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After trying Headspace and Calm I settled on the app Waking Up[0] and have been using it for a couple of years now. It's been a huge help. It's a lot more than

After trying Headspace and Calm I settled on the app Waking Up[0] and have been using it for a couple of years now. It's been a huge help. It's a lot more than just a guided meditation app. While you can get some benefits from simply practicing meditation, it can feel a bit aimless. What I like about Waking Up is the conversations with experienced meditators where they talk about the practice itself. These serve as a guide for my own practice. There's a whole section that consists of conversations on the theory behind meditation. As an HN type I eat these up. I also don't think you can get the full benefit of a meditation practice without considering the nature of mind and consciousness. The app includes several discussions on this topic as well and it helped to inform my practice substantially. [0]https://wakingup.com/ https://wakingup.com/

gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
> While you can get some benefits from simply practicing meditation, it can feel a bit aimless Isn’t that… the point of meditation?
- david-gpu 5y ago
  Different types of meditation have different goals, somewhat like different types of exercise have different goals. Meditation isn't about closing your eyes and doing nothing. It takes effort, at least until you are proficient.
- solarengineer 5y ago
  When I practiced mindfulness meditation, I was incredibly in the moment. Zero distractions.
- float4 5y ago
  I think they're mainly referring to the "what am I doing here?" phase that most people seem to go through when they start meditating. It's exactly why I never managed to make a habit out of it.
- spicymaki 5y ago
  >> While you can get some benefits from simply practicing meditation, it can feel a bit aimless > Isn’t that… the point of meditation? Absolutely not! The secularization of meditation in the west has completely divorced meditation from it's original purpose (in the Buddhist context). Meditation is a complete mental training program. Monks did not just sit there on a cushion; they worked with teachers, reflected on ideas, and gained insights. There is a mistaken view that meditation is just sitting there, but meditation is an active practice that includes eating, walking, cleaning, etc. Being divorced from tradition is what makes it aimless and pointless. I am not personally against secularization, but if we are going to extract ideas from these traditions, we should honor them and make them work effectively in our modern lives.
  - gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
    IMO making meditation a productive activity with (shudder) metrics is far more divorced from tradition. Again, isn’t aimlessness the point of Buddhism? Taming and mastering the ‘I’ and it’s worldly attachments like aiming for things?
    - spicymaki 5y ago
      I am not exactly sure which tradition you speak of. From Theravada to Mahayana meditation has been practiced via sitting, chanting, walking, and work practice for over 2000 years. It is this arbitrary separation of sitting meditation from other practices such as walking and work that is exactly the problem with the modern appropriation of meditation.
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    > The secularization of meditation in the west has completely divorced meditation from it's original purpose (in the Buddhist context). FYI: Meditation originated in Hinduism where the original purpose was connection with God (as part of Yoga, the physical yoga is more recent). The earliest records of meditation can be found in Upanishads. Originally, meditation was highly directed. Buddhism removed the God aspect. And a few thousand years later, the West has secularized it even more. One part of this secularization has been to ignore the origins of meditation.
hombre_fatal 5y ago
I love Waking Up. It's Sam Harris walking you through how to do it in a practical way. I'll admit that until I tried it, I thought meditating was either just sitting there trying there trying to think no thoughts or it had some sort of religious connection that just wasn't for me. After using it for months, I realized it's a way to be present, acknowledge that thoughts are things that merely arise, and most of all, things that you can discard instead of letting them impact you. I started trying it when he said that he'll do it for 30 seconds just standing in line at Starbucks if he feels some sort of anxiety, or before he goes on stage. That kind of thing felt practical to me, so I gave it a go. I've used the app on and off for over a year, often starting from the first guided session from scratch and working back through them when I lose the habit. I don't do the guided sessions anymore, mostly listen to the interviews in the app that you point out. But I meditate in the morning almost every day now, and right after, I try to think of the person I want to be, and then I start my day. I got that tip from Eben Pagan (of David DeAngelo dating advice fame) after realizing I usually just wake up and am the person that I feel like, like sometimes I'd wake up and feel low confidence, and I would kinda be a low confidence person all day. Meanwhile, all I had to do was simply decide to take another path. I dismissed all of this kind of stuff as BS for most of my life. I was 30 when I finally tried Waking Up and I finally see that there's something practical behind these things.
michaelbarton 5y ago
I agree. I’ve been using headspace on and off for about 3 years. The last three months it really started to click when I was able to meditate comfortably for 30 minutes or more. To answer OP’s question: the benefits I’ve found are to start to recognize the constant internal (mostly critical) monologue as just another appearance in consciousness in the same way sight and sound are. When I have a really good meditation session this monologue just kind of dissolves and I’m left feeling very peaceful. Would love to hear from any other experienced meditators on what they found their next steps to be at this stage.

