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TL;DR imagining yourself dying every day, meditating on it, will change your brain in a way that will make you a better person. This technique is about one thou

by efoto 9y ago

TL;DR imagining yourself dying every day, meditating on it, will change your brain in a way that will make you a better person. This technique is about one thousand years old.

titzer 9y ago
I love the pithy irony of this comment. Not sure if it was intentional.
heuan 9y ago
my tl;dr .... The author told us to do three things: 1 - Evaluate your good/bad actions, morning and evening. Makes you act according to your "standard" more. 2- Practice feeling bad about people in difficult situations. Makes you automatically have those feelings without practice (more empathetic). 3 - Blame something external for your boredom/listlessness. Makes you cope with it better. Last one seemed a bit odd tbh.
- erikb 9y ago
  I'm always surprised when I see another Western European religious movement that is so similar to Zen. Why do we look so far for solutions if we have some in our own history? But one thing I feel is lacking in most western movements: The handling of emptiness. If you really think about consequences of actions and how small one is compared to the whole, one cannot avoid realizing how meaningless and heartless the world is. Facing this void and not running away is one of the hardest challenges a human can cope with. We have a very deep desire to see some meaning in life, even if there isn't. Zen at least admits this and offers ways to interact with this void and one's own growing understanding of it. I think these monks don't because they simply assume the meaning is to show how good you are so you can receive redemption after death. So I think that would've been a great point three of the article instead of handling boredom, which in some way is also about handling the meaningless, but on a less deep understanding of it. If you are bored you still believe other people are doing meaningful things.
  - kybernetikos 9y ago
    > Zen at least admits this and offers ways to interact with this void and one's own growing understanding of it. I think these monks don't because they simply assume the meaning is to show how good you are so you can receive redemption after death. In the Christian tradition, it isn't how good you are that gives you redemption after death, it's a free gift from God that you can never be good enough to deserve. This is probably also why the Christian mystical tradition doesn't engage that much with the void and lack of meaning (although see Ecclesiastes), since a Christian believes that fundamentally there is a huge amount of meaning to life that comes from relationship with God.
    - riffraff 9y ago
      > In the Christian tradition, it isn't how good you are that gives you redemption after death, it's a free gift from God that you can never be good enough to deserve. Isn't this the protestant view ("sola gratia")? I'd think one's actions are very much accounted for in catholicism, which is also why there is a big stress on confession/repenting and penitence.
      - kybernetikos 9y ago
        My understanding is that in all major forms of Christian theology, including Catholicism, salavation is an unearned gift of God. This is not to say that actions are irrelevant in any of the major forms - Protestants too believe that the gift of God must naturally result in particular kinds of actions by those who have genuinely received it. It's also the case that many (though not all) Christians believe that it is possible to lose your salvation by giving up your faith, something that could be argued to be an 'action' and that all forms of Christianity emphasise 'repentance' another potential 'action'.
        0x445442 9y ago
        Yeah, it's very circular and as a Christian I find it the most challenging component of faith. Salvation by faith not works. But the act of faith, if you believe in free will, is the ultimate work.
skipperr 9y ago
Death contemplation can be found in the buddhist scriptures, dating as far back as 2500 years ago. So a similar technique is in fact far older.
- djtriptych 9y ago
  Agreed. Author should have said "at least 1000" instead of "about 1000"
- 8bitsrule 9y ago
  I imagine any human or protohuman, a hundred thousand years before history, sitting before a fire in the wilderness, contemplating death. It's 'progress' that lets us avoid having our mortality rubbed in our faces daily. I look at the care with which humans were once buried and recognize how far we've removed ourselves from the essential.
enkid 9y ago
Marcus Aurelius and other Stoics did similar techniques ~2000 years ago.
- aphextron 9y ago
  >Marcus Aurelius and other Stoics did similar techniques ~2000 years ago. And the Bodhisattvas, and the Hare Krishnas, and the Dalais, and the Sōtō... It's all just a realization of the same truth.
Florin_Andrei 9y ago
Far older than just 1k.
wahern 9y ago
Unfortunately, it can also change your brain, or hasten changes to which you're predisposed, in a way that can make you anxious, depressed, or suicidal: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-knight-of-the-souls/372766/ It's worth mentioning this because while meditation could help more people than it could hurt, the magnitude of the hurt can be much greater than the magnitude of the benefit. Meditation might make 20 people moderately more happy, but it could bring 1 person to depression and a premature death.

