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Mindful coding. Would you mind elaborating on that? I would have thought mindfulness (being aware of the present and being alive) would sit at the opposite end

by stephth 14y ago

Mindful coding. Would you mind elaborating on that? I would have thought mindfulness (being aware of the present and being alive) would sit at the opposite end of a spectrum from coding (being deeply focused on abstract constructs). When I'm good, I remember to use mindfulness in the breaks between coding, but I can't imagine them in parallel. (Maybe you meant the former?) PS: great comments.

hosh 14y ago
Thanks, I'm glad you like these. I was deeply influenced by the writings of Daniel Ingram. I encountered his book shortly after my first set of experiences, and the experiences were not like anything I had read about or assumed. Despite the controversy around his books, he has a framework I find useful. He introduced the notion of a "concentration object", and I realized you can use anything as a concentration object. Since a lot of people are out of touch with the senses, it is better to use a physical sense as the concentration object -- breathing, candle, etc. at least until you realized enough insights to go straight to just being. However, you can also use concentration objects that are constructed. They come and go anyways, so why wouldn't you use something that is not there? I have a wide network of acquaintances with people practicing all sorts of traditions, and I can render what they do in these terms. There is a whole class of practices where you create the concentration object and the concentrate on it. For example: a Buddhist mandala or pathworking the Sephiroth in Kabbalah. Where I find it useful in coding has more to do with the concentration skills gained from one-point concentration. So that is not strictly vipassana. However, more importantly, it has allowed me to consider code on its own merits instead of reacting to my Jungian shadows or to other Jungian shadows. There's a tendency for nerds and geeks to get emotional about their code, even defend it, and yet they will not admit to the emotions that run amok. Look in any thread about "What is the best programming language?" and you'll see it. Another useful thing is that ... knowing things come and go, that there is always an ending to anything that begins, means it is easier to let go of code. You don't get attached to code, so you have attachments to keeping it around. Leaving commented out code. Or diving back in and refactoring. Or recognizing when you are about go yak shaving, and no, that neat feature you did really isn't that important. Finally, as your awareness broadens, you really start thinking about just what kind of impact your code is making. Not in the social activist sense so much as one deeply informed by the realization you've gained on the cushion. Do you really want to be working on another social network for cats? Hope that helps, maybe provide some interesting things to explore :-)
- gajomi 14y ago
  Thanks for the explanation (it would seem that I was replying to you while you were writing this). I do have one question though about concentration objects. I think I have an idea of what you mean by this. I wonder if you have any advise about how to go about diversifying your set concentration objects. I can appreciate intellectually that you could have this be anything, but my meditation practice (somewhat stagnant as of late) has relied upon ritual to a great extent. For example, I have found really only two sitting positions that work for getting settled down. Similarly, I have found it very difficult to stay awake if I try to meditate after eating, since I tend to get drowsy, so I have a ritual of doing this before dinner on weekends. Similarly, there are a few sensation rituals, which I can associate with your concentration objects, that help me maintain awareness of my environment once I get settled in. I could give other examples but I hope you get the point. I arrived at these rituals in an empirical matter, and I see them purely practical mechanisms to achieve some effect, so I am happy to do away with them if it would be beneficial, but I would like to hear your thoughts about how to do so without regressing into a chaos of stimulation.
  - hosh 14y ago
    I wrote a bit about it here: http://www.quora.com/Meditation/Whats-a-nice-little-cheat-sheet-on-mindfulness-meditation/answer/Ho-Sheng-Hsiao http://www.quora.com/Meditation/Whats-a-nice-little-cheat-sh... Unfortunately, I don't know the traditional lore that lets someone assess and customize a concentration object for someone else. So what I wrote there comes from my understanding of NLP, specifically, the sensory modality. It is incomplete. I will say though, find something that feels more or less right and then stick with it (at least for the beginning). Just like there is never a perfect time to meditate, and there is never a perfect posture, or a perfect cushion, there isn't a perfect concentration object. You might be dithering because of the anxiety that comes up when you subconsciously realize, you really are going to go looking into yourself. Though, from what you are saying, you've probably already experienced that. I also suggest trying to set aside time every day for this. If you can anchor it to around the same time of day (such as, "before dinner", "before bed") it would help. A streak calendar app also helps. The commitment is to do a minimum amount, say even 5 minutes a day, and allow a "bonus time" on the weekends. Of course, if you feel comfortable sitting longer, by all means :-) I don't like to meditate after eating more because of the full stomach. I suppose I should try that "fullness" sensation as a concentration object sometime. As for drowsiness, a tip I picked up from Anne Wise's book, High Performance Mind: you can fill a glass of water and hold it. That tends to keep people awake. You can also try standing meditation, as that is more energetic than sitting. If you are closing your eyes while sitting and find yourself drowsy, keep your eyes open. My Ch'en buddies tell me it is tradition to keep the eyes open. It's possible to do this without blinking. The first couple times, your eyes might start watering as the body adjusts to not blinking; then it comes back into homeostasis. Postures ... they do matter, in the sense that you want to be able to fall asleep in them. If you can, try it with the spine vertical. If you are using a chair, sit at the edge of the chair, feet flat to the ground. Incense helps in a lot of ways. It also acts as an environmental cue. So is having a dedicated space for the meditation. As for the chaos of stimulation. This one is tricky. Yes, you can get into a trance by turning down the amount of stimulation. However, the practice of vipassana is being OK with things that come in and out of your space. A stimulus stimulates you because your awareness attaches to it, and comes off of the concentration object. What you do is stay with the concentration object while allowing whatever it is to pass freely through you. You want to stay awake, though in the deeper states, things start resembling lucid dreaming. Falling asleep is the opposite of mindfulness, that is, mindlessness. There are sometimes when I simply sit there for a good half hour, my thoughts thrashing about. And then the second session following up on it, I hit the emptiness (for however long before I attach to something again), though my eyes are open, my spine straight and unsupported. It's worth practicing being mindful even at greater stimulation since the skill translates to being mindful while off the cushion. To put it in a different way, you slip into flow state when you choose to, whatever activity you are doing. That's helpful for things like cooking. It is liberating when someone is yelling at you at work for whatever reason, and you're not pushed off your center; you might even help your coworker relax and deal with whatever issue that triggered the yelling in the first place. Hope this helps.

