about dislodging that?

Sincerity as to what you are feeling each moment is the first step towards it.

If you are actively denying or dissociating (i.e., meditation), you won't get to understand how it all works. Resentment, or any other affective issue, is to be curiously explored with awareness and attentiveness (what are the emotions involved? what are the beliefs? why do I feel this way? how does this feeling operate? etc). Once you have fully explored something -- and this is where dogged determination comes into play -- there comes a point where that issues vanishes like dropping hot coal. Not unlike ceasing to believe in Santa Claus.

It does take time and persistence in the beginning.

I appreciate the thoughtful answer. It's interesting to me that a lot of what you mentioned in this comment seem (to me at least) to be some of the core ideals of mindfulness. Out of curiosity, did you arrive at this through another philosophy or have you come to this conclusion on your own?

You are welcome. It is part of what is known as the "actualism method" (that I am putting into practice for many years now) as described here: http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/thismomento...

Mindfulness is actually 180 degrees opposite, as it leads to a form of (acute) emotional distancing. Having done Vipassana in the past I can also say that from experience.

That's interesting. I will check out your link a little later when I have time. A lot of the reading I have done on mindfulness has been less about blocking things out or distancing yourself from it and more about accepting how you feel and observing it as if from a scientific perspective with genuine curiosity. I guess if we take away the semantics, what is really comes down to is that you seem to be opposed to blocking how you feel or distancing yourself from how you feel and more about being curious about how you feel and studying it. In that sense, I think you and I are in agreement, regardless of what label we attach to it.

We are definitely not in agreement. When, or if, you get to reading it do a search for `mindfulness site:actualfreedom.com.au` in Google to learn more.

Apologies for the misunderstanding on agreement outside of the definition of mindfulness. I've had a quick skim of your first link and also of the selected correspondence on mindfulness. Obviously there's a lot to digest there so I will wait until I can give them the attention they deserve. Until then I have a couple more questions if you don't mind answering (it's fine if you don't and I will read your links regardless).

First of all, when you say:

> to be curiously explored with awareness and attentiveness

To me that sounds like introspection (correct me if I am misunderstanding). You say that disassociating from your emotions is the wrong way to go about it, but how can you do true introspection without disassociating a little? Otherwise wouldn't your introspection be clouded by your emotions?

I was wondering if you had any thoughts on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy? To my knowledge, the main idea of ACT is that you don't avoid negative emotions or feelings but instead accept them and attempt to passively observe them.

In any case, whether you answer these questions or not I appreciate the conversation. It's always interesting to learn about new philosophies and criticisms of other philosophies.

In the website you'll read that "I" am "my" feelings and "my" feelings are "me". Basically it means the identity (or sense of self) is the same as feelings; they are one and the same thing. There is no separate "you" passively observing "your" feelings and doing so indicates a dissociative experience (which meditation takes to another level). If you're interested I can send an invite to our Slack community where you can put forward your questions for others (including the 3 actually free folks[1]) to respond; just send me your email.

[1] Reports of two of them becoming free are available online: https://www.actualists.org/reports/newly-free

Since when is gratitude a religious concept?

That's like saying love is a religious concept, just because some religions talk about love.

Oh, I was making a parallel to religion. As you may already know, even though one becomes atheist that does not necessarily mean they are no longer religious in other aspects of life (here, meditative practices).

But what's untouched by religion? Veganism, fasting, wearing hats, wearing pants, not wearing pants, underwear, appreciating trees, eating bread, drinking wine, not drinking wine, eating fruit.... Religion has commented on every aspect of human life, because some humans do religion.

I am reminded of the rather dismissive aphorism: "Show me an atheist and I'll show you the God he doesn't believe in."

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