14 ms·

If You're Too Busy to Meditate, Read This

356 points by bcrawl 14y ago

webwanderings 14y ago
The misconception about meditation is that it requires one to give up everything and sit silently. This is not true in its entirety as it depends on how one interprets the word "meditation". The meditation does not necessarily require you to give up one thing for the sake of another. The goal of the meditation is to "be in awareness" and you can achieve this same goal by being alert and aware with any activity your find yourself doing at any given moment. For example... You are washing dishes but you are not really washing dishes because your mind is wandering with thoughts on what you need to do tonight at the place you need to visit. By the time your dishes are done, you have already planned for your future as your mind kept you busy with the thoughts of the future while you forgot what you were doing in the present (which is, washing dishes, which you really didn't). The meditation is to be-in-present with whatever activity you do and love to do. If you had washed your dishes with full alertness and awareness, you would have achieved the same goal of meditation. Let's go even further with another example. You love to play music as your passion (or dance, or paint, or fill in the blank activity here) but you don't get enough opportunity in the day to do what you love to do more with passion. When you dance or sing or play music or run or exercise, you get the opportunity during that activity to forget yourself in the act (the subject merges into the object) and you become one with the reality, or you transcend that favorite activity by merging your self into it. That moment of transcendence is meditation, and you should find more opportunities to be in that meditation, in those moments. Now, I am not suggesting that the type of meditation mentioned at the source is wrong or ineffective. What I am suggesting however is that people don't need to get stuck with one type of explanation of meditation because ultimately you can achieve the same goal by shifting the focus a bit.
- ambler0 14y ago
  I think you're making a good point. A lot of people reserve the word "mindfulness" for the sort of meditations you're describing here and use "meditation" for something more specific. But they're just names and I don't worry about them too much. This all also reminds me that there are people who view "true yoga" as a sort of 24/7 meditation of movement, where the person strives to be aware of and deliberate about their movements all the time.
- jemfinch 14y ago
  Sorry, this is hard for me to understand. You seem to be saying--and I apologize if I misinterpret you--that it is better to focus on dishwashing than to use otherwise idle mental time to plan one's future. Is that really the case? What gains could one expect from focusing on dishwashing, only to take time away from some other activity to plan one's future?
  - sausax82 14y ago
    Happiness ?
  - ambler0 14y ago
    I don't have a link handy right this moment, but I understand that there is research indicating that the kind of multitasking you're describing is associated with a negative effect on mood, whereas acting mindfully is associated with an improved mood. Everyone is different, but I have also found this to be the case in my own life. On a more practical note, I just find that I make more mistakes when I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing. And as for planning for the future, how much extra time would it really take if you saved it for after the dishes? A couple minutes? All that said, I still listen to podcasts while doing chores...
  - zoul 14y ago
    It’s better to let yourself to be swallowed whole by your current activity (be it just doing the dishes) than to continue in the endless chatter of your mind. Doing the dishes can be fun if you pay attention to the textures, temperatures, smells and sounds. You can plan your future later, giving it full attention again. That’s the idea.
    - jonsen 14y ago
      Your subconscious mind is still planning your future. And it may do better when not disturbed by your attention.
      - webwanderings 14y ago
        Good line of thinking, I happen to agree, hence I believe it is better to stay in the here-now with whatever activity one does at any given moment.
- jamesli 14y ago
  Excellent point! Be-in-present is the essence of some sects of Zen, especially in Japanese Zen. Sweeping the yard is not only to clean the yard. It is a practice, a meditation, to sweep the distracted thought of one's brain. Same as arranging flowers, etc. In this sense, it is the same as any other everyday manual work, like washing dishes, walking, etc.
  - webwanderings 14y ago
    Yes, indeed. But when you add the phenomena of activity humans love to do and excel in, you can see that those transcendent moment occur when the mind is in here-now. If you are into watching movies and when you watch an exceptionally good movie, you are most likely staying in present in that moment where the mind is not there to distract. It could be a great scene or it could be the whole movie, the experience one gets out of watching good movie, is as same as the experience one gets out of being-in-present. But obviously the moment passes leaving the taste in your mouth, but the point is ... that one can find and cultivate those moments further in life in other situations.
- starpilot 14y ago
  Parent has read "Miracle of Mindfulness," by Thich Nhat Hanh. He explains, > If we can't wash the dishes, the chances are we won't be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future - and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.
  - webwanderings 14y ago
    Thank you, my example of washing dishes indeed came from Thich Nhat Hanh.
  - zafka 14y ago
    I too have read several of Thich Nhat Hann's books. I don't even know how many times I have referenced the washing dishes story. I do feel that it has added value to my life. I wonder if a statistically significant number of folks here on HN have read his books.
- aashay 14y ago
  > "you become one with the reality, or you transcend that favorite activity by merging your self into it. That moment of transcendence is meditation" I think this is a really interesting takeaway. I'd like to propose another type of activity which I think most people probably wouldn't group together with meditation: video games. If you're an avid gamer, you'll know where I'm coming from. Whether you're playing an MMO or an immersive story-based game, or even a competitive real-time strategy game, you're well-versed in the feeling of being hyper-focused and "becoming one" with the reality in front of you. I rarely find my thoughts wandering while playing a game because there simply isn't an opportunity to let my brain drift this way, especially if it's a multiplayer game (think StarCraft II, for example). Video games are, at least for me, an activity that allows me to be in complete awareness and be in the moment, at that helps me relax. Any time I get ridiculed for playing video games as an adult, this is my default explanation.
  - webwanderings 14y ago
    That's it. You are in meditation when you're playing video games. I believe you should just find more of those same opportunities when you are not playing video games (because you can't really play video games 24x7).
    - aashay 14y ago
      Of course. My primary meditation activity tends to be playing my guitar. I was just reminded of my explanation about gaming. To be "present" 24/7 is a very difficult achievement, but it's a great goal to keep in mind. Edit: grammar
- vikas5678 14y ago
  "Meditation in action" is usually supported by "sitting meditation" like the author in the link above suggests. In my own practice, I've noticed that when I skip sitting meditations, my attempts at staying aware through out the daily activities is harder than usual.
- zabar 14y ago
  I completely agree with the point. I've been playing guitar (blues improv) long before I started meditating, and I really noticed the similarities in the state of mind it put you in. I've been an insomniac for a long time and meditating did help me a lot. Be it playing guitar, sitting or doing yoga.
- tylee78 14y ago
  The idea behind meditation is not that difficult to understand. However, it is watered down quite a bit, especially if you learn it in a New Age environment. If you go back to the old schools of meditation, the techniques are very clear and straight forward and can be applied in daily life. It is really helpful though to know some meditation principles: http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/surfing-on-the-wave-of-bliss/ http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/surfing-on-the-wa... http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/anussati-sinking-away-from-the-wet-in-a-stream-of-life/ http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/anussati-sinking-...
- agumonkey 14y ago
  I play a game that I call MIKADO where I do everything in the smoothest way trying to generate the smallest amount of sound (or any kind of wave). It comes from a blend of the child game, taichi, and drumming (drumming ask for fine perception of balance shifts and acceleration) and forces me to focus on everything at everytime. From the object of action, its surroundings, myself and my surrounding. Sound seems quite exponential in nature, to avoid noises you really need to be continuously slow, at any sudden movement you'll have a hint, unless you know a path were you can accelerate freely. I find it very relaxing, body and mind. The unawareness of accumulation of changes/accelerations are often the cause of anger, tireness, physical effort. By going smooth and slow, not slow actually, just at your own pace, things appear to cost far less and to give far more.
  - pestaa 14y ago
    Sounds fun and boy would I look silly doing that in the street. I'll call it walk fu. Thanks for the great idea.
    - agumonkey 14y ago
      Man, I was already embarrassed to write about it. I only do that inside walls of course. Outside I'm a perfectly normal alien.
      - mck- 14y ago
        Never be embarrassed. I do it all the time ;) I'd be walking home from work, focussing hard not to walk. Just staring blindly ahead, allowing auto-pilot to take me home, and focus on every sensation of every muscle in every part of my body. Then again, this was in Hong Kong, where you see groups of oldies doing Taichi and what-not in every corner of the city. I still do it occasionally here in Vancouver, the city of Yoga, so it's still fine ;)
        agumonkey 14y ago
        In-house the game is to be as stealth as possible while doing any kind of chore. Ninja mode, or 'do not wake women at night' mode. Just moving a cup (even worse, a metallic object) from A to B becomes a challenge, but when you drop the cup on the table without any sound you feel like a magician.
- driverdan 14y ago