gunfighthacksaw 5y ago

> While you can get some benefits from simply practicing meditation, it can feel a bit aimless Isn’t that… the point of meditation?

david-gpu 5y ago
Different types of meditation have different goals, somewhat like different types of exercise have different goals. Meditation isn't about closing your eyes and doing nothing. It takes effort, at least until you are proficient.
solarengineer 5y ago
When I practiced mindfulness meditation, I was incredibly in the moment. Zero distractions.
float4 5y ago
I think they're mainly referring to the "what am I doing here?" phase that most people seem to go through when they start meditating. It's exactly why I never managed to make a habit out of it.
spicymaki 5y ago
>> While you can get some benefits from simply practicing meditation, it can feel a bit aimless > Isn’t that… the point of meditation? Absolutely not! The secularization of meditation in the west has completely divorced meditation from it's original purpose (in the Buddhist context). Meditation is a complete mental training program. Monks did not just sit there on a cushion; they worked with teachers, reflected on ideas, and gained insights. There is a mistaken view that meditation is just sitting there, but meditation is an active practice that includes eating, walking, cleaning, etc. Being divorced from tradition is what makes it aimless and pointless. I am not personally against secularization, but if we are going to extract ideas from these traditions, we should honor them and make them work effectively in our modern lives.
- gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
  IMO making meditation a productive activity with (shudder) metrics is far more divorced from tradition. Again, isn’t aimlessness the point of Buddhism? Taming and mastering the ‘I’ and it’s worldly attachments like aiming for things?
  - spicymaki 5y ago
    I am not exactly sure which tradition you speak of. From Theravada to Mahayana meditation has been practiced via sitting, chanting, walking, and work practice for over 2000 years. It is this arbitrary separation of sitting meditation from other practices such as walking and work that is exactly the problem with the modern appropriation of meditation.
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  > The secularization of meditation in the west has completely divorced meditation from it's original purpose (in the Buddhist context). FYI: Meditation originated in Hinduism where the original purpose was connection with God (as part of Yoga, the physical yoga is more recent). The earliest records of meditation can be found in Upanishads. Originally, meditation was highly directed. Buddhism removed the God aspect. And a few thousand years later, the West has secularized it even more. One part of this secularization has been to ignore the origins of meditation.

hombre_fatal 5y ago

I love Waking Up. It's Sam Harris walking you through how to do it in a practical way. I'll admit that until I tried it, I thought meditating was either just sitting there trying there trying to think no thoughts or it had some sort of religious connection that just wasn't for me. After using it for months, I realized it's a way to be present, acknowledge that thoughts are things that merely arise, and most of all, things that you can discard instead of letting them impact you. I started trying it when he said that he'll do it for 30 seconds just standing in line at Starbucks if he feels some sort of anxiety, or before he goes on stage. That kind of thing felt practical to me, so I gave it a go. I've used the app on and off for over a year, often starting from the first guided session from scratch and working back through them when I lose the habit. I don't do the guided sessions anymore, mostly listen to the interviews in the app that you point out. But I meditate in the morning almost every day now, and right after, I try to think of the person I want to be, and then I start my day. I got that tip from Eben Pagan (of David DeAngelo dating advice fame) after realizing I usually just wake up and am the person that I feel like, like sometimes I'd wake up and feel low confidence, and I would kinda be a low confidence person all day. Meanwhile, all I had to do was simply decide to take another path. I dismissed all of this kind of stuff as BS for most of my life. I was 30 when I finally tried Waking Up and I finally see that there's something practical behind these things.

michaelbarton 5y ago

I agree. I’ve been using headspace on and off for about 3 years. The last three months it really started to click when I was able to meditate comfortably for 30 minutes or more. To answer OP’s question: the benefits I’ve found are to start to recognize the constant internal (mostly critical) monologue as just another appearance in consciousness in the same way sight and sound are. When I have a really good meditation session this monologue just kind of dissolves and I’m left feeling very peaceful. Would love to hear from any other experienced meditators on what they found their next steps to be at this stage.