by efoto 9y ago

TL;DR imagining yourself dying every day, meditating on it, will change your brain in a way that will make you a better person. This technique is about one thousand years old.

titzer 9y ago

I love the pithy irony of this comment. Not sure if it was intentional.

heuan 9y ago

my tl;dr .... The author told us to do three things: 1 - Evaluate your good/bad actions, morning and evening. Makes you act according to your "standard" more. 2- Practice feeling bad about people in difficult situations. Makes you automatically have those feelings without practice (more empathetic). 3 - Blame something external for your boredom/listlessness. Makes you cope with it better. Last one seemed a bit odd tbh.

erikb 9y ago
I'm always surprised when I see another Western European religious movement that is so similar to Zen. Why do we look so far for solutions if we have some in our own history? But one thing I feel is lacking in most western movements: The handling of emptiness. If you really think about consequences of actions and how small one is compared to the whole, one cannot avoid realizing how meaningless and heartless the world is. Facing this void and not running away is one of the hardest challenges a human can cope with. We have a very deep desire to see some meaning in life, even if there isn't. Zen at least admits this and offers ways to interact with this void and one's own growing understanding of it. I think these monks don't because they simply assume the meaning is to show how good you are so you can receive redemption after death. So I think that would've been a great point three of the article instead of handling boredom, which in some way is also about handling the meaningless, but on a less deep understanding of it. If you are bored you still believe other people are doing meaningful things.
- kybernetikos 9y ago
  > Zen at least admits this and offers ways to interact with this void and one's own growing understanding of it. I think these monks don't because they simply assume the meaning is to show how good you are so you can receive redemption after death. In the Christian tradition, it isn't how good you are that gives you redemption after death, it's a free gift from God that you can never be good enough to deserve. This is probably also why the Christian mystical tradition doesn't engage that much with the void and lack of meaning (although see Ecclesiastes), since a Christian believes that fundamentally there is a huge amount of meaning to life that comes from relationship with God.
  - riffraff 9y ago
    > In the Christian tradition, it isn't how good you are that gives you redemption after death, it's a free gift from God that you can never be good enough to deserve. Isn't this the protestant view ("sola gratia")? I'd think one's actions are very much accounted for in catholicism, which is also why there is a big stress on confession/repenting and penitence.
    - kybernetikos 9y ago
      My understanding is that in all major forms of Christian theology, including Catholicism, salavation is an unearned gift of God. This is not to say that actions are irrelevant in any of the major forms - Protestants too believe that the gift of God must naturally result in particular kinds of actions by those who have genuinely received it. It's also the case that many (though not all) Christians believe that it is possible to lose your salvation by giving up your faith, something that could be argued to be an 'action' and that all forms of Christianity emphasise 'repentance' another potential 'action'.
      - 0x445442 9y ago
        Yeah, it's very circular and as a Christian I find it the most challenging component of faith. Salvation by faith not works. But the act of faith, if you believe in free will, is the ultimate work.

skipperr 9y ago

Death contemplation can be found in the buddhist scriptures, dating as far back as 2500 years ago. So a similar technique is in fact far older.

djtriptych 9y ago
Agreed. Author should have said "at least 1000" instead of "about 1000"
8bitsrule 9y ago
I imagine any human or protohuman, a hundred thousand years before history, sitting before a fire in the wilderness, contemplating death. It's 'progress' that lets us avoid having our mortality rubbed in our faces daily. I look at the care with which humans were once buried and recognize how far we've removed ourselves from the essential.

enkid 9y ago

Marcus Aurelius and other Stoics did similar techniques ~2000 years ago.

aphextron 9y ago
>Marcus Aurelius and other Stoics did similar techniques ~2000 years ago. And the Bodhisattvas, and the Hare Krishnas, and the Dalais, and the Sōtō... It's all just a realization of the same truth.

Florin_Andrei 9y ago

Far older than just 1k.

wahern 9y ago

Unfortunately, it can also change your brain, or hasten changes to which you're predisposed, in a way that can make you anxious, depressed, or suicidal: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-knight-of-the-souls/372766/ It's worth mentioning this because while meditation could help more people than it could hurt, the magnitude of the hurt can be much greater than the magnitude of the benefit. Meditation might make 20 people moderately more happy, but it could bring 1 person to depression and a premature death.