11 ms·

Ten years of trying to meditate

46 points by lpcrealmadrid 4y ago

hprotagonist 4y ago
> My practice changed significantly as I began mentioning it to some friends. “It is not good for people to be alone…”
- roydivision 4y ago
  My meditation is a very personal thing. I mention it to others but never in much detail. Being alone with myself is one of the aspects of meditation I value the most.
  - hprotagonist 4y ago
    Solitude during practice is not the same as abandonment of a community. Monks don't live alone; even hermits have (admittedly small) communities. You need the feedback loop.
    - bowsamic 4y ago
      Not true, in Tibetan Buddhism they have a strong tradition of solitary retreats in caves often for 9 years or more
      - hprotagonist 4y ago
        The majority of monsatics across the bulk of traditions live communally, and Tibetian Buddhists are no exception. The majority of monastic ascetic traditions include a small number of hermits, and Tibetian buddhists are no exception. Those hermits do, occasionally, see other people, and it is important.
      - mtalantikite 4y ago
        They'll often still interact with or encounter others during these long retreats though. Or, in Kukkuripa's case, at least their dog. [1] Some friends/teachers of mine will maybe do 2-4 weeks solitary each year, but sangha is still important. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukkuripa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukkuripa
meristohm 4y ago
> I cycled through these noticings. Just like on the beach a few years prior, for a moment I felt that there was no distinction between me, the train, the tunnel, and the space we were all moving through. Nothing to grip or hold on to. I like to imagine what the Earth and everything on it looks like to a neutrino. In the last few years or so I've been practicing letting go the compulsion to be doing Something Else in addition to the Main Thing I'm doing. For example: the urge to listen to a podcast while I'm doing the dishes. Among the worst is the urge to listen to music while I'm listening to music, or the desire to play a videogame while I'm reading a book to my child. Part of this change is because I don't want to break any more dishes for lack of attention, but also because attending to the Main Thing feels more valuable now in that if it doesn't require 100% focus my mind can wander, or just let the neutrinos stream through, and afterwards I appreciate the break.
runlaszlorun 4y ago
Great piece! I’ve had a rambling zen practice for over 20 years and little of it has been the tranquil, peaceful experience that people imply when they colloquially call something ‘zen’. But totally worth it. And as you rightly pointed out, the act of just noticing can be done in motion as well as at rest. Thx for sharing… Btw, I’m a big fan of Shinzen Young who has a secular/scientific(-ish) approach that combines various world traditions in a hybrid sorta MMA does with martial arts. https://www.shinzen.org/ https://www.shinzen.org/
- lpcrealmadrid 4y ago
  Love Shinzen! His Outline for Practice was fundamental in me discovering that there are different meditation maps that present different flavors of “progress”/“realization” https://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/AnOutlineOfPractice_ver2.5.pdf https://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/AnOutline...
- rippeltippel 4y ago
  Thank you for mentioning Shinzen Young, I didn't know about him and just checked his website. It looks like there's some crossover with Sam Harris' "Waking Up" [1], do you happen to know how they compare? [1] https://www.wakingup.com/ https://www.wakingup.com/
  - feanaro 4y ago
    Another resource that might appeal to the HN type is The Mind Illuminated, by John Yates (a.k.a. Culadasa).
MrMan 4y ago
I switched from meditation to contemplation. we are here to use our feeble brains not shut them off.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  The original form of meditation meant "to think" and the classical texts don't differentiate between "thinking" and "deeply meditating". I don't personally care for the spaced out kind of meditation. I tend to focus internally and deeply on something I want to explore or feel.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  I don’t think you understand meditation if you think it’s “shutting it off”. If anything it’s the opposite, radically opening it
- ewzimm 4y ago
  Contemplation is one use of our brains. It usually means focusing on an idea. Meditation can mean many different things, but in the mindfulness sense, it usually means engaging in awareness and observing metacognition instead of cognition. This usually means observing the flow of mind, body, feelings, and truth. It isn't a process of shutting down.
- RobRivera 4y ago
  We are here. without purpose. we ascribe purpose to our abilities and faculties by choice
bowsamic 4y ago
My biggest advice for anyone is to not ignore the traditional advice. Secular meditation practises based on Buddhist meditation take the practise out of its context in a quick and forceful way. Buddhism has had 2500 years to slowly develop and work out what works and what does not. It is quite dangerous to take it and call the parts that do not immediately appeal to the secular western mind, like devotion, worship, compassion, traditional forms & rituals, and cast them away. I personally know two people who went into severe psychosis and depression by trying to practise meditation in a secular context. Something about meditation attracts people that think they fully understand something before they’ve even tried it. This will get torn down by the practise, and if you do not have support in place, this quickly can result in extreme mental health problems. I always say that the effects of meditation can be like the head space of an lsd trip except you don’t come down. It’s hard to “unsee”, and a lot of this religious “backwards” Buddhist worldview and practise exists specifically to integrate these experiences
- sabellito 4y ago
