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As someone who's maintained a meditation practice since 2013, this is definitely meditation. And by "maintain a practice", I mean it's more like something I re

As someone who's maintained a meditation practice since 2013, this is definitely meditation. And by "maintain a practice", I mean it's more like something I return to with frequency and less a daily compulsion. Focusing on the breathe or ambient sounds is "easy", and is precisely the reason meditation is seemingly difficult. The mind craves more than simplicity; for some this occurs after a few seconds, for others after a few minutes...it all depends on the day. Learning to observe when the mind wanders is one part of the practice. Labelling the quality of thought that caused the wandering (planning, worrying, visualizing, replaying, etc)and returning to the simpler act of focus on breathe or sounds is another part of the practice. This article is very much the author discovering some variation of meditation; if they feel the need to "invent" something and share it in a blog post...then here's hoping it promotes more people to give it a shot and maybe it'll lead to at least one person developing a new practice for themselves.

smeg_it 5mo ago
I was taught basic breathing meditation from a Vietnamese nun; but I'm not an expert. There are so many variations that I don't understand. I don't know much about Zen or it's take on meditation or mindfulness. On meditation, I know when I do it right, but have trouble helping people learn. I have trouble when I most need it (highly stressed), as I have the most trouble taking the time to relax without feeling too guilty. As far as "inventing". I know what you (@reg_dunlop) mean but I don't see too much real harm. My father was into a book that talked about "not thinking". It was just a re-framing of part of mindfulness. If it helps... I'm not going to fuss about it. As far as eyes. I was taught to not close my eyes completely but most of the way. I saw a documentary that explored Tibetan monks and their meditation. From what I recall, one of the monks said to use the eyelids as adjustable window blinds(or a valve... I'm paraphrasing to my understanding of what he was saying) so that if they got a bit sleepy they would open them more. Personally, I'm a big believer in mindfulness but I do have some questions on some finer points. I might even aspire to teach it, but need further help myself first. Let me know of any resources that helped you (anyone)
- krunck 5mo ago
  A meditation practice(in the Soto Zen tradition) over the course of five years changed my life. Daily 40m of sitting facing a wall watching the breath and returning the mind to the present moment when it strays. No judgement. Just returning the mind to the present, again, and again, and again.... The BS starts to drop away. No enlightenment moments. But later, away from the practice you have more patience, more acceptance, more little moments of joy, less fear.
  - smeg_it 5mo ago
    I've been doing it on and off for years. Trouble is my "career" is dead. I think I'm technically "middle" aged, but really over "middle" of life. It's harder to relax the mind and body right now. When I do it "right", I feel more relaxed on both fronts. My body doesn't sit for hours or anything but 15-30 is my norm when it works. It's hard for me to continue, if I hadn't relaxed by say 5 min. I think mine is basically the same except I try and return to paying attention to my breathing when my mind wonders. I know my breathing is in the "present"; so this might just be a semantic difference. *I don't like the word "concentration" because, I think, it throws people off (so that's why I didn't use it)
    - dijksterhuis 5mo ago
      > When I do it "right" i get the scare quote usage. but still feel like it’s a good time to point out. there’s no right zazen. there’s no wrong zazen. there’s just zazen. sitting down and taking what comes. that’s all we’re doing. sitting down and getting quieter. emphasis on the -er in quieter. 30 minutes of “crap” zazen is probably the most rewarding zazen. i just don’t appreciate it at the time. something that helped me recently is just giving myself a day off. it’s okay. i’ll come back to it. as someone said to me recently — the worst way of maintaining a practice is to force it / control it.
      - samplifier 5mo ago
        Oh this reminds me of The way of Zen by Alan Watts.
bitexploder 5mo ago
Staring does something interesting. It does slowly reduce brain waves, but it is harder to hit theta with eyes open. And it works very differently initially. With eyes closed meditation where we, say, follow the breath we use the salience network to slowly chill the DMN for a bit. When you stare at a wall the salience network is what deactivates letting the DMN rip to try and figure what predictions are useful. But it runs out of steam and slowly the state converges with a traditional meditative state. With one important difference: your visual field is still active. Traditional meditation lets you hit theta brain waves. Eyes open is harder to hit theta with but you can definitely hit alpha waves. So I agree it is meditation, but its quality and mechanism is interesting and different by a bit. It does make me wonder. When we traditionally meditate we grow the salience network (physically). Wall staring trains the brain to simply not seek attention in the first place. Wall staring doesn't strengthen the Salience Network's ability to act as a manager. It recalibrates the Salience Network's threshold for alarm. It trains the dACC to stop firing when nothing is happening. So both are useful. And provide different neural wiring and myelination.
- reg_dunlop 5mo ago
  I'm curious what is meant by > ...recalibrates the Salience Network's threshold for alarm. Superficial googling reveals superficial information about the SN. And more specifically, i'm curious what sort of physiological signals could verify recalibration.
  - bitexploder 5mo ago
    Basic a high priority stimulus arrives. It is actually fascinating how this get sorted out, but the salience network say, gets a signal like, user stubbed toe, massive spike of cortisol along with pain signals filtering in from that part of the brain that manages them. When your brain gets bored it is effectively lowering its threshold to trigger "do something" <time wasters, phone scroll, etc.>. The brain is just wired up to constantly process predictive activity. By staring at a whole it stops registering stillness as a thing to activate this process of hunting for stimulative activity. This effectively lets your brain be more calm with no stimulation as it has learned this is not a "threat" state. Being a modern human is hard. We were not really built for our life post industrial revolution. We evolved to always be ready for threats. The fact that our brains have adapted so well to modern life is amazing and why we have gotten to where we have as a species vs. others. However, it has costs. Our brains our wired to run the DMN loop non stop. So you can do two things. With traditional meditation you make your salience network stronger. Every time your DMN interrupts your meditation and you flex your salience network muscle so to speak you are training it to shift back to the lower DMN activity state. And with wall staring you are changing the brains calibration of what no stimulation means. Both contribute synergistically based on my understanding. (contribute to being less distractible).

