Hacker News Reader

Comment by jona-f | Hacker News Reader

Youtube? Imho meditation is basically the same. And playing an instrument has very similar effect to me and doesn't give me such "what kind of hokus pokus am i doing here?" vibes. If your friend doesn't like sounding bad, try a hang drum, everybody can make beautiful music with these right away. Guitar isn't hard too, learn a chord you like or 2 and go from there.

View on HN

How is meditation the same? Specifically guided meditation?

Hypnosis and meditation use very similar techniques to reach a very similar state of mind. I'd say that the main difference is that people talking about meditation usually come from a spiritual viewpoint, whereas hypnosis is more scientific.

It's also that meditation is usually observant and not goal-directed, or at least it's taught that way, while hypnosis is usually used to achieve a specific goal, which means the hypnotist is intentionally making an effort to influence the client.

I don’t know. A couple of very popular non-guided meditation practices are either about focusing on the breath or being mindful of the present. I’d say they are very different at least in the approach.

Based on your guitar and hocus-pocus comment I reckon that you know about as much about meditation (guitar or not) as a Chicken Soup For The Soul reader knows about theology.

> I'd say that the main difference

Is definitely the practices themselves.

Whatever, i think in the context of this article and depression, the suggestion to also check out meditation and especially musical instruments is solid advice. Surely I could have marked my subjective experience better like "TO ME these are basically the same." Your reckoning disqualifies you for further discussion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com