  This is exactly how I lift weights / exercise, with complete focus and mindfulness. While working out it is all I think about. I put on headphones with fast, heavy music and focus on the exercise I'm doing at that moment. I don't think about email in my inbox, I don't think about the errands I need to run, I don't talk to the other people around me. I think about my muscles contracting. I think about the extra 5 lbs I just added to the bar. I think about my form. I think about my breathing. It is meditation as much as sitting on a pillow with legs crossed and eyes closed.
  - mtts 14y ago
    Weight lifting could be mindfulness, but only if you don't "put on headphones with fast, heavy music". Those headphones are a distraction.
    - driverdan 14y ago
      They aren't because they help shut out the outside world. I don't focus on the music, the music helps me focus on my lifts.
- mck- 14y ago
  It's that feeling of being in the zone, completely forgetting about tomorrow's worries. But how does one raise awareness of being in the zone? It is that consciousness that I believe is paramount. Training your consciousness by playing sports vs sitting in lotus is analogous to training your biceps by rowing vs biceps curls. The latter is more targeted, hence more effective. When you do what you love and you completely emerge in it, yes, you do get in a state of bliss. But are you conscious of it? If not, which is mostly the case when you see a group of people play soccer in the park, then I don't think that is beneficial in the meditative sense. Your mind is still very much active. The reason why the traditional way of meditation is so effective (and has therefore been used for millennia), is because it is quite hard to just sit still and do nothing. And really clear your mind of any thought whatsoever. It is this mental challenge that will really train your consciousness and raise your awareness. An easier way to get started is to combine the two methods, in the form of tai-chi. Get your exercise, while clearing your mind (and raise your awareness). It has helped me a great deal -- my life has been so much smoother after I trained Tai Chi for 4 intensive months in China. If you're interested, I blogged about that experience a while back: http://kuomarc.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/tai-chi-in-pursuit-of-happiness/ http://kuomarc.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/tai-chi-in-pursuit-o...
  - papsosouid 14y ago
    >Training your consciousness by playing sports vs sitting in lotus is analogous to training your biceps by rowing vs biceps curls. The latter is more targeted, hence more effective. Only if your goal is to make your biceps bigger. If your goal is to gain strength, isolation is less effective, as strength involves more than just one muscle, it also involves stabilizing muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc. Who says training your conciousness isn't similar?
    - mck- 14y ago
      Interesting.. how many moving parts does consciousness have? To me, consciousness and the mind are but one thing.
      - 14y ago
- Florin_Andrei 14y ago
  > The misconception about meditation is that it requires one to give up everything and sit silently. This is not true in its entirety as it depends on how one interprets the word "meditation". That's right. There are prayer or mantra techniques that could be practiced anywhere, any time. In the Indian culture, there are people who say their mantra (sometimes silently, with no external sound or movement of the tongue) when they go about their daily business. In Orthodox cultures in Eastern Europe, there are people saying the Prayer of the Heart, again, during their daily routine (often silently, without any external sign of the practice). There are also techniques of focusing your mind on various psycho-physiological aspects (breathing, various "energy centers", etc), but those may be a little harder to do while engaged in your normal routine. There are also ways of maintaining a meditation-like, or "prayerful", state of mind and feeling during normal activities. This may require some prior experience. In any case, yes, meditation does not mandate sitting down either on a chair or cross-legged, with eyes closed. Some techniques may actually require that posture, but others don't. It depends.
- dscrd 14y ago
  "The misconception about meditation is that it requires one to give up everything and sit silently." How I think it, giving up everything and sitting silently is a form of practice. You cannot be in-present with whatever activity you do if your mental muscle isn't toned for it.
ambler0 14y ago
I took a mindfulness meditation class a year or two ago and I thought this was a pretty nice introduction to some of the ideas. For anyone interested in the science, I have found lots of good articles by subscribing to this mailing list: http://www.mindfulexperience.org/newsletter.php http://www.mindfulexperience.org/newsletter.php The ideas have been around forever, but scientists have really taken to testing them in recent decades.
stephth 14y ago
Focus on your breath going in and out. Every time you have a thought or an urge, notice it and bring yourself back to your breath. From what I've heard so far, meditation is based on focusing on your body in order to quiet your mind. Are there other schools/techniques?
- vidarh 14y ago
  There are two main forms of meditations, with a pretty much infinite number of variations: Concentration based meditation, and contemplative meditation. But it all bleeds together - contemplative practices require a certain level of concentration in order to be able to practice them. Contemplative practices can range from meditation on a specific subject to general observation of your mind, thoughs, body, environment - this latter form is exemplified very well by mindfulness meditation (vipassana, from Theravada Buddhism, though when mindfulness meditation is taught in the West it is often pretty much cleansed of Buddhist material). What the article describes sounds close to mindfulness meditation. In this case the goal is to quiet the mind, but not silence it or shut out external impression. The breath is used as an "anchor" that you return to in order to not let thoughts or feelings or observations drag you along, so that you can observe your thoughts in a detached manner, notice them, and move back to the breath. Compare with some of the concentration practices which include focus on completely emptying your mind for extended periods of time.
- Dove 14y ago
  Yes, the emptying of the mind is the style of oriental meditation. In contrast, there is an old tradition of Christian meditation which attempts to fill the mind completely with one concept. For example, in the medieval Lectio Divina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_Divina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_Divina), one takes a few words of scripture and repeats them and considers them and ponders them for many minutes. The Cloud of Unknowing recommends doing something similar with the concept of God, or with a simple word such as "love". This is actually a pretty tough mental exercise to do for even just 20 minutes.
- muraiki 14y ago
  When I was in college at the University of Pittsburgh, I took a fascinating class called "Mysticism: East and East" that compared the contemplative traditions of Yoga and Orthodox Christian hesychast prayer. As a practicing Buddhist at the time, it was an eye-opening class. I don't really know how to present a concise summary of the class, but I did find this paper by my teacher which sets forth an overview: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/ft.aspx?id=0350-08610802171B http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/ft.aspx?id=0350-08610802171B Now of course Orthodox hesychasm is about communion with a person, whereas eastern meditation is typically not (Pure Land schools of Buddhism are more in line with Judeo-Christian concepts of prayer, though). But I think that there is some common ground for dialogue, and perhaps this paper may be of interest to you or others who enjoyed the original article and are interested in other practices.
dkokelley 14y ago
I think the author has an excellent point about training one's ability to resist urges. Urges are spontaneous. They don't necessarily fit with our work flow. In fact, they interrupt it. Maybe a good analogy is the Time Management Matrix by Eisenhower (and popularized in Steven Covey's '7 Habits' book). Urges almost always present themselves as urgent tasks, but they aren't always important. I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion that meditation will make you more productive. The evidence presented reminds me of a scenario from The Office, where Michael defends Monday morning movies by claiming they are more productive the rest of the day. Of course the reason they are more productive is because they have to be in order to recover the time spent watching a movie! Rather, I think people don't realize how much spare time there is that gets wasted. Tasks expand to fill the time allotted. It's possible that meditation can help you identify those wasteful activities (urges) and address them appropriately.
KirinDave 14y ago
Wait. Wait wait wait. > Research shows that an ability to resist urges will improve your relationships, increase your dependability, and raise your performance... Great. Yes. Impulse control is key. Delayed gratification is part of how we define higher intelligence. Meditation has what do with this, exactly? > How [does meditation help]? By increasing your capacity to resist distracting urges. This entire article is predicated by this leap of faith, which as far as I can see has little to no justification besides, "Of course it does!" > Meditation teaches us to resist the urge of that counterproductive follow through. One cannot just say things over and over to make them true.
- Dove 14y ago
  I don't know, I thought he explained it pretty well: during meditation, you practice resisting urges. I'll admit that falls rather short of a doubleblindrandomlyassignedcontrolgrouplargesamplesizepeerreviewed study, but it does seem to be common sense that practicing something would make you better at it.
  - KirinDave 14y ago
    "during meditation, you practice resisting urges." Saying this does not make it true thought. Is that actually what people do during meditation? The only experience I have with meditation is sitting in seiza position after 2 hours of Ki Aikido, slowly feeling my muscles cramp, listening to someone hit a drum periodically, and not feeling anything good at all. Eventually I just learned to devote that time to reviewing things I had learned that day. I found this self-reflective practice far more refreshing and pleasant than any search for metaphorical emptiness.
    - johnthedebs 14y ago