smeg_it 5mo ago

I was taught basic breathing meditation from a Vietnamese nun; but I'm not an expert. There are so many variations that I don't understand. I don't know much about Zen or it's take on meditation or mindfulness. On meditation, I know when I do it right, but have trouble helping people learn. I have trouble when I most need it (highly stressed), as I have the most trouble taking the time to relax without feeling too guilty. As far as "inventing". I know what you (@reg_dunlop) mean but I don't see too much real harm. My father was into a book that talked about "not thinking". It was just a re-framing of part of mindfulness. If it helps... I'm not going to fuss about it. As far as eyes. I was taught to not close my eyes completely but most of the way. I saw a documentary that explored Tibetan monks and their meditation. From what I recall, one of the monks said to use the eyelids as adjustable window blinds(or a valve... I'm paraphrasing to my understanding of what he was saying) so that if they got a bit sleepy they would open them more. Personally, I'm a big believer in mindfulness but I do have some questions on some finer points. I might even aspire to teach it, but need further help myself first. Let me know of any resources that helped you (anyone)

krunck 5mo ago
A meditation practice(in the Soto Zen tradition) over the course of five years changed my life. Daily 40m of sitting facing a wall watching the breath and returning the mind to the present moment when it strays. No judgement. Just returning the mind to the present, again, and again, and again.... The BS starts to drop away. No enlightenment moments. But later, away from the practice you have more patience, more acceptance, more little moments of joy, less fear.
- smeg_it 5mo ago
  I've been doing it on and off for years. Trouble is my "career" is dead. I think I'm technically "middle" aged, but really over "middle" of life. It's harder to relax the mind and body right now. When I do it "right", I feel more relaxed on both fronts. My body doesn't sit for hours or anything but 15-30 is my norm when it works. It's hard for me to continue, if I hadn't relaxed by say 5 min. I think mine is basically the same except I try and return to paying attention to my breathing when my mind wonders. I know my breathing is in the "present"; so this might just be a semantic difference. *I don't like the word "concentration" because, I think, it throws people off (so that's why I didn't use it)
  - dijksterhuis 5mo ago
    > When I do it "right" i get the scare quote usage. but still feel like it’s a good time to point out. there’s no right zazen. there’s no wrong zazen. there’s just zazen. sitting down and taking what comes. that’s all we’re doing. sitting down and getting quieter. emphasis on the -er in quieter. 30 minutes of “crap” zazen is probably the most rewarding zazen. i just don’t appreciate it at the time. something that helped me recently is just giving myself a day off. it’s okay. i’ll come back to it. as someone said to me recently — the worst way of maintaining a practice is to force it / control it.
    - samplifier 5mo ago
      Oh this reminds me of The way of Zen by Alan Watts.

bitexploder 5mo ago

Staring does something interesting. It does slowly reduce brain waves, but it is harder to hit theta with eyes open. And it works very differently initially. With eyes closed meditation where we, say, follow the breath we use the salience network to slowly chill the DMN for a bit. When you stare at a wall the salience network is what deactivates letting the DMN rip to try and figure what predictions are useful. But it runs out of steam and slowly the state converges with a traditional meditative state. With one important difference: your visual field is still active. Traditional meditation lets you hit theta brain waves. Eyes open is harder to hit theta with but you can definitely hit alpha waves. So I agree it is meditation, but its quality and mechanism is interesting and different by a bit. It does make me wonder. When we traditionally meditate we grow the salience network (physically). Wall staring trains the brain to simply not seek attention in the first place. Wall staring doesn't strengthen the Salience Network's ability to act as a manager. It recalibrates the Salience Network's threshold for alarm. It trains the dACC to stop firing when nothing is happening. So both are useful. And provide different neural wiring and myelination.

reg_dunlop 5mo ago
I'm curious what is meant by > ...recalibrates the Salience Network's threshold for alarm. Superficial googling reveals superficial information about the SN. And more specifically, i'm curious what sort of physiological signals could verify recalibration.
- bitexploder 5mo ago
  Basic a high priority stimulus arrives. It is actually fascinating how this get sorted out, but the salience network say, gets a signal like, user stubbed toe, massive spike of cortisol along with pain signals filtering in from that part of the brain that manages them. When your brain gets bored it is effectively lowering its threshold to trigger "do something" <time wasters, phone scroll, etc.>. The brain is just wired up to constantly process predictive activity. By staring at a whole it stops registering stillness as a thing to activate this process of hunting for stimulative activity. This effectively lets your brain be more calm with no stimulation as it has learned this is not a "threat" state. Being a modern human is hard. We were not really built for our life post industrial revolution. We evolved to always be ready for threats. The fact that our brains have adapted so well to modern life is amazing and why we have gotten to where we have as a species vs. others. However, it has costs. Our brains our wired to run the DMN loop non stop. So you can do two things. With traditional meditation you make your salience network stronger. Every time your DMN interrupts your meditation and you flex your salience network muscle so to speak you are training it to shift back to the lower DMN activity state. And with wall staring you are changing the brains calibration of what no stimulation means. Both contribute synergistically based on my understanding. (contribute to being less distractible).