  I'm going to call bs on your claim that you "personally know two people who went into severe psychosis and depression". Since we're in "my personal experience"-land, I've been meditating and have been around people who meditate daily for 26 years. Never seen or heard about anything close to what you describe.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Out of a study of about a thousand people who were asked to start a daily meditation process (with weekly check-ins), about 20% reported at least one negative episode. Now, that included everything from "feeling sad" to full blown panic attack. I'll see if I can dig up that particular study. Here is a similar one which tracked longterm meditators: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1428622/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1428622/ > However, of the twenty-seven subjects, seventeen (62.9%) reported at least one adverse effect, and two (7.4%) suffered profound adverse effects.
    - selykg 4y ago
weldedtogether 4y ago
Siddhartha is a fantastic book, it changed how I look at pain, love, and everything in-between. I recommend even if you're like me and don't want to meditate to read Siddhartha, it helped me step out of my own headspace into a way of thinking that actively tries to step further and further out from myself.
- ksd482 4y ago
  Can you please provide a link to the book? I searched and there seem to be several of them with the same name. Thanks!
  - Donckele 4y ago
    Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_(novel)
  - lpcrealmadrid 4y ago
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00UCI9ODE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr= https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00UCI9ODE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch... Really hope you enjoy it :)
  - throwaway7865 4y ago
    It’s also available for free on Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2500 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2500
- VladimirGolovin 4y ago
  Just wanted to add that Hermann Hesse is a wonderful writer, and that I thoroughly enjoyed his other works as well (except, for some reason, The Glass Bead Game).
zerop 4y ago
Meditation does help me to become less reactive. focus, observe thoughts but don't react to thoughts. Goal is to eventually become observer than reacter. When done consistently, the subsconcious mind will learn it. You overall stop reacting in-general.
puchatek 4y ago
I gave up after about 1,5 years which included a while year of almost daily body scans die about half an hour an even a full on Vipassana retreat. While my practice seemed to improve somewhat i simply didn't perceive any benefits within my psyche. It would not even calm me down. In the end it just didn't feel like it was worth the time investment. These days i will pay attention to my breath at times when i cannot fall asleep. And that's about it.
cm2012 4y ago
When I was 12-13 I used to have trouble falling asleep, since I'd be thinking of anything stressful from the day. I fixed it with a form of meditation - thinking about nothing was impossible, I forced myself to think of fantasies when I'm trying to go to sleep instead of anything real. It has worked well for me for 20 years.
- givemeethekeys 4y ago
  I fall asleep by thinking of me on the perfect beach at sunset with my best friend. Works like a charm.
titanomachy 4y ago
I was in a similar rut for a while. I had a sense that meditation could help me deal with various mental health issues, but I couldn't do it: I just spent my sessions being bored and annoyed with myself. I tried picking it up many times but never got momentum. After a few years of this I finally bit the bullet and went on a 10-day meditation retreat. ~12 hours a day of meditating, no books or talking or exercise. The first days were tough, all that boredom and irritation was still there and I had to sit with it for many, many hours. But I felt like I'd made a big commitment in going there, so I sat it out. The solidarity of a couple dozen other students going through the same thing helped a lot too, even if we weren't supposed to acknowledge each other's existence. On the third or fourth day a switch kind of flipped in my brain and it was no longer hard to sit perfectly still for an hour. At that point I guess I had learned the basic skill of meditating, and it's stuck with me. As long as I'm somewhere reasonably quiet and distraction-free I can get back into that state within a few minutes. Also, as a side note, some of the Buddhist philosophy was also helpful. I originally perceived mental illness as similar to physical disease: people are generally healthy, and sometimes there's something wrong with you that needs to be treated and corrected, usually by a doctor of some kind. In Buddhism the script is flipped: existence is suffering by default, and most people require some kind of deliberate work to come to terms with their own existence. I get that it won't resonate with everyone, but in my case it helped a lot to view what I was going through as a manifestation of ordinary human suffering rather than some special, unusually intractable mental health condition. EDIT: Also, shit gets intense when you keep ratcheting up your concentration and introspection. Getting past the boredom and being able to sit still for an hour is just a first step.
- rebelos 4y ago
  What was your level of practice before going into the retreat? Did you go in 'cold'? What would you recommend for people who are considering it?
  - titanomachy 4y ago
    Pretty much cold, yeah. I'd meditated 10-20 minutes occasionally over a few years but never kept up a habit for more than a week. I didn't read very much on the subject either, although I did read Sam Harris's "waking up", which is what convinced me that a retreat was the best way to learn meditation. I'd recommend trying to find a place with qualified teachers. I went to a Goenka retreat (i.e. dhamma.org) and there were some weird things about it: all the teaching was done through 30-year recordings of a guy who's been dead for 10 years. The facilitators actually present at the retreat were his "assistant teachers", and in my case they didn't seem to have a lot of expertise. They seemed to be following Goenka's script and were reluctant to deviate. I think everyone there really meant well and had no ulterior motives, but there were cult-y vibes nonetheless. If you can put up with that and are willing to work through difficulties largely on your own then maybe I'd recommend it. I had a great experience, in the end. The food and facilities were also quite nice. Also, I had some intense experiences that I would have thought were only possible with psychedelic drugs. It really scared me at one point: I was sure I was losing my mind. I almost asked to be taken to a hospital and put on antipsychotics. I think there is a chance that if I had done that, things would have gone very badly for me. The other people on the retreat with me apparently did not have experiences like this. But it's not unique to me. [1] Just go into it with an appreciation that you're attempting something significant and powerful and probably (at least for now) a bit outside of rational understanding. It was worthwhile for me. I had a hard time justifying taking 10 days away from everything, but ultimately I convinced myself that it would be exciting to spend 10 days doing something wildly different from what I've done basically every other day for the last couple of years. Variety of experience is a good thing, right? :) [1] https://www.brown.edu/research/labs/britton/research/varieties-contemplative-experience https://www.brown.edu/research/labs/britton/research/varieti...
