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Comment by papaf | Hacker News Reader

As a counter to this I have stopped daily meditation (2 hours a day Vipassana) after about 7 years of practice because I hit a rut where it didn't seem to be improving things. I certainly remained calm through all the years but cannot honestly say that it made me a happier person.

I was certainly content with the results at first but after much serious practice I found it less and less effective. I'd recommend most people to try serious meditation but think that its important to manage expectations - a tiny proportion of Westerners that start with meditation feel enough benefit to continue it for the following years.

In my own experience, Yoga had more noticeable effects and a better 'buzz' - this as someone that also gave up Yoga a few years ago. The advantage of Yoga is that you also feel healthy. I hope fight off my current laziness and restart Yoga again.

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I'm still not clear why you stopped though. Was it not enjoyable? You say you remained calm during these 7 years, is that not enough? You say it was less and less effective - effective at what?

Were you seeking something that you eventually felt you couldn't obtain? Did you try other forms of meditation?

Vipassana is certainly not enjoyable. Its hard work. It made me a much calmer person and the effects continue even though I have stopped - so I have no hesitation recommending it to people.

However, over the last few years, I felt it hasn't made me a happier person and that was my main reason for doing it. Two hours a day is also a significant time commitment.

I tried other meditation practices but Vipassana was by far the most deep and effective for me.

The Goenka folks say that the 2 hours pays itself off in increased productivity. Do you find that to be false?

In my experience that isn't always true. However, I know some meditators who are very active and multitask very well. Unfortunately, I am not one of them.

From your phrasing, I assume you're talking about the physical postures (asanas) when you say yoga. The physical postures are a part of yoga, but yoga is a more complete system including meditation and other practices. Of course everyone has their own ideas about what constitutes yoga, if you ask 10 different people, you'll probably get 10 different answers, but I think it's important to understand that yoga is a whole system of interdependent practices designed and tuned over a very long period of time. In my opinion, the meditation practices are the main or major vehicle of yoga with the rest of the practices providing the necessary support to be able to attain a "higher" or "deeper" level of meditation.

That's not to say you can't focus on one part, and if you feel you're benefiting from just the postures, then more power to you and good luck.

My point isn't to say my definition of yoga is the correct view, but I think it's a shame that many people misunderstand yoga as being simply a form of physical postures.

From my understanding of Vipassana meditation, it's not about the 'buzz' or feeling happier and more relaxed. Those are side effects. Vipassana is mindfulness meditation. It's about becoming more aware. It's about fully immersing yourself in reality, difficulties and all.

As far as I understand it you're exactly right. However, given the choice between awareness or a 'buzz' I'd currently choose the 'buzz'.

Have you had a look at Unlearning Meditation?

http://www.unlearningmeditation.com/

You'll start again when you're ready.

That's a shitty thing to say.

I don't follow.

To quote the book (Mindfulness in Plain English) that was earlier recommended in this thread and in the article:

"Meditation is not some mindless formula which gives automatic and predictable results. You can never really predict exactly what will come up in any particular session. It is an investigation and experiment and an adventure every time. In fact, this is so true that when you do reach a feeling of predictability and sameness in your practice, you use that as an indicator. It means that you have gotten off the track somewhere and you are headed for stagnation."

I can't really know if this is the reason why you felt like you had hit a rut - Just had to leave this comment for your consideration :)

Interesting, as I've been doing Vipassana meditation off and on for the past ten years and only really started feeling that I was getting somewhere in the last year. One thing that helped a lot is that I read the book "The Power of Now."

If a person lifted weights for 7 years and never became stronger I would guess he was doing it wrong[lifting too much, lifting too little, not increasing intensity, etc]. If a person meditates for 7 years and can sees no effect...

Lifting weights with the proper diet will give results. That is a biological fact.

Is mediating leading to a better life a scientific fact?

The scientific fact is it changes how your brain works, it's obvious on a brain scanner. That's when they scanned experienced monks, champion meditators.

A better life is something else though, hard to quantify.

An important question and I'm not sure why you were downvoted into oblivion:

Yes.

Quick link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_on_meditation

There's a lot of research results on mindfulness meditation not covered in the WP article, and WP doesn't cover the methodology well.

Baer (2003) is, I think, the most highly cited survey of the theoretical & empirical evidence (not cited by the WP article), and has a good historical overview of research. The conclusion states that effects are comparable for depressive patients to cognitive behavioural therapy, whose effectiveness as a therapy for depression is well-established (and incidentally, much more effective than Prozac). The effectiveness for relief of distress from chronic pain is also attested.

Kabat-Zinn, cited by Baer, is probably the most accessible scientist writing for a popular audience on this.

---------- Reference

Ruth Baer (2003) Mindfulness training as a clinical intervention: A conceptual and empirical review http://www.wisebrain.org/papers/MindfulnessPsyTx.pdf

UP TO SOME POINT. If you think you will be lifting weight for 80 years and look bigger than someone that does that for 30, you wrong.

same goes with yoga.

For almost any man that point will be beyond 7 years.

There is a link the article to the study he mentions: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-mindfulness-meditation-b...

I think he is saying he hit a plateau. At some point, lifting weights, you stop growing bigger. You're never going to be the size of the moon.

I realize that. It's very common, especially for people who do not have a teacher/community to guide them. papaf didn't give many details so I can't really say much more.

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