4 ms·

I would think a seasoned meditator could handle very high stress situations just fine. If you're meditating just to lower stress, you're doing it wrong. It's su

I would think a seasoned meditator could handle very high stress situations just fine. If you're meditating just to lower stress, you're doing it wrong. It's supposed to change your relationship to your own thoughts and emotions, your sense of identity, etc, so that you don't shut down in the face of stress and pain. Stress and pain are a necessary part of life; your resistance to them is what causes your suffering. Basic meditation stuff.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
You'd think so, but I know a lot of guys like this. They buy into the "lifestyle" of calm or spirituality and they become divas of sorts. Anything that ruins their calm becomes an issue. Like any hobby it becomes overpowering obsessive and competitive. Turns out meditation/religion/spirituality doesn't actually change human nature. Hell, read /r/meditation sometime and see the subtle poking they do at each other. Its hilarious to read comments with a very arrogant and commanding tone about how modest and ego free they are. I think you're playing up a 'no true scotsman' card here. I think most, if not all, people into meditation and spirituality become like this. If this stuff worked like magic, everyone would be doing it. It turns out it has a lot of downsides and often changes people for the worse. Maybe in some 'spiritual' way they're better people, but they still need to work with the real world and they seem pretty terrible at it. The guys I see losing their shit in public aren't poor people with bad social skills, but upper/middle class men and women who felt their entitlements challenged. One of those entitlements is feeling 'chill' about things. The woman doing yoga and meditation everyday is also the woman screaming at the kid at subway for not putting on enough olives on her sandwich. I've pressed these people before and I usually get a "I can't deal with unspiritual people" excuse. Its incredible how the cult of calm brings out the worst of people. I'm not even going to go into how this lifestyle is linked with things like anti-vax, reiki healing, crazy diets, cleanses, homeopathy, etc and other questionable things that can, and do, victimize children. I think the idea that all meditators, or even those who do it 'correctly', become some kind of super-being to be pretty silly. Its obvious the effect it has is pretty subtle and the kind of people who buy into it are often insufferable and pretentious. I think its okay to learn as a quick-ish stress reducer, but the idea of a daily hour-long practice and all the accoutrements surrounding it is fairly absurd and leads to pretty stupid places.
- ZeroFries 10y ago
  I think you're describing New-Age cultists and not serious, pragmatic Buddhists, for example. Calmness is not enforced, passion can and does arise, but one is not attached to calmness nor passion. They simply come and go. This is meditation.
  - tripzilch 10y ago
    You can even do meditation properly without buying into Buddhism. Although you're not going to avoid running into it entirely, so at some point you'll find someone talking to you about silly religious stuff like "prevent suffering to all living beings, animal, plant and mineral" :-) (even though the "prevent suffering" idea has some real interesting and beautiful implications, when they add "and mineral", it's like they played too much 20-questions or something)
- westoncb 10y ago
  It seems like the premise of your complaint is that there isn't a way do it correctly/incorrectly, therefore all practitioners can be classed together and the practice in general may be dismissed if any of its followers exhibit undesirable and related properties. But you never give an argument for why there would be no variation in instruction, actual execution of practice, background ideologies, etc. > I'm not even going to go into how this lifestyle is linked with things like anti-vax, reiki healing, crazy diets, cleanses, etc Meanwhile, that comment makes it clear that you are speaking of a very particular subset of practitioners. You are referring to a New Age-derived subculture here: their attributes aren't derived from practicing meditation, they probably practice some form of meditation because their subculture values it (i.e. by labeling themselves meditators, they gain cultural currency. There is incentive to exploit the practice for social purposes to begin with). There are also many other practitioners who view meditation as totally unrelated to anything like spirituality, who understand its operation in purely psychological terms. And there are solemnly religious folks who take it very seriously and probably do not cavalierly exploit it for social gain as you describe.
- squeaky-clean 10y ago
  > If this stuff worked like magic, everyone would be doing it. It works like magic the same way exercising works like magic to build you muscles. Or in other words, it's not magic, and takes a long time and a lot of self discipline. That's why everyone isn't doing it.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago

You'd think so, but I know a lot of guys like this. They buy into the "lifestyle" of calm or spirituality and they become divas of sorts. Anything that ruins their calm becomes an issue. Like any hobby it becomes overpowering obsessive and competitive. Turns out meditation/religion/spirituality doesn't actually change human nature. Hell, read /r/meditation sometime and see the subtle poking they do at each other. Its hilarious to read comments with a very arrogant and commanding tone about how modest and ego free they are. I think you're playing up a 'no true scotsman' card here. I think most, if not all, people into meditation and spirituality become like this. If this stuff worked like magic, everyone would be doing it. It turns out it has a lot of downsides and often changes people for the worse. Maybe in some 'spiritual' way they're better people, but they still need to work with the real world and they seem pretty terrible at it. The guys I see losing their shit in public aren't poor people with bad social skills, but upper/middle class men and women who felt their entitlements challenged. One of those entitlements is feeling 'chill' about things. The woman doing yoga and meditation everyday is also the woman screaming at the kid at subway for not putting on enough olives on her sandwich. I've pressed these people before and I usually get a "I can't deal with unspiritual people" excuse. Its incredible how the cult of calm brings out the worst of people. I'm not even going to go into how this lifestyle is linked with things like anti-vax, reiki healing, crazy diets, cleanses, homeopathy, etc and other questionable things that can, and do, victimize children. I think the idea that all meditators, or even those who do it 'correctly', become some kind of super-being to be pretty silly. Its obvious the effect it has is pretty subtle and the kind of people who buy into it are often insufferable and pretentious. I think its okay to learn as a quick-ish stress reducer, but the idea of a daily hour-long practice and all the accoutrements surrounding it is fairly absurd and leads to pretty stupid places.

ZeroFries 10y ago
I think you're describing New-Age cultists and not serious, pragmatic Buddhists, for example. Calmness is not enforced, passion can and does arise, but one is not attached to calmness nor passion. They simply come and go. This is meditation.
- tripzilch 10y ago
  You can even do meditation properly without buying into Buddhism. Although you're not going to avoid running into it entirely, so at some point you'll find someone talking to you about silly religious stuff like "prevent suffering to all living beings, animal, plant and mineral" :-) (even though the "prevent suffering" idea has some real interesting and beautiful implications, when they add "and mineral", it's like they played too much 20-questions or something)
westoncb 10y ago
It seems like the premise of your complaint is that there isn't a way do it correctly/incorrectly, therefore all practitioners can be classed together and the practice in general may be dismissed if any of its followers exhibit undesirable and related properties. But you never give an argument for why there would be no variation in instruction, actual execution of practice, background ideologies, etc. > I'm not even going to go into how this lifestyle is linked with things like anti-vax, reiki healing, crazy diets, cleanses, etc Meanwhile, that comment makes it clear that you are speaking of a very particular subset of practitioners. You are referring to a New Age-derived subculture here: their attributes aren't derived from practicing meditation, they probably practice some form of meditation because their subculture values it (i.e. by labeling themselves meditators, they gain cultural currency. There is incentive to exploit the practice for social purposes to begin with). There are also many other practitioners who view meditation as totally unrelated to anything like spirituality, who understand its operation in purely psychological terms. And there are solemnly religious folks who take it very seriously and probably do not cavalierly exploit it for social gain as you describe.
squeaky-clean 10y ago
> If this stuff worked like magic, everyone would be doing it. It works like magic the same way exercising works like magic to build you muscles. Or in other words, it's not magic, and takes a long time and a lot of self discipline. That's why everyone isn't doing it.