akomtu 4y ago
"The book of the golden rules" is what you're looking for.
abeppu 4y ago
So for 10 years, the author read some books, occasionally did sitting meditation but only briefly and not getting anywhere, took no classes, got guidance from no teachers, did no retreats, etc, and ends the piece with a teaser for the next article/email. I feel like if someone wrote that they wanted to understand computation, and over the course of 10 years they read Godel Escher Bach and some Smullyan puzzles, and occasionally pulled up a python interpreter to play with stuff for minutes at a time, and each time got bored and gave up, we wouldn't find it especially interesting that they hadn't reached any deep and satisfying understanding. I'd like to be a better cook, and I read through Salt Fat Acid Heat and sometimes I try to make something more planned and effortful than I normally would, but over the past 10 years I have taken no cooking classes, made only sporadic efforts to learn more, and so I'm not surprised that my ability in the kitchen hasn't changed much. What you get out of an endeavor is related to what you put in. But if you have difficulty sticking with it, maybe introduce stuff in your life that helps you maintain that effort? My meditation practice was most consistent when I was doing a class that met weekly. In addition to guidance and instruction, there was always some component of sharing or discussing experiences, asking questions, etc. Even if it's not a "sangha" per se, having a regular, structured, social interaction attached to your practice can really help. As can having a more knowledgeable teacher, rather than just a pile of books.
- lpcrealmadrid 4y ago
  Author here. Yes exactly! Intellectually that is 100% correct. In practice, as many others in the discussion have remarked, sustaining a meditation practice past the initial barriers is hard (as is learning programming, btw). Everyone brings their own baggage. Mine was that I thought I should be able to do it all on my own. :shrugs: Not surprisingly, I had the same experience with computer science before finding a teacher + community. Thanks for your comment, not a fan of the snark but the content is great.
  - abeppu 4y ago
    > not a fan of the snark but the content is great In all seriousness, I think my snark was in reaction to my impression that the content was really lacking. It feels like the intent was more to bulk out content and cultivate an audience than actually help or usefully inform your readers. You described a very common problem at some length, and some things which _didn't_ resolve your search, and then without reaching a solution, you just tell us to come back next time for more content ... possibly but not necessarily including what actually helped you develop a practice. I empathize with the unsatisfying search. But I question the value of describing _only_ the unsatisfying portion of the search as a means to promote your next article.
borroka 4y ago
I have practiced Autogenic Training for years on and off; for the past two years I have been practicing it regularly. I have observed very positive effects on my life, particularly a growing sense of confidence and enjoyment in and for life. When physical and emotional tensions are let go, old memories come back vividly in my mind, new hopes emerge, and my life seems to be made up of fragments that, on the whole, seem to make sense. My tension headaches are gone, poof, vanished. Autogenic training is an easy practice, much easier than traditional meditation practices, the teachings of which are, at least to my Western mind, impenetrable. I have read quite a few books on meditation, breathing, jhanas (sp?), listened to practitioners and teachers, and for the life of me I cannot make sense of 95 percent of it. In part, I think, my confusion occurs because those teachings don't make a lot of sense, there is an intellectual short-circuit that causes people to create concepts and practices that don't make sense because they have to "chase" or follow or build on other concepts and practices that don't make a lot of sense. A vicious circle of nonsense. Something similar happens in martial arts. Movies and books showed the mystical and magical abilities of traditional martial arts practitioners: breathing, ki energy, horse postures, "watch how the eagle soars." I think, at least for Westerners, the pinnacle and climax was reached with Bruce Lee, who philosophized and kicked (but never on stage against other "experts") at the same time. And not with the brutal methods of Western boxing, but with a single finger. But, as we saw in mixed martial arts fights, empiricism-as usual and as expected-won out against magic, spirits and brutal training that made no sense; fighters who trained following empirical methods of training and fighting (develop the methods, test them, accept them if they work, abandon them if they don't) were throwing traditional martial arts practitioners out the proverbial window. I would encourage many of those who have tried traditional meditation for years and faced all sorts of problems, from losing months to developing pathological conditions, to try Autogenic Training instead: easy, rewarding, accessible. And it works.
- arunix 4y ago
  What is the recommended way to learn this?
  - borroka 4y ago
    There is little material in English, while much more is available in German, Italian, and Spanish. In English, I recommend "Autogenic Training. A Mind-Body Approach to the Treatment of Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Syndrome," by Micah R. Sadigh, Roberto Patarca Montero (Part II and Part III).