      I think when most people say 'meditation' what they mean is 'mindfulness meditation' (and that seems to be the case here). During mindfulness meditation, yes, resisting urges is part of what you're supposed to do. The basic process goes something like: 1) Sit down in a comfortable position that you can stay in without moving. 2) Take deep breaths through your nose and focus your attention on the sensation of air moving over your nasal passages and into/out of your lungs. 3) When other thoughts come into your head or you find yourself thinking about anything other than your breathing, gently direct your attention back to your breathing.
tryitnow 14y ago
What about comparative effectiveness? For example, if we did an experiment where we started subjects on the following regimes, which would have the greatest effects on impulse control: 1) Learning to program (assuming the subject is not already a coder 2) meditation 3) aerobic exercise Then we would have to figure out ways to measure "impulse control." Such a study would have a lot more credibility than the author's contention that "I control impulses while meditating; therefore, meditation makes me more productive." One controls impulses during a wide variety of activities; the burden is on the pro-meditation crowd to provide evidence that meditation is an especially valuable form of practicing impulse control.
- pyre 14y ago
  I'm curious why you seem to be indirectly asserting that learning to program and/or aerobic exercise will have some effect on impulse control.
demigod 14y ago
When I meditate concentrating on my breath,my mind interferes with my breathing and it becomes uncomfortable if I dont relax I believe this acts as some negative feedback for the control freak self inside me. Every time I exert unnecessary control it becomes uncomfortable. Meditating long enough may show me that the mind will wander in its own ways regardless of what I maybe doing at the moment, and its best for me to let it wander on its own ways and focus on what I am doing. Thus helping me understand that all the thoughts about ego, and judgements is just come process on the sidelines, and different from the core of me, the core that is focused on what I am doing. This is the impression I have of where meditation is taking me.
yresnob 14y ago
Read Pragmatic thinking and Learning for good explanation as well.. Meditation improves focus... this is not based on reports or data but from my own experience. That is always the best proof for me.. trying it myself.
ricvg 14y ago
I highly recommend to take a 10 days retreat in a Vipassana[1] meditation center. I know that 10 days is a lot to ask but in my opinion is well worth the effort. I've been there twice in the past three years. I thought that I understood everything the first time. Boy, was I wrong. [1] http://www.dhamma.org/ http://www.dhamma.org/
- konstruktor 14y ago
  If those rules don't creep you out, then I don't know what does: http://www.dhamma.org/en/code.shtml http://www.dhamma.org/en/code.shtml No talking, no outside contact, no other forms of practice. This is not a healthy environment unless you know very well what to expect and are sure you really, really want this. It sounds very cultish to me, even though I do know somebody who goes on Vipassana retreats regularly and seems to benefit a lot. Those retreats are for laypersons, including beginners, but the rules are similar to the most intense meditation periods of monastic buddhist life. Compare that to western zen: There's a small zen temple in my town that will not allow people on 3 day retreats unless they have meditated for a while and know what to expect.
  - ricvg 14y ago
    hehe... yeah they do look like that at first. Personally I find that the reasoning behind these rules is very practical. You see, the course is all about understanding what sensations are and the effects that they have in our psyche. So one of the goals is to limit as much as possible all sources of sensations so that you can easily focus on a few and see how the mind reacts to them.
  - pavedwalden 14y ago
    Cults have rules like that to cut you out of your old life, but in this case I think it's a legitimate desire to eliminate ALL distraction. I did one of their retreats many years ago and concluded that the changes in my internal life that could only happen in such an environment. For example, after a few days my internal monologue petered out and for the first time I realized that a good portion of my mental activity was normally devoted to thinking about things I was going to say later on. Once I was out of the habit of talking all the time, I stopped cooking up little quips and observations about everything and really felt an expansion of non-verbal thinking. So, although I had my doubts about the place going in, I left feeling that 10 days of intense internal focus was the only possible way to reach the insights I'd had, and that I was glad I'd done it. The months afterwards (while I kept up the practice, before I got "too busy"), were the most contented of my life.
dschiptsov 14y ago
Oh, come on. Meditation is not the way to "exercise willpower muscle" (running is the way to do so). Meditation is the way to learn that your flow of thoughts is not you, it is mere side-effect, a smoke from an engine, a screen-saver, or just idle-running. Yes, the practice of meditation is beneficial for will-power and self-control, but it is not the goal.) Goal is realization that what you think you are, is just a running total of all previous conditioning, and the ''real you'' could be "seen" is in an instant between two thoughts. Any good ''eastern'' teacher will tell you that.
- crux 14y ago
  I'd think any good "eastern" teacher would be sure to emphasize both the cultivation of wholesome mental qualities and the realization of not-self in meditation, depending on the audience and the context.
- 7rurl 14y ago
  That's awfully dogmatic of you. Why can't people have different goals for meditating? Speaking of running... same thing... people can run for different reasons. Certainly long distance running is great if your goal is to increase your willpower, but its also great if your goals is to increase your physical endurance or if your goals is simply to be able to run really far.
- Agathos 14y ago
  Running? Really? In my experience, my mind is quite calm when doing hard physical work such as running. So if I wanted to practice resisting distracting thoughts, I would have to begin with almost anything besides physical exercise.
- Florin_Andrei 14y ago
  Meditation is to your mind what hacking is to a computer. You're trying to make it do things it would not otherwise do. (hacking in the sense accepted here on HN, not in the mainstream sense)
natex 14y ago
I'm seeing quite an interest here for the principles and techniques of meditation. Here's a link for some talks given by a wonderful teacher, on mindfulness/meditation and other topics. http://www.audiodharma.org/ http://www.audiodharma.org/
tylee78 14y ago
Happens to me all the time. I am working on a piece of code in the afternoon, and can't move forward or looking to identify a bug or optimizing some algorithm - wasting hours. After a meditation session I walk back to the computer screen, take a seat, and my hand clicks around the tabs, my fingers scroll around, my eye catches one obscure line of code which is EXACTLY where the problem sits. I had this happen so many times, it's a given by now. The article (and I am sure all who do meditate) shares the same kind of experience.
- thirdtruck 14y ago
  I can second this. I can't begin to count the number of times that spending five minutes walking and with my mind on anything but a given problem has lead to the recognition of a major time-saving change in plans. Think of it as pulling off of the highway for a minute to check your map instead of trying to unfold it in front of your steering wheel.
ricknew 14y ago
This excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki might add another approach to the conversation. http://www.kingstonkendo.org/mistakesinpractice.pdf http://www.kingstonkendo.org/mistakesinpractice.pdf (PDF)
javajosh 14y ago
What the author calls "impulses" the Buddha called sankhara, or reactivity. The ones the OP is talking about are minor reactions. These reactions do indeed impede our progress, as when our actions are driven by reaction we are not fully aware of what's going on around us. I first recognized the practical implications of this playing billiards - when I would strike a ball and miss, I would feel slightly dejected, and neglect to analyze what I just did to learn from it. When I would strike a ball and make it, I would feel slightly elated, and neglect to understand what I just did to learn from it. My game got a lot better when I started playing the game, fascinated but detached from outcomes. There are a remarkable number of ways to strike a ball wrong - and it is interesting to consider why, having learned the game sufficiently, one would ever strike the ball wrong. Where does the variation creep in? Why, if I examine a table and decide to put the cue ball "just so", can I not do that? The answer, of course, is that there is countless non-verbal data that your body is sending you on each stroke - feedback from your bridge hand, the hand on the cue, even your stance and the feel of the felt all factor into this. If you are attached to the outcome, all of this goes out the window. There is nervousness, fear, and excitement instead of systematic understanding.
brianmcdonough 14y ago
Jonathan Haidt, the author of one of my favorite books, "The Happiness Hypothesis," points out–based on extensive research–that there are only three ways to change "automatic reactions" to circumstances like a flooded kitchen...meditation, cognitive therapy, and Prozac. Meditation is an inexpensive and natural alternative to the other two, it's been around for thousands of years and there are no negative side effects.
rohun_ati 14y ago
There was a study done by Sarah Lazar at Harvard Med a while back. They concluded that meditation can not only prevent age related cognitive decline, but it can actually physically reshape our brains, thickening our cortical structures. There's a TED video online, and the actual study is available online if anyone is interested (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16272874 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16272874)
gavanwoolery 14y ago
I meditate while walking my dogs or taking a shower. Unless you are trying to achieve the title of Zen Grandmaster (which you probably are not) there is no need to sit still while doing so.
- mtts 14y ago
  Dunno. I've found purposefully sitting still is much more effective than walking dogs or taking a shower, during which your mind may calm down, but may very well not as well.
- kylebrown 14y ago
  I think you are on to something here, but there is a difference between doing something relaxing and "meditating". I'm most relaxed while sitting on the pot and I get my best insights while taking a shower, but during neither of those am I meditating (in the zen sense). A Zen Grandmaster can probably meditate while rollerblading through NYC and simultaneously debugging a kernel driver. For beginners, it helps to sit relatively still with eyes closed (or eyes focused on eg a candle, tree, waterfall etc. but not darting about), to chant or use beads to count breaths, etc.
