Changes to my life as a result of just four weeks of daily meditation
philosophistry.com
philosophistry.com
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.
Is mediating leading to a better life a scientific fact?
A better life is something else though, hard to quantify.
Yes.
Quick link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_on_meditation
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
same goes with yoga.
Were you seeking something that you eventually felt you couldn't obtain? Did you try other forms of meditation?
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.
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.
"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 :)
There are a number of methods people use including the one mentioned in the book, observing the breath at the nostrils, and any of them are ok. I personally find the chest and throat works best for me.
Another thing I found hugely helpful getting started (other than finding a sangha) was getting a sense of body. When you start to sit just feel your body, is it heavy, energetic, etc. Feel places your body is touching, the floor, the chair, etc and then slowly focus in on your breath.
A final piece of advice, try not to meditate on pain if you can help it. When you first start out sitting will probably hurt (that doesn't mean you should fidget or ignore it). However meditating on pain is actually pretty easy. You'll quickly realise that it makes everything else harder to meditate on because it is extremely intense so you less sensitive to other things. The solution is to spend a little time making sure you are sitting right or spending some session in seated meditation.
Contact details are on my profile. Feel free to ask me any questions. I've been practicing Theravada and Vipassana for a while.
First I misread this as "sedated meditation", which had me wondering: Does moderate alcoholic influence impair or improve a meditation session?
I know it may sound weird, but I find it tremendously easier to concentrate on and really understand heavy mathematical material after a glass of whisky or two.
The purpose of vipassana meditation is "awareness" and alcohol really gets in the way of that because it makes it hard to focus. This kind of meditation is an activity.
If you're set on experimenting with this sort of meditation practice, then I suppose you have to put up with a text like this (since it would be hard to find a good teacher as a novice).
Also, I agree with your first sentence. The language is often circular and muddy, however I still managed to get a lot out of it.
NSR emphasizes the importance of doing two sessions every day. After a couple of weeks on the program, I found that the stress of scheduling the meditation, combined with the stress of missing the occasional session (and hence, horror of horrors, not following the program), completely overwhelmed any stress-relieving benefits from the practice. I abandoned it within a month.
I'm not sharing this experience to show how much meditation sucks; I'm inclined to believe those who say meditation works wonders for them. I'd appreciate some advice from those who have faced and overcome the problems I've described—if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.
You might say how can you focus on not thinking during a rain, well like anything it takes practice--it won't happen over night.
When you run, you're usually not trying to focus on a thought in your head (although you can)... usually you're focused on the present experience - the pain, the pleasure, the runners high, the beauty of nature around you, etc.
However, any true runner here will tell you the thing that brings the greatest mental focus is pain. We LOVE pain. The greater the pain, the greater the pleasure. It's odd, but the more pain you experience the more you have to use every ounce of mental energy and focus (i.e. meditation) to overcome it.
That's why my easy runs almost always result in me picking up the pace and murdering the second half as compared to the first... There's something I just love about the pain and focus. Same with why when I've had a stressful day the first thing I want to do is just pound out a blistering pace on a treadmill. The pain gets your focus off everything else.
We runners are insane though, so if you're just into jogging, I'd suggest focusing on the beauty of nature and the present. When I manage to stick to a jog, usually I use it to just reflect on all that is good, thanking God just to be alive, for nature, etc... Helps to have existing cardio training so you can talk to yourself while jogging. If you do push the pace and get tired or feel pain, change it to a repetitive positive thought track like "I can do it" or something. Usually that's kinda in beat to my steps too. Each step closer you ultimately realize you can, in fact, do it! Feels great.
I do feel better about a breakup I had some time ago, but that might simply be because enough time has passed. Anyway in a moment of emotional pain, I concentrate on my breathing and close my eyes which puts me in meditation mode (because I got used to it) and I'm more or less able to remove thoughts about the pain and after I while I start thinking about something different and I do feel better. Sometimes when I really manage to clear my mind and think of nothing, it feels good. Partly because I'm glad I managed to do that :) In general, I must agree that the idea of being mindful of the present moment and not indulging into fantasies about the past or future are a good idea.
But still it's hard to find the 20 minutes a day. I might even say that meditation is a harder test for your willpower than physical excercise. Not to say that the 20 minutes are pretty boring, in the beginning anyway.