46 points by lpcrealmadrid 4y ago

hprotagonist 4y ago

> My practice changed significantly as I began mentioning it to some friends. “It is not good for people to be alone…”

roydivision 4y ago
My meditation is a very personal thing. I mention it to others but never in much detail. Being alone with myself is one of the aspects of meditation I value the most.
- hprotagonist 4y ago
  Solitude during practice is not the same as abandonment of a community. Monks don't live alone; even hermits have (admittedly small) communities. You need the feedback loop.
  - bowsamic 4y ago
    Not true, in Tibetan Buddhism they have a strong tradition of solitary retreats in caves often for 9 years or more
    - hprotagonist 4y ago
      The majority of monsatics across the bulk of traditions live communally, and Tibetian Buddhists are no exception. The majority of monastic ascetic traditions include a small number of hermits, and Tibetian buddhists are no exception. Those hermits do, occasionally, see other people, and it is important.
    - mtalantikite 4y ago
      They'll often still interact with or encounter others during these long retreats though. Or, in Kukkuripa's case, at least their dog. [1] Some friends/teachers of mine will maybe do 2-4 weeks solitary each year, but sangha is still important. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukkuripa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukkuripa

meristohm 4y ago

> I cycled through these noticings. Just like on the beach a few years prior, for a moment I felt that there was no distinction between me, the train, the tunnel, and the space we were all moving through. Nothing to grip or hold on to. I like to imagine what the Earth and everything on it looks like to a neutrino. In the last few years or so I've been practicing letting go the compulsion to be doing Something Else in addition to the Main Thing I'm doing. For example: the urge to listen to a podcast while I'm doing the dishes. Among the worst is the urge to listen to music while I'm listening to music, or the desire to play a videogame while I'm reading a book to my child. Part of this change is because I don't want to break any more dishes for lack of attention, but also because attending to the Main Thing feels more valuable now in that if it doesn't require 100% focus my mind can wander, or just let the neutrinos stream through, and afterwards I appreciate the break.