by stephth 14y ago

hosh 14y ago

Thanks, I'm glad you like these. I was deeply influenced by the writings of Daniel Ingram. I encountered his book shortly after my first set of experiences, and the experiences were not like anything I had read about or assumed. Despite the controversy around his books, he has a framework I find useful. He introduced the notion of a "concentration object", and I realized you can use anything as a concentration object. Since a lot of people are out of touch with the senses, it is better to use a physical sense as the concentration object -- breathing, candle, etc. at least until you realized enough insights to go straight to just being. However, you can also use concentration objects that are constructed. They come and go anyways, so why wouldn't you use something that is not there? I have a wide network of acquaintances with people practicing all sorts of traditions, and I can render what they do in these terms. There is a whole class of practices where you create the concentration object and the concentrate on it. For example: a Buddhist mandala or pathworking the Sephiroth in Kabbalah. Where I find it useful in coding has more to do with the concentration skills gained from one-point concentration. So that is not strictly vipassana. However, more importantly, it has allowed me to consider code on its own merits instead of reacting to my Jungian shadows or to other Jungian shadows. There's a tendency for nerds and geeks to get emotional about their code, even defend it, and yet they will not admit to the emotions that run amok. Look in any thread about "What is the best programming language?" and you'll see it. Another useful thing is that ... knowing things come and go, that there is always an ending to anything that begins, means it is easier to let go of code. You don't get attached to code, so you have attachments to keeping it around. Leaving commented out code. Or diving back in and refactoring. Or recognizing when you are about go yak shaving, and no, that neat feature you did really isn't that important. Finally, as your awareness broadens, you really start thinking about just what kind of impact your code is making. Not in the social activist sense so much as one deeply informed by the realization you've gained on the cushion. Do you really want to be working on another social network for cats? Hope that helps, maybe provide some interesting things to explore :-)

