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Comment by MadWombat | Hacker News Reader

> Take things too personally? Try meditating.

How would it help?

I've found meditation to give me perspective on things. It gives your brain a chance to slow down and reflect.

The effects of meditation tend to last well beyond the initial mediation session and seep into your day to day interactions.

I used to take everything personally and be paranoid about everything all the time and meditation helped with that.

YMMV.

The problem I have with statements like the one commented on is that there is no such thing as "meditation". There is a whole bunch of very different techniques from a whole bunch of different cultures that are all called meditation and the only thing they have in common is that it is a mental exercise of some sort. But considering how different these techniques are, it would be strange to expect them to provide any kind of common effect, like making you take things less personally. It also makes phrases like "I meditate every day" and "You should try meditation" meaningless. Consider spiritual exercises of Ignatius Loyola and compare them, say, to a Sufi Zikr and to a Hatha Yoga practice. All three are most definitely meditation practices, so when you say "you should meditate" do you mean I should drop on my knees and pray to Jesus, gather a bunch of guys and run in cicles singing in arabic or do a downward dog? And do you think any one of these would help me take things less personally?

I think it's fair to say that "try meditating" can be a vague suggestion, especially for those who don't know much about meditation. But I have to ask, are you having these doubts because you actually want to try meditation but don't know where to start? Or do you simply not want to try it? I ask because while there are indeed tons of different ways to meditate, they usually converge on a very specific set of themes and practices.

I recommend reading The Mind Illuminated by Yates if you're seriously looking to start. I find it to be a good resource for technical people.

Not any kind of meditation, but some meditation practices allow you to see sensations and experiences in their own context rather than only by how you may be involved within them.

For example Satipatthana - or "mindfulness" looks at phenomena starting from sensory experiences in order to prevent cravings or aversion.

Cravings and aversion come from how you react to things you may find desirable or undesirable.

The desirableness and undesirableness are connected to you.

When you are able to reduce cravings or aversion in whatever way, you also affect how you relate to these events, and may also aid in not taking things personally.

Vipassana, another practice, guides you to see the impermanence of all things, as well as how your sensations and emotions are coming from natural phenomena rather than from this object you may call "yourself". By understanding the origin of how these relate a bit deeper, you can see better how there is no need to label a thing as "I" necessarily to be involved in any of this.

To credit my understanding a bit; I have studied and practiced western mindfulness, Satipatthana and Vipassana for years, as well as Buddhism in general.

Thank you so much, you are one of the very few people I have met online who acknowledges that "meditation" is not a single practice.

That said, I am not sure I understand what you mean when you say "cravings and aversion come from how you react to things you may find desirable or undesirable". It seems kinda meaningless, like yeah, I feel aversion when I don't want things to happen and yes, things I don't want to happen are undesirable to me. And yes, desirableness and undesirableness are, of course, connected to me, it is me who decides which things are desirable or undesirable to me.

Like, lets say I fall into sewage treatment tank. Drowning in shit is an undesirable thing and I feel a great aversion to it. And yes, it is me, personally, who finds drowning in shit undesirable, the undesirableness of this outcome is connected to me very directly. But I do not see how meditation might help me.

For cravings and aversion, the practice helps one to balance the impact of the effects. Knowing what is desirable and undesirable is one thing. To what extent do you suffer from craving or aversion is another.

Let's say you do fall into a sewage treatment tank one day. That day will be bad, that is acceptable and expected. However, if you identify with that experience and let it shape your life so that you feel awful every time you go to the toilet, that is not fine.

With Vipassana meditation, one learns to let go of the thoughts as much as one can while meditating. This, psychologically, teaches you not to ruminate on the experiences.

On the other hand, for the desire aspect, you may deeply wish for good things to continue and that if you do not have them you will be incomplete. You would be happy as long as you have that good thing, but when the time comes and the good thing is no longer there, you may suffer a lot. By seeing the impermanence of things you may be able to enjoy the good thing more without attaching yourself to it, and identifying with it, in terms like "I deserve this" or "this is mine" or "I must have done something bad, that is why this thing is going away". Seeing that both good and bad things come and go lets you go with the flow of the river easier rather than trying to hold on to a sharp rock.

My guess is it hinders the mind's ability to react negatively as quickly and allow mental processes to do their thing, so to speak, more objectively. IE: not jumping to conclusions.

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