runlaszlorun 4y ago

Great piece! I’ve had a rambling zen practice for over 20 years and little of it has been the tranquil, peaceful experience that people imply when they colloquially call something ‘zen’. But totally worth it. And as you rightly pointed out, the act of just noticing can be done in motion as well as at rest. Thx for sharing… Btw, I’m a big fan of Shinzen Young who has a secular/scientific(-ish) approach that combines various world traditions in a hybrid sorta MMA does with martial arts. https://www.shinzen.org/ https://www.shinzen.org/

lpcrealmadrid 4y ago
Love Shinzen! His Outline for Practice was fundamental in me discovering that there are different meditation maps that present different flavors of “progress”/“realization” https://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/AnOutlineOfPractice_ver2.5.pdf https://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/AnOutline...
rippeltippel 4y ago
Thank you for mentioning Shinzen Young, I didn't know about him and just checked his website. It looks like there's some crossover with Sam Harris' "Waking Up" [1], do you happen to know how they compare? [1] https://www.wakingup.com/ https://www.wakingup.com/
- feanaro 4y ago
  Another resource that might appeal to the HN type is The Mind Illuminated, by John Yates (a.k.a. Culadasa).

MrMan 4y ago

I switched from meditation to contemplation. we are here to use our feeble brains not shut them off.

vorpalhex 4y ago
The original form of meditation meant "to think" and the classical texts don't differentiate between "thinking" and "deeply meditating". I don't personally care for the spaced out kind of meditation. I tend to focus internally and deeply on something I want to explore or feel.
bowsamic 4y ago
I don’t think you understand meditation if you think it’s “shutting it off”. If anything it’s the opposite, radically opening it
ewzimm 4y ago
Contemplation is one use of our brains. It usually means focusing on an idea. Meditation can mean many different things, but in the mindfulness sense, it usually means engaging in awareness and observing metacognition instead of cognition. This usually means observing the flow of mind, body, feelings, and truth. It isn't a process of shutting down.
RobRivera 4y ago
We are here. without purpose. we ascribe purpose to our abilities and faculties by choice

bowsamic 4y ago

My biggest advice for anyone is to not ignore the traditional advice. Secular meditation practises based on Buddhist meditation take the practise out of its context in a quick and forceful way. Buddhism has had 2500 years to slowly develop and work out what works and what does not. It is quite dangerous to take it and call the parts that do not immediately appeal to the secular western mind, like devotion, worship, compassion, traditional forms & rituals, and cast them away. I personally know two people who went into severe psychosis and depression by trying to practise meditation in a secular context. Something about meditation attracts people that think they fully understand something before they’ve even tried it. This will get torn down by the practise, and if you do not have support in place, this quickly can result in extreme mental health problems. I always say that the effects of meditation can be like the head space of an lsd trip except you don’t come down. It’s hard to “unsee”, and a lot of this religious “backwards” Buddhist worldview and practise exists specifically to integrate these experiences

sabellito 4y ago
I'm going to call bs on your claim that you "personally know two people who went into severe psychosis and depression". Since we're in "my personal experience"-land, I've been meditating and have been around people who meditate daily for 26 years. Never seen or heard about anything close to what you describe.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  Out of a study of about a thousand people who were asked to start a daily meditation process (with weekly check-ins), about 20% reported at least one negative episode. Now, that included everything from "feeling sad" to full blown panic attack. I'll see if I can dig up that particular study. Here is a similar one which tracked longterm meditators: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1428622/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1428622/ > However, of the twenty-seven subjects, seventeen (62.9%) reported at least one adverse effect, and two (7.4%) suffered profound adverse effects.
  - selykg 4y ago

weldedtogether 4y ago

Siddhartha is a fantastic book, it changed how I look at pain, love, and everything in-between. I recommend even if you're like me and don't want to meditate to read Siddhartha, it helped me step out of my own headspace into a way of thinking that actively tries to step further and further out from myself.

ksd482 4y ago
Can you please provide a link to the book? I searched and there seem to be several of them with the same name. Thanks!
- Donckele 4y ago
  Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_(novel)
- lpcrealmadrid 4y ago
  https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00UCI9ODE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr= https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00UCI9ODE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch... Really hope you enjoy it :)
- throwaway7865 4y ago
  It’s also available for free on Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2500 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2500
VladimirGolovin 4y ago
Just wanted to add that Hermann Hesse is a wonderful writer, and that I thoroughly enjoyed his other works as well (except, for some reason, The Glass Bead Game).

