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Comment by Buttons840 | Hacker News Reader

> The aim of these programs is to equip youth with skills to prevent mental disorders and enhance overall well-being.

The way I learned mindfulness meditation, you should not expect it to accomplish anything specific. I listened to a course and found the ideas new and helpful, it was so life changing that I went further and studied some Buddhist philosophy, but further studied brought some anxiety and so I stopped. My current attitude is that I got what I could from it, but won't study it further.

I don't think mindfulness should be viewed as any better than other life strategies.

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I find the Waking Up app the closest to this. Others like headspace feel heavily commercialised, with an aim of improving “productivity”. If anyone is looking for guided meditation, I suggest checking out waking up.

I dont think the original series of guided meditations from the headspace founder was aimed at productivity. From what I remember, it's a pretty typical breath- and bodyscan-centered vipassana style. I can't comment on any of the subsequent instructors or lessons though, haven't tried them

> Others like headspace feel heavily commercialised

The one you pointed to is $130 a year.

Their point is that Headspace seems to sell meditation a bit more as a means to optimizing one’s life, while Waking Up sells meditation more abstractly, as a means to more fully live one’s life.

The app is free (or heavily discounted) for those that can’t pay. Nor do they seem to optimize conversion flows, run ads, or pursue growth as aggressively as Headspace has.

The Waking Up app has up to a 100% scholarship rate for the subscription with no questions asked (you can pick your rate if you so choose).

Their philosophy on monetization is that they don't want anyone who can't afford it to be excluded, but are still putting out a valuable service and it's fair to charge money for it.

I'm a very happy paying user of the app, and I deeply appreciate their willingness to give it away to people who can't afford it.

I had a similar thing happen in my meditation practice early on, and gave it up for many years after because of the anxiety. I eventually got back to it and found a lot of insight from Thich Nhay Hanh’s translation of the Heart Sutra. My teacher likes to point out that encountering the extreme anxiety or dread is actually a good sign, that it’s a natural reaction of your ego or sense of self trying to protect itself. But it’s probably best to be working with a teacher when you’re at that point, just to avoid needless confusion and to move past that anxiety or fear.

You also definitely want to accomplish something specific in your practice, namely to move past suffering. The first step of any formal meditation session is to bring up your motivation for sitting in the first place.

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