gajomi 14y ago
Thanks for the explanation (it would seem that I was replying to you while you were writing this). I do have one question though about concentration objects. I think I have an idea of what you mean by this. I wonder if you have any advise about how to go about diversifying your set concentration objects. I can appreciate intellectually that you could have this be anything, but my meditation practice (somewhat stagnant as of late) has relied upon ritual to a great extent. For example, I have found really only two sitting positions that work for getting settled down. Similarly, I have found it very difficult to stay awake if I try to meditate after eating, since I tend to get drowsy, so I have a ritual of doing this before dinner on weekends. Similarly, there are a few sensation rituals, which I can associate with your concentration objects, that help me maintain awareness of my environment once I get settled in. I could give other examples but I hope you get the point. I arrived at these rituals in an empirical matter, and I see them purely practical mechanisms to achieve some effect, so I am happy to do away with them if it would be beneficial, but I would like to hear your thoughts about how to do so without regressing into a chaos of stimulation.
- hosh 14y ago
  I wrote a bit about it here: http://www.quora.com/Meditation/Whats-a-nice-little-cheat-sheet-on-mindfulness-meditation/answer/Ho-Sheng-Hsiao http://www.quora.com/Meditation/Whats-a-nice-little-cheat-sh... Unfortunately, I don't know the traditional lore that lets someone assess and customize a concentration object for someone else. So what I wrote there comes from my understanding of NLP, specifically, the sensory modality. It is incomplete. I will say though, find something that feels more or less right and then stick with it (at least for the beginning). Just like there is never a perfect time to meditate, and there is never a perfect posture, or a perfect cushion, there isn't a perfect concentration object. You might be dithering because of the anxiety that comes up when you subconsciously realize, you really are going to go looking into yourself. Though, from what you are saying, you've probably already experienced that. I also suggest trying to set aside time every day for this. If you can anchor it to around the same time of day (such as, "before dinner", "before bed") it would help. A streak calendar app also helps. The commitment is to do a minimum amount, say even 5 minutes a day, and allow a "bonus time" on the weekends. Of course, if you feel comfortable sitting longer, by all means :-) I don't like to meditate after eating more because of the full stomach. I suppose I should try that "fullness" sensation as a concentration object sometime. As for drowsiness, a tip I picked up from Anne Wise's book, High Performance Mind: you can fill a glass of water and hold it. That tends to keep people awake. You can also try standing meditation, as that is more energetic than sitting. If you are closing your eyes while sitting and find yourself drowsy, keep your eyes open. My Ch'en buddies tell me it is tradition to keep the eyes open. It's possible to do this without blinking. The first couple times, your eyes might start watering as the body adjusts to not blinking; then it comes back into homeostasis. Postures ... they do matter, in the sense that you want to be able to fall asleep in them. If you can, try it with the spine vertical. If you are using a chair, sit at the edge of the chair, feet flat to the ground. Incense helps in a lot of ways. It also acts as an environmental cue. So is having a dedicated space for the meditation. As for the chaos of stimulation. This one is tricky. Yes, you can get into a trance by turning down the amount of stimulation. However, the practice of vipassana is being OK with things that come in and out of your space. A stimulus stimulates you because your awareness attaches to it, and comes off of the concentration object. What you do is stay with the concentration object while allowing whatever it is to pass freely through you. You want to stay awake, though in the deeper states, things start resembling lucid dreaming. Falling asleep is the opposite of mindfulness, that is, mindlessness. There are sometimes when I simply sit there for a good half hour, my thoughts thrashing about. And then the second session following up on it, I hit the emptiness (for however long before I attach to something again), though my eyes are open, my spine straight and unsupported. It's worth practicing being mindful even at greater stimulation since the skill translates to being mindful while off the cushion. To put it in a different way, you slip into flow state when you choose to, whatever activity you are doing. That's helpful for things like cooking. It is liberating when someone is yelling at you at work for whatever reason, and you're not pushed off your center; you might even help your coworker relax and deal with whatever issue that triggered the yelling in the first place. Hope this helps.