zerop 4y ago

Meditation does help me to become less reactive. focus, observe thoughts but don't react to thoughts. Goal is to eventually become observer than reacter. When done consistently, the subsconcious mind will learn it. You overall stop reacting in-general.

puchatek 4y ago

I gave up after about 1,5 years which included a while year of almost daily body scans die about half an hour an even a full on Vipassana retreat. While my practice seemed to improve somewhat i simply didn't perceive any benefits within my psyche. It would not even calm me down. In the end it just didn't feel like it was worth the time investment. These days i will pay attention to my breath at times when i cannot fall asleep. And that's about it.

cm2012 4y ago

When I was 12-13 I used to have trouble falling asleep, since I'd be thinking of anything stressful from the day. I fixed it with a form of meditation - thinking about nothing was impossible, I forced myself to think of fantasies when I'm trying to go to sleep instead of anything real. It has worked well for me for 20 years.

givemeethekeys 4y ago
I fall asleep by thinking of me on the perfect beach at sunset with my best friend. Works like a charm.

titanomachy 4y ago

I was in a similar rut for a while. I had a sense that meditation could help me deal with various mental health issues, but I couldn't do it: I just spent my sessions being bored and annoyed with myself. I tried picking it up many times but never got momentum. After a few years of this I finally bit the bullet and went on a 10-day meditation retreat. ~12 hours a day of meditating, no books or talking or exercise. The first days were tough, all that boredom and irritation was still there and I had to sit with it for many, many hours. But I felt like I'd made a big commitment in going there, so I sat it out. The solidarity of a couple dozen other students going through the same thing helped a lot too, even if we weren't supposed to acknowledge each other's existence. On the third or fourth day a switch kind of flipped in my brain and it was no longer hard to sit perfectly still for an hour. At that point I guess I had learned the basic skill of meditating, and it's stuck with me. As long as I'm somewhere reasonably quiet and distraction-free I can get back into that state within a few minutes. Also, as a side note, some of the Buddhist philosophy was also helpful. I originally perceived mental illness as similar to physical disease: people are generally healthy, and sometimes there's something wrong with you that needs to be treated and corrected, usually by a doctor of some kind. In Buddhism the script is flipped: existence is suffering by default, and most people require some kind of deliberate work to come to terms with their own existence. I get that it won't resonate with everyone, but in my case it helped a lot to view what I was going through as a manifestation of ordinary human suffering rather than some special, unusually intractable mental health condition. EDIT: Also, shit gets intense when you keep ratcheting up your concentration and introspection. Getting past the boredom and being able to sit still for an hour is just a first step.

rebelos 4y ago
What was your level of practice before going into the retreat? Did you go in 'cold'? What would you recommend for people who are considering it?
- titanomachy 4y ago
  Pretty much cold, yeah. I'd meditated 10-20 minutes occasionally over a few years but never kept up a habit for more than a week. I didn't read very much on the subject either, although I did read Sam Harris's "waking up", which is what convinced me that a retreat was the best way to learn meditation. I'd recommend trying to find a place with qualified teachers. I went to a Goenka retreat (i.e. dhamma.org) and there were some weird things about it: all the teaching was done through 30-year recordings of a guy who's been dead for 10 years. The facilitators actually present at the retreat were his "assistant teachers", and in my case they didn't seem to have a lot of expertise. They seemed to be following Goenka's script and were reluctant to deviate. I think everyone there really meant well and had no ulterior motives, but there were cult-y vibes nonetheless. If you can put up with that and are willing to work through difficulties largely on your own then maybe I'd recommend it. I had a great experience, in the end. The food and facilities were also quite nice. Also, I had some intense experiences that I would have thought were only possible with psychedelic drugs. It really scared me at one point: I was sure I was losing my mind. I almost asked to be taken to a hospital and put on antipsychotics. I think there is a chance that if I had done that, things would have gone very badly for me. The other people on the retreat with me apparently did not have experiences like this. But it's not unique to me. [1] Just go into it with an appreciation that you're attempting something significant and powerful and probably (at least for now) a bit outside of rational understanding. It was worthwhile for me. I had a hard time justifying taking 10 days away from everything, but ultimately I convinced myself that it would be exciting to spend 10 days doing something wildly different from what I've done basically every other day for the last couple of years. Variety of experience is a good thing, right? :) [1] https://www.brown.edu/research/labs/britton/research/varieties-contemplative-experience https://www.brown.edu/research/labs/britton/research/varieti...

akomtu 4y ago

"The book of the golden rules" is what you're looking for.