vividmind 14y ago
I use fishing for the same purposes. Helps me concentrate on just that activity and get my mind off work-related stuff. Every time after a fishing trip I feel really rested, although might be tired a bit physically.
- mtts 14y ago
  Maybe someone will do some research on this at some point, but yes, it seems fishing is indeed the western male's (it's usually western males that do fishing for leisure, no?) version of meditation. It's not about catching fish, surely.
- ashutoshm 14y ago
  "Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." ~ Henry David Thoreau
tehayj 14y ago
I'm into the basic practice of mindfulness since years. I read research papers about it every month and also train people in mindfulness skills. Here is the essence of what I learned. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sspY43lxqhE&list=UUh-TdJwz4z0dN9hAYnCWZow&index=12&feature=plcp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sspY43lxqhE&list=UUh-TdJw...
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
up_and_up 14y ago
In my opinion, Meditation and Mindfullness are not the same thing. Meditation is a state, where the mind is completely silent, the breath slows waaaay down, the heartbeat slows waaaay down. Slowly ever so slowly, some bliss starts to bubble up from within. It is the climax of one pointed attention. Few people who say they "meditate" are reaching that point since it requires years of sincere effort. In Yoga, meditation is known as Dhyana, or the state resulting from the mind becoming one pointed for 100 seconds. Samadhi, which is considered a state of deep bliss is considered reached when the mind becomes completely still for 1000 seconds. Mindfullness, is the act of being more aware during daily activities. Like watching actions and interactions. There is a gradual tendency to modify behavior to being more calm, collected and centered which helps to go deeper when attempting to meditate. The mind is still active during mindfullness, but it is being directed or corrected as needed throughout the day. Meditation helps to develop deeper Mindfullness and vice versa. Meditation is like taking a shower, whereas Mindfullness is avoiding rolling in the mud and getting dirty. It is important to keep in mind that Meditation is literally a state where the mind is free from thought and that all the "meditation practices and techniques" are just different paths of reaching that same place.
- eightbitman 14y ago
  You are incorrect, but my fees are pretty steep, and I accept cash only, so I can't explain it to you here.
- zupreme 14y ago
  This is simply incorrect. There are many different types of meditation with many different types of goals. Some meditation disciplines involve slowing the breath down, while others involve speeding the breath up (research Breath of Fire). Some meditation disciplines involve quieting the mind and ignoring stimuli, while others involve opening the floodgates of sensation to more fully experience stimuli (research Vipassana). The reality is that almost no single person can say what is and is not meditation because meditation comes in many different forms, in many different traditions, from many different sources. Anyone who arrogates to him or herself the authority to say what is and is not meditation is regrettably mistaken.
ericmoritz 14y ago
Aw, I know the benefits. I hoped this would help me find a way to fit it in.
- brianmcdonough 14y ago
  Hey Eric, at risk of sounding like I know a lot about this, there are two facets that make it hard to fit in. The benefits take days to appear and it's uncomfortable in the beginning. Like running, it's hard to start a practice of meditating, but if you do 1 minute, then 5 minutes, then work your way up to 20 minutes, there is a breaking point where you will do it because the benefits are clearly making your life richer. Colors appear more vibrant, sounds more clear, emotions more fully experienced. You will take more moments, like while stopped at a stoplight, to meditate because it allows joyful feelings rise to the top. Then, you won't ever think, "how can I fit it in," it will become part of you.
lloyddobbler 14y ago
If I'm too busy to medidate, why will I have time to read this article (presumably on meditation)?
qbit 14y ago
"And you will have experience that proves to you that the urge is only a suggestion. You are in control." This is the most interesting part to me. Don't we always act on the urge that is strongest at the moment? If I decide to continue to meditate even though I have an urge to stop, doesn't that just mean that the urge to continue happened to be stronger than the urge to stop? Did I really get to choose which of those urges was strongest at that moment? Of course, this gets into questions of free will, which has been discussed on HN before. But when I meditate, it becomes very clear that I am definitely not in control of my thoughts, feelings, and urges. I see that I have multiple, competing urges at any given moment and that I don't control which urge emerges as the victor and compels me to act.
palderson 14y ago
For me, meditation is a way of separating myself from the issues I'm dealing with. The act of distancing my mind from the issue itself provides renewed vigor when returning to the problem.
ta12121 14y ago
There's nothing in this article that isn't said better elsewhere. I'd recommend the (free, online) Mindfulness in Plain English: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html (also available as a "real" book).
dennisme 14y ago
Rent time in an isolation tank. It is wonderful.
idoruby 14y ago
I have been meditating for forty years. For thirty nine years I did transcendental meditation (TM)as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I sat for 20 minutes twice a day without fail. Last year I switched to Vipassana not because I was displeased with TM but just for a change and because the Goenka community seems to be very professional. I have been sitting in this new way one hour a day for a year now. I am not as regular because Vipassana requires more arrangement than TM. I am satisfied with my practice and can see a path to grow in this community for the rest of my life. I am not sorry that I have spent so much time meditating. It changed my life. Before I began meditating I was aware of a certain pervasive incompleteness. I am a programmer and I love programming and I have been married for forty seven years and love my wife. But these satisfactions were not enough. My meditation practice did not materially change my life but it has given me a sense of centeredness. I am in a quiet way more fulfilled. My experience was that TM was a very practical choice. I paid $75 to be initiated and found the TM community meet my needs for companionship on my path. Community is important to support a meditative practice. The actual practice is practical to do in our busy lives. If you are too busy to take two twenty minute periods each day for your personal readjustment then you are too busy and you need to readjust your life pattern. If you do not realize the imbalance in your life, probably meditation is not for you. Don't waste your time. Perhaps later. YMMV, nowadays it cost $2k+ to learn TM. It is a good deal at this cost at least the benefits in my life exceed almost any amount of money. But without my experience I would never understand that. It is a chicken and egg problem. OTOH, the TM community has changed and I am not sure I would be served by the Post Mahrishi community. In my case, as a long term meditator the difficulties with the community don't really affect me. Although I did consider the quality of the Goenka to support me in future. So the choice of TM is a possibility for a newby. One caution, I knew many poeple who started TM and did not continue. So you are risking $2k+. Vipassana is different. The technique requires more training and a greater daily investment. I sit for an hour a day. But Goenka suggests a minimum of two hours a day. And most practioners do at least one ten day retreat a year. I find this a bit much. But given that I am retired it is easily feasable. It merely a matter of commitment for me. A midlife married programmer will find this a greater challenge. The introduction to Goenka's technique is charming. You do a ten day retreat at no cost to you. Their story is that adopting this practice is a serious matter. You learn the technique and then practice ten hours a day for ten days. For this learning period you live on the charity of others like a Budhist monk. Since this technique is a way of living that extends beyond just sitting, you need time to get into it. I don't know how to tell which is most appropriate for you. I can just say it works for me. But I can say one thing for certain. Meditation is a practice that must be done everyday. Don't bother if you are not ready to commit to a regular practice. The benefits of meditation can not be explained. It is an experience and all that a teacher can do is give the experience and show you how to protect it. The rest is up to you. I will say that meditation and psychotherapy are not mutually exclusive. For more than twelve years during the last forty I have been in therapy. My final thought is that if you have a sense that your experience of life seems not quite complete, meditation can work to give you greater experience of connection.
gadser 14y ago
Meditation completely changed my life. I used to be a real loser. Then I started meditating. And now I'm completely awesome. You should trust me because I posted this on the Internet.
kevTheDev 14y ago
I've been meditating pretty much every day for a few months now, and the thing that got me into it was getsomeheadspace.com I've found it incredibly helpful - having a different guided meditation to do on the train every day makes the London commute, whilst not blissful, certainly better.
001sky 14y ago
(Yet) Another venue to for the competitive display of subtle nuances and arcane desiderata.
sandGorgon 14y ago
For casual meditation, all that has been pointed out here is fair and good. But if you want to delve deep into meditation, then I seriously suggest that you look up MCTB - it talks about several of the dangers that lie in that path. www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB
edwinyzh 14y ago
Some of you pointed out it's not easy to control/stop the mind, yes, that's very true, especially for some people. To solve that, I suggest to read Ekhart Tolle's The Power Of Now, I think it's the modern book that explains the orignal Zen in a easy-to-understand way. I used to think/worry/imagine too much about the future, and thus missed every actual moment I was living in, and it made me unhappy. I was living like that since I was very young and until I read the book The Power Of Now. So I highly recommend it.