EDIT: So I'm a little confused about the benefits of meditation. If anyone more experienced has any tips, please share your ideas. Also, I'm probably going to visit a local buddhism center.
i don't mean to open a can of worms, but these two statements conflict with each other.
Dogma is a specific set of beliefs about the world. If he's only talking about empirically verifiable things (such as we all must die, etc), then it doesn't necessarily go into dogma.
His questioners in the book do sometimes bring up doctrine from their personal history, but Maharaj always responds directly from experience of reality.
Some are about introspecting about ideas, others are about letting go of them and focusing on a simple task (counting, breathing, flames, whatever).
Some of the latter type can really help with that stuff you are worrying about, as you will get better at removing yourself from that stuff.
Even though I last regularly meditated over a decade ago, I can still do the "just let it go" trick usually. Helps tons
Non aff link to book that talks about lots of techniques. I did the counting to 4 one: http://www.amazon.com/How-Meditate-Self-Discovery-Lawrence-L...
How so?
- I can easily manage stress
- I've improved my posture
- I've become more self-confident
- I don't have breasts anymore (I'm male)
- etc
It definitely can cause physical pain, but concussion generally isn't something you worry about with BJJ. That isn't to say that it's impossible, but I do believe the risk is SIGNIFICANTLY lower.
Arguably, BJJ works as a better self-defense art than boxing as well, though for it to be truly effective, you generally pair it with a striking art.
I'm not here to support professional boxing.
I still surf the Internet, but it's more focused, and less like bodysurfing through shit.
- Meditation is used in clinical situations specifically for paid and stress reduction. If you want sources for this there's of citations on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation
I tell this to everyone I know who "suffers" from stress, and I get some variation on the same response, "it's not that easy for me".
Actually, it is easy. It's 2011. Predators aren't chasing you across the savannah. You're not more than 3 days away from a source of potable water. You're not more than 7 days away from safe, nutritious, calorie dense food. You aren't in immediate danger of being washed away in a flood or dying of heatstroke in the desert or freezing to death.
Realize that your "stress" is so far removed from its genetic origins as to be laughable, realize how good you really have it, and enjoy life.
If we could all pull the Louis CK approach ("everything is great but no one is happy") we would. Unfortunately those mired in depression/anxiety cannot see the forest for the trees...otherwise they wouldn't be dealing with their problems.
EDIT: shit, totally meant to downvote you. Enjoy the free karma.
Realize that your "diagnosis" is based on absolute rather than relative terms; it's laughable.
This really isn't the place to try to dissolve a complex psychological subject in to such flippancy as "well life is so much better than back in hunter-gatherer days". If you wish to try to trivialise mental illnesses with unsourced off-the-cuff remarks then take it elsewhere; I've no interest in engaging you in the conversation.
It's 2011, your brain should do everything you command!
Turning something into a habit takes a lot of repetition so it's better to just get started with a modest objective so you can create a pattern of success.
They're only about an hour to 1.5 hours long, and there's only 6 of them. They are supposed to be spread over a 6 week period. So every week for six weeks, you need to find an hour to spend listening to the talk for that week.
You will be meditating during part of the talk. Other days, you will meditate 20-30 minutes. This is not a large time commitment, and since you're on HN, I'm guessing you'd be able to manage.
Good luck! The first two talks have been pretty nice so far.
You don't need to know more to get started.
I find a helpful illustration is a glass of champagne. the bubbles will keep appearing. note them, and allow them to float to the top, and dissipate. do not get upset with yourself when you find that they keep coming.
Who was/is your meditation teacher? I think I missed it from the article.
Why spend 30 minutes a day volunteering, working, or doing something else to benefit humanity, when you can spend it sitting on a pillow, indulging yourself in an act of inducing the all-powerful placebo effect to convince yourself that all the "stress" of an upper middle class American lifestyle can be magically washed away by breathing and thinking of fat bronze statues and waterfalls?
Hope these amazing changes to your life continue.
See also clitoral circumcision, death penalty for apostasy and homosexuality, and other popular cultural practices. There are many things that are widely believed and not true. The claimed benefits of meditation should be available to scientific scrutiny, so we can actually know one way or the other. No need for faith or appeal to common practice.
If the OP is able to turn his life around, become calmer, more understanding and more compassionate, his actions and interactions in the physical world would have an impact to all those around him and create a multiplier effect that is much more effective in the long run than just pure volunteering.
Next we'll be discussing horoscopes...