abeppu 4y ago

So for 10 years, the author read some books, occasionally did sitting meditation but only briefly and not getting anywhere, took no classes, got guidance from no teachers, did no retreats, etc, and ends the piece with a teaser for the next article/email. I feel like if someone wrote that they wanted to understand computation, and over the course of 10 years they read Godel Escher Bach and some Smullyan puzzles, and occasionally pulled up a python interpreter to play with stuff for minutes at a time, and each time got bored and gave up, we wouldn't find it especially interesting that they hadn't reached any deep and satisfying understanding. I'd like to be a better cook, and I read through Salt Fat Acid Heat and sometimes I try to make something more planned and effortful than I normally would, but over the past 10 years I have taken no cooking classes, made only sporadic efforts to learn more, and so I'm not surprised that my ability in the kitchen hasn't changed much. What you get out of an endeavor is related to what you put in. But if you have difficulty sticking with it, maybe introduce stuff in your life that helps you maintain that effort? My meditation practice was most consistent when I was doing a class that met weekly. In addition to guidance and instruction, there was always some component of sharing or discussing experiences, asking questions, etc. Even if it's not a "sangha" per se, having a regular, structured, social interaction attached to your practice can really help. As can having a more knowledgeable teacher, rather than just a pile of books.

lpcrealmadrid 4y ago
Author here. Yes exactly! Intellectually that is 100% correct. In practice, as many others in the discussion have remarked, sustaining a meditation practice past the initial barriers is hard (as is learning programming, btw). Everyone brings their own baggage. Mine was that I thought I should be able to do it all on my own. :shrugs: Not surprisingly, I had the same experience with computer science before finding a teacher + community. Thanks for your comment, not a fan of the snark but the content is great.
- abeppu 4y ago
  > not a fan of the snark but the content is great In all seriousness, I think my snark was in reaction to my impression that the content was really lacking. It feels like the intent was more to bulk out content and cultivate an audience than actually help or usefully inform your readers. You described a very common problem at some length, and some things which _didn't_ resolve your search, and then without reaching a solution, you just tell us to come back next time for more content ... possibly but not necessarily including what actually helped you develop a practice. I empathize with the unsatisfying search. But I question the value of describing _only_ the unsatisfying portion of the search as a means to promote your next article.

borroka 4y ago

I have practiced Autogenic Training for years on and off; for the past two years I have been practicing it regularly. I have observed very positive effects on my life, particularly a growing sense of confidence and enjoyment in and for life. When physical and emotional tensions are let go, old memories come back vividly in my mind, new hopes emerge, and my life seems to be made up of fragments that, on the whole, seem to make sense. My tension headaches are gone, poof, vanished. Autogenic training is an easy practice, much easier than traditional meditation practices, the teachings of which are, at least to my Western mind, impenetrable. I have read quite a few books on meditation, breathing, jhanas (sp?), listened to practitioners and teachers, and for the life of me I cannot make sense of 95 percent of it. In part, I think, my confusion occurs because those teachings don't make a lot of sense, there is an intellectual short-circuit that causes people to create concepts and practices that don't make sense because they have to "chase" or follow or build on other concepts and practices that don't make a lot of sense. A vicious circle of nonsense. Something similar happens in martial arts. Movies and books showed the mystical and magical abilities of traditional martial arts practitioners: breathing, ki energy, horse postures, "watch how the eagle soars." I think, at least for Westerners, the pinnacle and climax was reached with Bruce Lee, who philosophized and kicked (but never on stage against other "experts") at the same time. And not with the brutal methods of Western boxing, but with a single finger. But, as we saw in mixed martial arts fights, empiricism-as usual and as expected-won out against magic, spirits and brutal training that made no sense; fighters who trained following empirical methods of training and fighting (develop the methods, test them, accept them if they work, abandon them if they don't) were throwing traditional martial arts practitioners out the proverbial window. I would encourage many of those who have tried traditional meditation for years and faced all sorts of problems, from losing months to developing pathological conditions, to try Autogenic Training instead: easy, rewarding, accessible. And it works.

arunix 4y ago
What is the recommended way to learn this?
- borroka 4y ago
  There is little material in English, while much more is available in German, Italian, and Spanish. In English, I recommend "Autogenic Training. A Mind-Body Approach to the Treatment of Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Syndrome," by Micah R. Sadigh, Roberto Patarca Montero (Part II and Part III).