356 points by bcrawl 14y ago

The misconception about meditation is that it requires one to give up everything and sit silently. This is not true in its entirety as it depends on how one interprets the word "meditation". The meditation does not necessarily require you to give up one thing for the sake of another. The goal of the meditation is to "be in awareness" and you can achieve this same goal by being alert and aware with any activity your find yourself doing at any given moment. For example... You are washing dishes but you are not really washing dishes because your mind is wandering with thoughts on what you need to do tonight at the place you need to visit. By the time your dishes are done, you have already planned for your future as your mind kept you busy with the thoughts of the future while you forgot what you were doing in the present (which is, washing dishes, which you really didn't). The meditation is to be-in-present with whatever activity you do and love to do. If you had washed your dishes with full alertness and awareness, you would have achieved the same goal of meditation. Let's go even further with another example. You love to play music as your passion (or dance, or paint, or fill in the blank activity here) but you don't get enough opportunity in the day to do what you love to do more with passion. When you dance or sing or play music or run or exercise, you get the opportunity during that activity to forget yourself in the act (the subject merges into the object) and you become one with the reality, or you transcend that favorite activity by merging your self into it. That moment of transcendence is meditation, and you should find more opportunities to be in that meditation, in those moments. Now, I am not suggesting that the type of meditation mentioned at the source is wrong or ineffective. What I am suggesting however is that people don't need to get stuck with one type of explanation of meditation because ultimately you can achieve the same goal by shifting the focus a bit.

ambler0 14y ago
I think you're making a good point. A lot of people reserve the word "mindfulness" for the sort of meditations you're describing here and use "meditation" for something more specific. But they're just names and I don't worry about them too much. This all also reminds me that there are people who view "true yoga" as a sort of 24/7 meditation of movement, where the person strives to be aware of and deliberate about their movements all the time.
jemfinch 14y ago
Sorry, this is hard for me to understand. You seem to be saying--and I apologize if I misinterpret you--that it is better to focus on dishwashing than to use otherwise idle mental time to plan one's future. Is that really the case? What gains could one expect from focusing on dishwashing, only to take time away from some other activity to plan one's future?
- sausax82 14y ago
  Happiness ?
- ambler0 14y ago
  I don't have a link handy right this moment, but I understand that there is research indicating that the kind of multitasking you're describing is associated with a negative effect on mood, whereas acting mindfully is associated with an improved mood. Everyone is different, but I have also found this to be the case in my own life. On a more practical note, I just find that I make more mistakes when I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing. And as for planning for the future, how much extra time would it really take if you saved it for after the dishes? A couple minutes? All that said, I still listen to podcasts while doing chores...
- zoul 14y ago
  It’s better to let yourself to be swallowed whole by your current activity (be it just doing the dishes) than to continue in the endless chatter of your mind. Doing the dishes can be fun if you pay attention to the textures, temperatures, smells and sounds. You can plan your future later, giving it full attention again. That’s the idea.
  - jonsen 14y ago
    Your subconscious mind is still planning your future. And it may do better when not disturbed by your attention.
    - webwanderings 14y ago
      Good line of thinking, I happen to agree, hence I believe it is better to stay in the here-now with whatever activity one does at any given moment.
jamesli 14y ago
Excellent point! Be-in-present is the essence of some sects of Zen, especially in Japanese Zen. Sweeping the yard is not only to clean the yard. It is a practice, a meditation, to sweep the distracted thought of one's brain. Same as arranging flowers, etc. In this sense, it is the same as any other everyday manual work, like washing dishes, walking, etc.
- webwanderings 14y ago
  Yes, indeed. But when you add the phenomena of activity humans love to do and excel in, you can see that those transcendent moment occur when the mind is in here-now. If you are into watching movies and when you watch an exceptionally good movie, you are most likely staying in present in that moment where the mind is not there to distract. It could be a great scene or it could be the whole movie, the experience one gets out of watching good movie, is as same as the experience one gets out of being-in-present. But obviously the moment passes leaving the taste in your mouth, but the point is ... that one can find and cultivate those moments further in life in other situations.
starpilot 14y ago
Parent has read "Miracle of Mindfulness," by Thich Nhat Hanh. He explains, > If we can't wash the dishes, the chances are we won't be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future - and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.
- webwanderings 14y ago
  Thank you, my example of washing dishes indeed came from Thich Nhat Hanh.
- zafka 14y ago
  I too have read several of Thich Nhat Hann's books. I don't even know how many times I have referenced the washing dishes story. I do feel that it has added value to my life. I wonder if a statistically significant number of folks here on HN have read his books.
aashay 14y ago
> "you become one with the reality, or you transcend that favorite activity by merging your self into it. That moment of transcendence is meditation" I think this is a really interesting takeaway. I'd like to propose another type of activity which I think most people probably wouldn't group together with meditation: video games. If you're an avid gamer, you'll know where I'm coming from. Whether you're playing an MMO or an immersive story-based game, or even a competitive real-time strategy game, you're well-versed in the feeling of being hyper-focused and "becoming one" with the reality in front of you. I rarely find my thoughts wandering while playing a game because there simply isn't an opportunity to let my brain drift this way, especially if it's a multiplayer game (think StarCraft II, for example). Video games are, at least for me, an activity that allows me to be in complete awareness and be in the moment, at that helps me relax. Any time I get ridiculed for playing video games as an adult, this is my default explanation.
- webwanderings 14y ago
  That's it. You are in meditation when you're playing video games. I believe you should just find more of those same opportunities when you are not playing video games (because you can't really play video games 24x7).
  - aashay 14y ago
    Of course. My primary meditation activity tends to be playing my guitar. I was just reminded of my explanation about gaming. To be "present" 24/7 is a very difficult achievement, but it's a great goal to keep in mind. Edit: grammar
vikas5678 14y ago
"Meditation in action" is usually supported by "sitting meditation" like the author in the link above suggests. In my own practice, I've noticed that when I skip sitting meditations, my attempts at staying aware through out the daily activities is harder than usual.
zabar 14y ago
I completely agree with the point. I've been playing guitar (blues improv) long before I started meditating, and I really noticed the similarities in the state of mind it put you in. I've been an insomniac for a long time and meditating did help me a lot. Be it playing guitar, sitting or doing yoga.
tylee78 14y ago
The idea behind meditation is not that difficult to understand. However, it is watered down quite a bit, especially if you learn it in a New Age environment. If you go back to the old schools of meditation, the techniques are very clear and straight forward and can be applied in daily life. It is really helpful though to know some meditation principles: http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/surfing-on-the-wave-of-bliss/ http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/surfing-on-the-wa... http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/anussati-sinking-away-from-the-wet-in-a-stream-of-life/ http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/anussati-sinking-...
agumonkey 14y ago
I play a game that I call MIKADO where I do everything in the smoothest way trying to generate the smallest amount of sound (or any kind of wave). It comes from a blend of the child game, taichi, and drumming (drumming ask for fine perception of balance shifts and acceleration) and forces me to focus on everything at everytime. From the object of action, its surroundings, myself and my surrounding. Sound seems quite exponential in nature, to avoid noises you really need to be continuously slow, at any sudden movement you'll have a hint, unless you know a path were you can accelerate freely. I find it very relaxing, body and mind. The unawareness of accumulation of changes/accelerations are often the cause of anger, tireness, physical effort. By going smooth and slow, not slow actually, just at your own pace, things appear to cost far less and to give far more.
- pestaa 14y ago
  Sounds fun and boy would I look silly doing that in the street. I'll call it walk fu. Thanks for the great idea.
  - agumonkey 14y ago
    Man, I was already embarrassed to write about it. I only do that inside walls of course. Outside I'm a perfectly normal alien.
    - mck- 14y ago
      Never be embarrassed. I do it all the time ;) I'd be walking home from work, focussing hard not to walk. Just staring blindly ahead, allowing auto-pilot to take me home, and focus on every sensation of every muscle in every part of my body. Then again, this was in Hong Kong, where you see groups of oldies doing Taichi and what-not in every corner of the city. I still do it occasionally here in Vancouver, the city of Yoga, so it's still fine ;)
      - agumonkey 14y ago
        In-house the game is to be as stealth as possible while doing any kind of chore. Ninja mode, or 'do not wake women at night' mode. Just moving a cup (even worse, a metallic object) from A to B becomes a challenge, but when you drop the cup on the table without any sound you feel like a magician.
driverdan 14y ago
This is exactly how I lift weights / exercise, with complete focus and mindfulness. While working out it is all I think about. I put on headphones with fast, heavy music and focus on the exercise I'm doing at that moment. I don't think about email in my inbox, I don't think about the errands I need to run, I don't talk to the other people around me. I think about my muscles contracting. I think about the extra 5 lbs I just added to the bar. I think about my form. I think about my breathing. It is meditation as much as sitting on a pillow with legs crossed and eyes closed.
- mtts 14y ago
  Weight lifting could be mindfulness, but only if you don't "put on headphones with fast, heavy music". Those headphones are a distraction.
  - driverdan 14y ago
    They aren't because they help shut out the outside world. I don't focus on the music, the music helps me focus on my lifts.
mck- 14y ago
It's that feeling of being in the zone, completely forgetting about tomorrow's worries. But how does one raise awareness of being in the zone? It is that consciousness that I believe is paramount. Training your consciousness by playing sports vs sitting in lotus is analogous to training your biceps by rowing vs biceps curls. The latter is more targeted, hence more effective. When you do what you love and you completely emerge in it, yes, you do get in a state of bliss. But are you conscious of it? If not, which is mostly the case when you see a group of people play soccer in the park, then I don't think that is beneficial in the meditative sense. Your mind is still very much active. The reason why the traditional way of meditation is so effective (and has therefore been used for millennia), is because it is quite hard to just sit still and do nothing. And really clear your mind of any thought whatsoever. It is this mental challenge that will really train your consciousness and raise your awareness. An easier way to get started is to combine the two methods, in the form of tai-chi. Get your exercise, while clearing your mind (and raise your awareness). It has helped me a great deal -- my life has been so much smoother after I trained Tai Chi for 4 intensive months in China. If you're interested, I blogged about that experience a while back: http://kuomarc.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/tai-chi-in-pursuit-of-happiness/ http://kuomarc.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/tai-chi-in-pursuit-o...
- papsosouid 14y ago
  >Training your consciousness by playing sports vs sitting in lotus is analogous to training your biceps by rowing vs biceps curls. The latter is more targeted, hence more effective. Only if your goal is to make your biceps bigger. If your goal is to gain strength, isolation is less effective, as strength involves more than just one muscle, it also involves stabilizing muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc. Who says training your conciousness isn't similar?
  - mck- 14y ago
    Interesting.. how many moving parts does consciousness have? To me, consciousness and the mind are but one thing.
    - 14y ago
Florin_Andrei 14y ago
> The misconception about meditation is that it requires one to give up everything and sit silently. This is not true in its entirety as it depends on how one interprets the word "meditation". That's right. There are prayer or mantra techniques that could be practiced anywhere, any time. In the Indian culture, there are people who say their mantra (sometimes silently, with no external sound or movement of the tongue) when they go about their daily business. In Orthodox cultures in Eastern Europe, there are people saying the Prayer of the Heart, again, during their daily routine (often silently, without any external sign of the practice). There are also techniques of focusing your mind on various psycho-physiological aspects (breathing, various "energy centers", etc), but those may be a little harder to do while engaged in your normal routine. There are also ways of maintaining a meditation-like, or "prayerful", state of mind and feeling during normal activities. This may require some prior experience. In any case, yes, meditation does not mandate sitting down either on a chair or cross-legged, with eyes closed. Some techniques may actually require that posture, but others don't. It depends.
dscrd 14y ago
"The misconception about meditation is that it requires one to give up everything and sit silently." How I think it, giving up everything and sitting silently is a form of practice. You cannot be in-present with whatever activity you do if your mental muscle isn't toned for it.

