Hacker News Reader

Comment by scorpioxy | Hacker News Reader

Here's my issue with meditation. There's no guide to what progress should look like. As in, everything I read says you shouldn't have any expectations and to just do it and there's a lot of benefit in it. I get that, I've been doing it for over a year now regularly but how can I know if it has any effects whatsoever?

Since I suspect there might be other techniques than focusing on the breath or body scans, I try to follow different guided meditations. After my session, i feel relaxed and my mind slow but efficient. Like getting up after a good nap.

But so does working out at the gym, sort of. Over there, however, you can directly see progress. With meditation...

Perhaps I am looking at this in the wrong way?

View on HN

Hopefully this doesn't seem an obvious response, but to my mind there seems to be at least two schools of thought regarding meditation. These schools are not mutually exclusive, FWIW.

One school seems to see meditation as an end to itself, the other as a tool towards some other end. I can't speak to the former, but for the latter - one approach you could follow is to identify experts who have written on the area of improvement and who prescribe meditation as a tool. For example, if you're using meditation to improve willpower, then a book on willpower will help you identify whether your meditation techniques are improving your willpower [1].

[1] For example, "The Willpower Instinct" (K. McGonigal) discusses the use of meditation to improve willpower, as well as the 'state of the art' on the subject, so it provides you with some tools you can use to evaluate whether you're making improvements or not

I really like Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha[1]. He spends a lot of time describing different "maps", which are models of progression. (He talks about many other things too. It's more than just a meditation guide.)

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Core-Teachings-Buddha-Unusua...

There are measurable results in meditation, you just need to know what they are and the proper technique to get there. The problem with meditation is that it's not being taught right, plus there are many variations of it.

If you are seriously looking to incorporate meditation in your daily life then get "Focused and Fearless" book and follow all instructions and exercises as they are taught. You will see measurable results.

Disclaimer: I'm only speaking of my own perspective and goals.

Meditation has been about a lot more than just feeling relaxed. It's been about gaining insight into how my mind works and gaining some measure of control over my thoughts. That awareness and control (mindfulness) extends to the rest of my non-meditating life - whether I'm on a tennis court or at my computer.

Because of meditation, I feel more in the present and less caught up in thoughts that would typically trap me thinking about the past or daydreaming about the future.

Despite the benefits I've seen from it, I know I have only scratched the surface. For example, I haven't experienced a strong "loss of self" that some meditation gurus describe.

If you want a "runged ladder" of some kind of progress, try the four levels of jhana. There are lots of published guides, for example "Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English", various works of Shaila Catherine, etc.

In a way meditation can be seen as a form of play. When you were a kid, did you ask yourself at the end of a day: Did I play successfully today? Did I get better at playing? Chances are you did not. Yet you gained experiences from playing which perhaps an activity that allows to measure some sort of progress can't provide.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com