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Comment by darrelld | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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