ambler0 14y ago

I took a mindfulness meditation class a year or two ago and I thought this was a pretty nice introduction to some of the ideas. For anyone interested in the science, I have found lots of good articles by subscribing to this mailing list: http://www.mindfulexperience.org/newsletter.php http://www.mindfulexperience.org/newsletter.php The ideas have been around forever, but scientists have really taken to testing them in recent decades.

stephth 14y ago

Focus on your breath going in and out. Every time you have a thought or an urge, notice it and bring yourself back to your breath. From what I've heard so far, meditation is based on focusing on your body in order to quiet your mind. Are there other schools/techniques?

vidarh 14y ago
There are two main forms of meditations, with a pretty much infinite number of variations: Concentration based meditation, and contemplative meditation. But it all bleeds together - contemplative practices require a certain level of concentration in order to be able to practice them. Contemplative practices can range from meditation on a specific subject to general observation of your mind, thoughs, body, environment - this latter form is exemplified very well by mindfulness meditation (vipassana, from Theravada Buddhism, though when mindfulness meditation is taught in the West it is often pretty much cleansed of Buddhist material). What the article describes sounds close to mindfulness meditation. In this case the goal is to quiet the mind, but not silence it or shut out external impression. The breath is used as an "anchor" that you return to in order to not let thoughts or feelings or observations drag you along, so that you can observe your thoughts in a detached manner, notice them, and move back to the breath. Compare with some of the concentration practices which include focus on completely emptying your mind for extended periods of time.
Dove 14y ago
Yes, the emptying of the mind is the style of oriental meditation. In contrast, there is an old tradition of Christian meditation which attempts to fill the mind completely with one concept. For example, in the medieval Lectio Divina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_Divina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_Divina), one takes a few words of scripture and repeats them and considers them and ponders them for many minutes. The Cloud of Unknowing recommends doing something similar with the concept of God, or with a simple word such as "love". This is actually a pretty tough mental exercise to do for even just 20 minutes.
muraiki 14y ago
When I was in college at the University of Pittsburgh, I took a fascinating class called "Mysticism: East and East" that compared the contemplative traditions of Yoga and Orthodox Christian hesychast prayer. As a practicing Buddhist at the time, it was an eye-opening class. I don't really know how to present a concise summary of the class, but I did find this paper by my teacher which sets forth an overview: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/ft.aspx?id=0350-08610802171B http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/ft.aspx?id=0350-08610802171B Now of course Orthodox hesychasm is about communion with a person, whereas eastern meditation is typically not (Pure Land schools of Buddhism are more in line with Judeo-Christian concepts of prayer, though). But I think that there is some common ground for dialogue, and perhaps this paper may be of interest to you or others who enjoyed the original article and are interested in other practices.

dkokelley 14y ago

I think the author has an excellent point about training one's ability to resist urges. Urges are spontaneous. They don't necessarily fit with our work flow. In fact, they interrupt it. Maybe a good analogy is the Time Management Matrix by Eisenhower (and popularized in Steven Covey's '7 Habits' book). Urges almost always present themselves as urgent tasks, but they aren't always important. I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion that meditation will make you more productive. The evidence presented reminds me of a scenario from The Office, where Michael defends Monday morning movies by claiming they are more productive the rest of the day. Of course the reason they are more productive is because they have to be in order to recover the time spent watching a movie! Rather, I think people don't realize how much spare time there is that gets wasted. Tasks expand to fill the time allotted. It's possible that meditation can help you identify those wasteful activities (urges) and address them appropriately.

KirinDave 14y ago

Wait. Wait wait wait. > Research shows that an ability to resist urges will improve your relationships, increase your dependability, and raise your performance... Great. Yes. Impulse control is key. Delayed gratification is part of how we define higher intelligence. Meditation has what do with this, exactly? > How [does meditation help]? By increasing your capacity to resist distracting urges. This entire article is predicated by this leap of faith, which as far as I can see has little to no justification besides, "Of course it does!" > Meditation teaches us to resist the urge of that counterproductive follow through. One cannot just say things over and over to make them true.

