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Comment by NalNezumi | Hacker News Reader

I think a lot of people put too much pressure on themselves when it comes to the advice "writing your thoughts down". Perfectionism, or the memories of being forced to take notes in school, kicks in and you start to look for how-to:s, format and guides.

Very similar to meditation. The best meditation advice I got was to just sit down, focus on doing nothing and be OK with being bored. Not some breathing techniques, how to focus your mind, posture etc. That comes later, very naturally, after you get curious about improvements.

Same goes for writing down thoughts. Just take a blank A4 paper from the printer and write away. Not sure what to write? Write about that, the fact that you're not sure what to write. Throw the paper away if you don't like the thoughts you see, or at least do it with that mindset. It's not about writing something novel, just as meditating is not about reaching some enlightenment

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> Very similar to meditation. The best meditation advice I got was to just sit down, focus on doing nothing and be OK with being bored.

Similarly, no matter how much instruction I've gotten in meditation over the years, I still go back to Tilopa's advice all the time [1]. Just rest.

[1] https://unfetteredmind.org/tilopas-advice/

Nice!

In case you didn't know of them already, you might find the following books interesting;

1) Mind Training: The Great Collection translated by Thupten Jinpa.

2) Essential Mind Training translated by Thupten Jinpa - This is a subset from the above collection.

can't tell if this is satire or not

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong

Oh awesome! I have Atisha's lojong, and also Chogyam Trungpa's mind training (which is more of a commentary), but these look great. I'll definitely pick it up, thanks again!

There was an app or site I remember using that, every time you typed a sentence, it disappeared so that you only focused on the sentence in front of you. After you're done, you could export the entire document. I wonder if we could add some LLM features to that too.

I knew I remembered this app, but almost couldn't find it. Was it this one?

https://write.sonnet.io/

Hey hey, author of Enso (write.sonnet.io) here -- thanks for the mention! I actually wrote an article about a similar subject and shared it here yesterday:

https://untested.sonnet.io/Stream+of+Consciousness+Morning+N...

Before I graduated from college, my aunt gave me the book, The Artist's Way, which prescribes this basic task as you've described as the foundational exercise for creativity. The suggestion given was 3 pages a day no matter what.

Did you pick up the practice? If so, what are your thoughts after doing it for some time?

Not OP, but I went through the Artist's Way a while back and kept morning pages up for two or so years after it. I'd still probably do morning pages every day if I didn't move on to sitting at my piano in place of them (and would do both if I had time in the morning). So in that regard I think it was a success -- it got me back to having a healthy relationship with music making and artistic practice.

The content of the workbook at places doesn't totally resonate with me, but I'd say there's enough in there that it's worth trying out. It definitely asks you to confront and reflect on a lot of things that have happened in your life, so it can be uncomfortable and bring up a lot. But that's of course an important part of art making.

I'd say just try it out, it's only 12 weeks and you can always bail if it doesn't work for you!

Bingo. The Morning Pages technique is also the cheapest therapy on the planet. The effect, for me anyways, is virtually identical to the catharsis I feel from a $200 therapy session.

Hi, I eat my own dogfood so to speak and built an app for stream of consciousness writing: https://enso.sonnet.io

I've been using it for 4 years, every day, every morning. We also have a small, but community of users using it regularly.

Finally, weirdly enough I wrote about morning notes, processing emotions through writing here: https://untested.sonnet.io/Stream+of+Consciousness+Morning+N...

Try taking an edible, sit down in a quiet room in front of your text editor of choice, and write down ideas.

The next day, look at the stuff you wrote and pick out the good stuff.

Which stock A4 should I use?

No one can be told which stock to use. Buy reams from at least 3 different manufacturers, take a random sample from each, and have a neutral third party number and randomize the specimens. Sharpen your pencil and write one full page, noting how the graphite glides against the wood fibers. Leave a margin of at least 3 centimeters, and if you must erase, use only natural rubber.

> Very similar to meditation. The best meditation advice I got was to just sit down, focus on doing nothing and be OK with being bored. Not some breathing techniques, how to focus your mind, posture etc. That comes later, very naturally, after you get curious about improvements.

Chilling != meditation. Like I get that chilling is helpful for you but words have meaning and that is not meditation.

Becoming able to tolerate boredom still could be a good step on the way to learning to meditate.

Chilling is not “doing nothing”. When people use that word they usually mean consuming content (listening to music, watching shows, reading book) or doing some other relaxing thing (knitting).

You’re right that words have meaning, and purposefully doing nothing at all to the point of being uncomfortable with it is antithetical to “chilling”.

OP says that:

> The best meditation advice I got was to just sit down, focus on doing nothing and be OK with being bored

Without any proper technique or guidance, this is just chilling. What does it mean to "focus on doing nothing here?". I can apply this sentence to binge watching 10 episodes of Friends, getting stoned, just slouching on the couch, staring at walls etc etc. That is what it means to chill.

OTOH, to meditate is a very explicit, focused action which requires technique and discipline.

Watching Netflix or getting stoned is clearly not doing nothing. If you take it literally then it becomes clear what is meant: just being, without indulging in anything, not even our thoughts. I agree this requires focus, but i don't think it requires technique but rather practice. As for discipline, i don't even know what that is

> I agree this requires focus, but i don't think it requires technique but rather practice.

Tell me how you would do this without a technique. Your mind wanders and a random thought appears, what do you do? Whatever you are going to say next is by definition a technique. The fact that there a multiple answers to this questions means that the problem is open to a variety of techniques that have a range of effectiveness. This implies teaching and guidance.

I guess I agree with you when you put it like this. I think I don't like the term "technique" here because it makes it sound as if there's something you need prior to starting meditating; as if there are some requirements to meditating; whereas I would argue meditation is not that different from the non-meditative state. Sure there are techniques like counting your breaths or body-scanning but I think this is all secondary to just sitting still and noticing whatever appears.

None of that is related to calling it “chilling”. It’s still not chilling even if you don’t have good techniques.

There is no one true meaning to the word meditation.

We can say there's real meditation, and we can discuss what that means to no end.

But simply the word meditation means different things depending on which stage you're at. The trick is not to be contrarian like you're coming off despite your probably best intentions, but rather to accurately assess what each meditator needs at their stage of the practice, and see how your words can propel them like the wind on a sail.

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