Dove 14y ago
I don't know, I thought he explained it pretty well: during meditation, you practice resisting urges. I'll admit that falls rather short of a doubleblindrandomlyassignedcontrolgrouplargesamplesizepeerreviewed study, but it does seem to be common sense that practicing something would make you better at it.
- KirinDave 14y ago
  "during meditation, you practice resisting urges." Saying this does not make it true thought. Is that actually what people do during meditation? The only experience I have with meditation is sitting in seiza position after 2 hours of Ki Aikido, slowly feeling my muscles cramp, listening to someone hit a drum periodically, and not feeling anything good at all. Eventually I just learned to devote that time to reviewing things I had learned that day. I found this self-reflective practice far more refreshing and pleasant than any search for metaphorical emptiness.
  - johnthedebs 14y ago
    I think when most people say 'meditation' what they mean is 'mindfulness meditation' (and that seems to be the case here). During mindfulness meditation, yes, resisting urges is part of what you're supposed to do. The basic process goes something like: 1) Sit down in a comfortable position that you can stay in without moving. 2) Take deep breaths through your nose and focus your attention on the sensation of air moving over your nasal passages and into/out of your lungs. 3) When other thoughts come into your head or you find yourself thinking about anything other than your breathing, gently direct your attention back to your breathing.

tryitnow 14y ago

What about comparative effectiveness? For example, if we did an experiment where we started subjects on the following regimes, which would have the greatest effects on impulse control: 1) Learning to program (assuming the subject is not already a coder 2) meditation 3) aerobic exercise Then we would have to figure out ways to measure "impulse control." Such a study would have a lot more credibility than the author's contention that "I control impulses while meditating; therefore, meditation makes me more productive." One controls impulses during a wide variety of activities; the burden is on the pro-meditation crowd to provide evidence that meditation is an especially valuable form of practicing impulse control.

pyre 14y ago
I'm curious why you seem to be indirectly asserting that learning to program and/or aerobic exercise will have some effect on impulse control.

demigod 14y ago

When I meditate concentrating on my breath,my mind interferes with my breathing and it becomes uncomfortable if I dont relax I believe this acts as some negative feedback for the control freak self inside me. Every time I exert unnecessary control it becomes uncomfortable. Meditating long enough may show me that the mind will wander in its own ways regardless of what I maybe doing at the moment, and its best for me to let it wander on its own ways and focus on what I am doing. Thus helping me understand that all the thoughts about ego, and judgements is just come process on the sidelines, and different from the core of me, the core that is focused on what I am doing. This is the impression I have of where meditation is taking me.

yresnob 14y ago

Read Pragmatic thinking and Learning for good explanation as well.. Meditation improves focus... this is not based on reports or data but from my own experience. That is always the best proof for me.. trying it myself.

ricvg 14y ago

I highly recommend to take a 10 days retreat in a Vipassana[1] meditation center. I know that 10 days is a lot to ask but in my opinion is well worth the effort. I've been there twice in the past three years. I thought that I understood everything the first time. Boy, was I wrong. [1] http://www.dhamma.org/ http://www.dhamma.org/

konstruktor 14y ago
If those rules don't creep you out, then I don't know what does: http://www.dhamma.org/en/code.shtml http://www.dhamma.org/en/code.shtml No talking, no outside contact, no other forms of practice. This is not a healthy environment unless you know very well what to expect and are sure you really, really want this. It sounds very cultish to me, even though I do know somebody who goes on Vipassana retreats regularly and seems to benefit a lot. Those retreats are for laypersons, including beginners, but the rules are similar to the most intense meditation periods of monastic buddhist life. Compare that to western zen: There's a small zen temple in my town that will not allow people on 3 day retreats unless they have meditated for a while and know what to expect.
- ricvg 14y ago
  hehe... yeah they do look like that at first. Personally I find that the reasoning behind these rules is very practical. You see, the course is all about understanding what sensations are and the effects that they have in our psyche. So one of the goals is to limit as much as possible all sources of sensations so that you can easily focus on a few and see how the mind reacts to them.
- pavedwalden 14y ago
  Cults have rules like that to cut you out of your old life, but in this case I think it's a legitimate desire to eliminate ALL distraction. I did one of their retreats many years ago and concluded that the changes in my internal life that could only happen in such an environment. For example, after a few days my internal monologue petered out and for the first time I realized that a good portion of my mental activity was normally devoted to thinking about things I was going to say later on. Once I was out of the habit of talking all the time, I stopped cooking up little quips and observations about everything and really felt an expansion of non-verbal thinking. So, although I had my doubts about the place going in, I left feeling that 10 days of intense internal focus was the only possible way to reach the insights I'd had, and that I was glad I'd done it. The months afterwards (while I kept up the practice, before I got "too busy"), were the most contented of my life.

dschiptsov 14y ago

Oh, come on. Meditation is not the way to "exercise willpower muscle" (running is the way to do so). Meditation is the way to learn that your flow of thoughts is not you, it is mere side-effect, a smoke from an engine, a screen-saver, or just idle-running. Yes, the practice of meditation is beneficial for will-power and self-control, but it is not the goal.) Goal is realization that what you think you are, is just a running total of all previous conditioning, and the ''real you'' could be "seen" is in an instant between two thoughts. Any good ''eastern'' teacher will tell you that.

crux 14y ago
I'd think any good "eastern" teacher would be sure to emphasize both the cultivation of wholesome mental qualities and the realization of not-self in meditation, depending on the audience and the context.
7rurl 14y ago
That's awfully dogmatic of you. Why can't people have different goals for meditating? Speaking of running... same thing... people can run for different reasons. Certainly long distance running is great if your goal is to increase your willpower, but its also great if your goals is to increase your physical endurance or if your goals is simply to be able to run really far.
Agathos 14y ago
Running? Really? In my experience, my mind is quite calm when doing hard physical work such as running. So if I wanted to practice resisting distracting thoughts, I would have to begin with almost anything besides physical exercise.
Florin_Andrei 14y ago
Meditation is to your mind what hacking is to a computer. You're trying to make it do things it would not otherwise do. (hacking in the sense accepted here on HN, not in the mainstream sense)

natex 14y ago

I'm seeing quite an interest here for the principles and techniques of meditation. Here's a link for some talks given by a wonderful teacher, on mindfulness/meditation and other topics. http://www.audiodharma.org/ http://www.audiodharma.org/

tylee78 14y ago

Happens to me all the time. I am working on a piece of code in the afternoon, and can't move forward or looking to identify a bug or optimizing some algorithm - wasting hours. After a meditation session I walk back to the computer screen, take a seat, and my hand clicks around the tabs, my fingers scroll around, my eye catches one obscure line of code which is EXACTLY where the problem sits. I had this happen so many times, it's a given by now. The article (and I am sure all who do meditate) shares the same kind of experience.

thirdtruck 14y ago
I can second this. I can't begin to count the number of times that spending five minutes walking and with my mind on anything but a given problem has lead to the recognition of a major time-saving change in plans. Think of it as pulling off of the highway for a minute to check your map instead of trying to unfold it in front of your steering wheel.

ricknew 14y ago

This excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki might add another approach to the conversation. http://www.kingstonkendo.org/mistakesinpractice.pdf http://www.kingstonkendo.org/mistakesinpractice.pdf (PDF)

javajosh 14y ago

What the author calls "impulses" the Buddha called sankhara, or reactivity. The ones the OP is talking about are minor reactions. These reactions do indeed impede our progress, as when our actions are driven by reaction we are not fully aware of what's going on around us. I first recognized the practical implications of this playing billiards - when I would strike a ball and miss, I would feel slightly dejected, and neglect to analyze what I just did to learn from it. When I would strike a ball and make it, I would feel slightly elated, and neglect to understand what I just did to learn from it. My game got a lot better when I started playing the game, fascinated but detached from outcomes. There are a remarkable number of ways to strike a ball wrong - and it is interesting to consider why, having learned the game sufficiently, one would ever strike the ball wrong. Where does the variation creep in? Why, if I examine a table and decide to put the cue ball "just so", can I not do that? The answer, of course, is that there is countless non-verbal data that your body is sending you on each stroke - feedback from your bridge hand, the hand on the cue, even your stance and the feel of the felt all factor into this. If you are attached to the outcome, all of this goes out the window. There is nervousness, fear, and excitement instead of systematic understanding.

brianmcdonough 14y ago

Jonathan Haidt, the author of one of my favorite books, "The Happiness Hypothesis," points out–based on extensive research–that there are only three ways to change "automatic reactions" to circumstances like a flooded kitchen...meditation, cognitive therapy, and Prozac. Meditation is an inexpensive and natural alternative to the other two, it's been around for thousands of years and there are no negative side effects.

rohun_ati 14y ago

There was a study done by Sarah Lazar at Harvard Med a while back. They concluded that meditation can not only prevent age related cognitive decline, but it can actually physically reshape our brains, thickening our cortical structures. There's a TED video online, and the actual study is available online if anyone is interested (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16272874 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16272874)

gavanwoolery 14y ago

I meditate while walking my dogs or taking a shower. Unless you are trying to achieve the title of Zen Grandmaster (which you probably are not) there is no need to sit still while doing so.

mtts 14y ago
Dunno. I've found purposefully sitting still is much more effective than walking dogs or taking a shower, during which your mind may calm down, but may very well not as well.
kylebrown 14y ago
I think you are on to something here, but there is a difference between doing something relaxing and "meditating". I'm most relaxed while sitting on the pot and I get my best insights while taking a shower, but during neither of those am I meditating (in the zen sense). A Zen Grandmaster can probably meditate while rollerblading through NYC and simultaneously debugging a kernel driver. For beginners, it helps to sit relatively still with eyes closed (or eyes focused on eg a candle, tree, waterfall etc. but not darting about), to chant or use beads to count breaths, etc.

vividmind 14y ago

I use fishing for the same purposes. Helps me concentrate on just that activity and get my mind off work-related stuff. Every time after a fishing trip I feel really rested, although might be tired a bit physically.

mtts 14y ago
Maybe someone will do some research on this at some point, but yes, it seems fishing is indeed the western male's (it's usually western males that do fishing for leisure, no?) version of meditation. It's not about catching fish, surely.
ashutoshm 14y ago
"Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." ~ Henry David Thoreau

tehayj 14y ago

I'm into the basic practice of mindfulness since years. I read research papers about it every month and also train people in mindfulness skills. Here is the essence of what I learned. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sspY43lxqhE&list=UUh-TdJwz4z0dN9hAYnCWZow&index=12&feature=plcp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sspY43lxqhE&list=UUh-TdJw...

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

up_and_up 14y ago

In my opinion, Meditation and Mindfullness are not the same thing. Meditation is a state, where the mind is completely silent, the breath slows waaaay down, the heartbeat slows waaaay down. Slowly ever so slowly, some bliss starts to bubble up from within. It is the climax of one pointed attention. Few people who say they "meditate" are reaching that point since it requires years of sincere effort. In Yoga, meditation is known as Dhyana, or the state resulting from the mind becoming one pointed for 100 seconds. Samadhi, which is considered a state of deep bliss is considered reached when the mind becomes completely still for 1000 seconds. Mindfullness, is the act of being more aware during daily activities. Like watching actions and interactions. There is a gradual tendency to modify behavior to being more calm, collected and centered which helps to go deeper when attempting to meditate. The mind is still active during mindfullness, but it is being directed or corrected as needed throughout the day. Meditation helps to develop deeper Mindfullness and vice versa. Meditation is like taking a shower, whereas Mindfullness is avoiding rolling in the mud and getting dirty. It is important to keep in mind that Meditation is literally a state where the mind is free from thought and that all the "meditation practices and techniques" are just different paths of reaching that same place.

eightbitman 14y ago
You are incorrect, but my fees are pretty steep, and I accept cash only, so I can't explain it to you here.
zupreme 14y ago
This is simply incorrect. There are many different types of meditation with many different types of goals. Some meditation disciplines involve slowing the breath down, while others involve speeding the breath up (research Breath of Fire). Some meditation disciplines involve quieting the mind and ignoring stimuli, while others involve opening the floodgates of sensation to more fully experience stimuli (research Vipassana). The reality is that almost no single person can say what is and is not meditation because meditation comes in many different forms, in many different traditions, from many different sources. Anyone who arrogates to him or herself the authority to say what is and is not meditation is regrettably mistaken.

ericmoritz 14y ago

Aw, I know the benefits. I hoped this would help me find a way to fit it in.

brianmcdonough 14y ago
Hey Eric, at risk of sounding like I know a lot about this, there are two facets that make it hard to fit in. The benefits take days to appear and it's uncomfortable in the beginning. Like running, it's hard to start a practice of meditating, but if you do 1 minute, then 5 minutes, then work your way up to 20 minutes, there is a breaking point where you will do it because the benefits are clearly making your life richer. Colors appear more vibrant, sounds more clear, emotions more fully experienced. You will take more moments, like while stopped at a stoplight, to meditate because it allows joyful feelings rise to the top. Then, you won't ever think, "how can I fit it in," it will become part of you.

lloyddobbler 14y ago

If I'm too busy to medidate, why will I have time to read this article (presumably on meditation)?

qbit 14y ago

"And you will have experience that proves to you that the urge is only a suggestion. You are in control." This is the most interesting part to me. Don't we always act on the urge that is strongest at the moment? If I decide to continue to meditate even though I have an urge to stop, doesn't that just mean that the urge to continue happened to be stronger than the urge to stop? Did I really get to choose which of those urges was strongest at that moment? Of course, this gets into questions of free will, which has been discussed on HN before. But when I meditate, it becomes very clear that I am definitely not in control of my thoughts, feelings, and urges. I see that I have multiple, competing urges at any given moment and that I don't control which urge emerges as the victor and compels me to act.

palderson 14y ago

For me, meditation is a way of separating myself from the issues I'm dealing with. The act of distancing my mind from the issue itself provides renewed vigor when returning to the problem.

ta12121 14y ago

There's nothing in this article that isn't said better elsewhere. I'd recommend the (free, online) Mindfulness in Plain English: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html (also available as a "real" book).

dennisme 14y ago

Rent time in an isolation tank. It is wonderful.

idoruby 14y ago

I have been meditating for forty years. For thirty nine years I did transcendental meditation (TM)as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I sat for 20 minutes twice a day without fail. Last year I switched to Vipassana not because I was displeased with TM but just for a change and because the Goenka community seems to be very professional. I have been sitting in this new way one hour a day for a year now. I am not as regular because Vipassana requires more arrangement than TM. I am satisfied with my practice and can see a path to grow in this community for the rest of my life. I am not sorry that I have spent so much time meditating. It changed my life. Before I began meditating I was aware of a certain pervasive incompleteness. I am a programmer and I love programming and I have been married for forty seven years and love my wife. But these satisfactions were not enough. My meditation practice did not materially change my life but it has given me a sense of centeredness. I am in a quiet way more fulfilled. My experience was that TM was a very practical choice. I paid $75 to be initiated and found the TM community meet my needs for companionship on my path. Community is important to support a meditative practice. The actual practice is practical to do in our busy lives. If you are too busy to take two twenty minute periods each day for your personal readjustment then you are too busy and you need to readjust your life pattern. If you do not realize the imbalance in your life, probably meditation is not for you. Don't waste your time. Perhaps later. YMMV, nowadays it cost $2k+ to learn TM. It is a good deal at this cost at least the benefits in my life exceed almost any amount of money. But without my experience I would never understand that. It is a chicken and egg problem. OTOH, the TM community has changed and I am not sure I would be served by the Post Mahrishi community. In my case, as a long term meditator the difficulties with the community don't really affect me. Although I did consider the quality of the Goenka to support me in future. So the choice of TM is a possibility for a newby. One caution, I knew many poeple who started TM and did not continue. So you are risking $2k+. Vipassana is different. The technique requires more training and a greater daily investment. I sit for an hour a day. But Goenka suggests a minimum of two hours a day. And most practioners do at least one ten day retreat a year. I find this a bit much. But given that I am retired it is easily feasable. It merely a matter of commitment for me. A midlife married programmer will find this a greater challenge. The introduction to Goenka's technique is charming. You do a ten day retreat at no cost to you. Their story is that adopting this practice is a serious matter. You learn the technique and then practice ten hours a day for ten days. For this learning period you live on the charity of others like a Budhist monk. Since this technique is a way of living that extends beyond just sitting, you need time to get into it. I don't know how to tell which is most appropriate for you. I can just say it works for me. But I can say one thing for certain. Meditation is a practice that must be done everyday. Don't bother if you are not ready to commit to a regular practice. The benefits of meditation can not be explained. It is an experience and all that a teacher can do is give the experience and show you how to protect it. The rest is up to you. I will say that meditation and psychotherapy are not mutually exclusive. For more than twelve years during the last forty I have been in therapy. My final thought is that if you have a sense that your experience of life seems not quite complete, meditation can work to give you greater experience of connection.

gadser 14y ago

Meditation completely changed my life. I used to be a real loser. Then I started meditating. And now I'm completely awesome. You should trust me because I posted this on the Internet.

kevTheDev 14y ago

I've been meditating pretty much every day for a few months now, and the thing that got me into it was getsomeheadspace.com I've found it incredibly helpful - having a different guided meditation to do on the train every day makes the London commute, whilst not blissful, certainly better.

001sky 14y ago

(Yet) Another venue to for the competitive display of subtle nuances and arcane desiderata.

sandGorgon 14y ago

For casual meditation, all that has been pointed out here is fair and good. But if you want to delve deep into meditation, then I seriously suggest that you look up MCTB - it talks about several of the dangers that lie in that path. www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB

edwinyzh 14y ago

Some of you pointed out it's not easy to control/stop the mind, yes, that's very true, especially for some people. To solve that, I suggest to read Ekhart Tolle's The Power Of Now, I think it's the modern book that explains the orignal Zen in a easy-to-understand way. I used to think/worry/imagine too much about the future, and thus missed every actual moment I was living in, and it made me unhappy. I was living like that since I was very young and until I read the book The Power Of Now. So I highly recommend it.