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Why and in what way is thinking about sensations and one's body different from thinking about past or future? Aren't there other ways to condition mind to brin

Why and in what way is thinking about sensations and one's body different from thinking about past or future? Aren't there other ways to condition mind to bring back its thoughts away from the Past or Future, why is focusing on breathing the only way that meditation teaches?

pwr22 12y ago
Focussing on breathing is one particular instance but not the only thing you can do. Essentially you are practising focus and learning things about your mind you might not have noticed before
nhtr_ 12y ago
I'd say breathing is sort of a two-way binding mechanism. When you're at peace, it's slow and deep. And when you're stressed, exhilarated or angered it's turbulent and erratic. So when you're, say, stressed, you can transition to a peaceful state by deep-breathing; and as you are relaxing you find yourself not needing that much focus/energy to keep the breathing that way - the binding automatically happens. One can use almost any object to meditate upon - visual image, mental image, sound, music, whir of a motor, randomness of objects around you, tick of a clock; just about anything; the more rhythmic, the better. But for us inexperienced ones, breathing works the best. Also, we should not think about breathing, rather feel it, granted it starts with thinking :) Thinking is what meditation shuns, at least when we're practicing
gimboland 12y ago
> Why and in what way is thinking about sensations and one's body different from thinking about past or future? The sensations are actually happening, right here, right now. Thoughts about the past or future are just mental constructs and have no reality beyond that. It's all about being present right here, right now, in this moment.
- chriswarbo 12y ago
  > The sensations are actually happening, right here, right now. Thoughts about the past or future are just mental constructs and have no reality beyond that. Except, those sensations might not be 'actually happening'. > The sensations feel like tiny extremely weak electric currents zapping through on the surface and disappearing. Or it could be a weak throbbing and itching sensation. Sometimes you get the feeling of the area under investigation being in a state of tension. It doesn't matter what the sensation is like. What matters is that you are aware of these sensations. It doesn't surprise me at all that, after concentrating on a particular body area in silence for 8 hours a day for 3-4 days, people would associate various sensations with that area. For example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paresthesia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paresthesia If meditation has helped you personally, that's great. However, I take issue with preaching dubious advice.
  - vidarh 12y ago
    > Except, those sensations might not be 'actually happening'. The sensations, as in what impulses you observe in your mind, certainly are happening. Whether or not the sensations are a result of actual physical stimuli is both the point and besides the point. If they are invented by your brain, that makes them no less valid to observe. Yet if they are invented by your brain, then observing the qualities of those sensations is still fascinating and just as valid. > It doesn't surprise me at all that, after concentrating on a particular body area in silence for 8 hours a day for 3-4 days You don't need to spend more than 1 second focusing on your body to pick up some sensation or another. He is not suggesting you should try to pick up something unusual, but observe what you already notice thousands upon thousands of time every day, but which you normally do not pay attention to. E.g. that itch on my left elbow, the way my glasses press down on my nose, the pillow pressing against my neck, my tongue pressing against the top of my mouth, the dryness of my lower lip, the sensations of my fingertips against the laptop keyboard, and so on. Of course, from a purely philosophical standpoint you could argue those sensations also could be just illusions. But that's irrelevant. > I take issue with preaching dubious advice. What is the dubious advice being preached you take offence to? There are certainly many, many meditation teachers that are teaching religious nonsense. But the basic principles of meditation boils down to practices to learn to concentrate, and practices to learn how to observe your thought processes and physical sensations well within the scope of what is actually physically possible, verifiable and repeatable. As an atheist and sceptic, meditation is something I think everyone should engage in, because, while there certainly is the possibility of "mystic" experiences because of the nature of prolonged concentration, you also have the potential to learn a great deal about your own thought processes that we usually ignore (and to learn how to dissect anything unusual you might "observe", alongside how to dissect other broken thought patterns)
vidarh 12y ago
Not thinking about, as much as observing the current sensations. > why is focusing on breathing the only way that meditation teaches? It isn't. You can focus on whatever you like, and there are descriptions of using pretty much anything you can think of as meditation objects. What you focus on is not the most important part, but that you focus your attention and your ability to go of thoughts. Breath is often recommended because it is always available (takes away the excuse of "oh, I can't mediate because I need X and I don't have it here"), it is simple yet it has many qualities for you to observe; it has distinct phases (in-out) that are cyclical, and that have distinct pauses (when you shift from breathing in to out). It also has the property that it calms as you get more relaxed and more concentrated, so that the more you focus, the more you have to focus to keep attention on the breath. At the same time, as you get deep into concentration, the fact that the breath calms lets you (if that is your goal) more easily shift the breath into the background, to focus on other things (e.g. your emotional state; observing fleeting thoughts; other bodily sensations or whatever else). For a lot of forms of meditation, focusing on the breath is considered an important part developing "access concentration", that is, your ability to easily and rapidly calm yourself and enter into sufficiently deep concentration to focus on your desired meditation object. For vipassana / mindfulness meditation, for example, the goal is not to endlessly focus on the breath, but to observe various aspects of reality (including the breath, but not limited to it) in a "detached" state where you are not engaging or reacting to them but simply paying attention to them. E.g. notice a thought arising, notice how your body reacts to it, but don't "respond" to it with a new thought - just observe the qualities of it, until it fades, and wait for the next one. Meditating on breath then is a method of getting into deep enough concentration to enable you to do that without constantly "waking up" to realise you got caught up in some strand of thinking and spent the last 10 minutes thinking about what to do about your taxes. (You can certainly observe the breath as the focus of your mindfulness meditation, but if you limit yourself to the breath you are
- dthunt 12y ago
  When I meditate, I usually notice my feet, for example. I notice my feet if I get a little bit jittery, and for me that's sufficient to cut a lot of the whammy out of strong emotion, agitation, moderate amounts of panic, pain. I haven't noticed increased concentration skills, except as could be wholly explained by learning the skill "calm down on demand", but I'm not willing to write off that as a possibility without testing (a little late for me to test on myself, anyway!)
estefan 12y ago
> Why and in what way is thinking about sensations and one's body different from thinking about past or future? Being aware activates a different part of the brain to thinking. See https://www.coursera.org/course/meditation https://www.coursera.org/course/meditation and "The Science of Happiness" on edx.org for more.

pwr22 12y ago

Focussing on breathing is one particular instance but not the only thing you can do. Essentially you are practising focus and learning things about your mind you might not have noticed before

nhtr_ 12y ago

I'd say breathing is sort of a two-way binding mechanism. When you're at peace, it's slow and deep. And when you're stressed, exhilarated or angered it's turbulent and erratic. So when you're, say, stressed, you can transition to a peaceful state by deep-breathing; and as you are relaxing you find yourself not needing that much focus/energy to keep the breathing that way - the binding automatically happens. One can use almost any object to meditate upon - visual image, mental image, sound, music, whir of a motor, randomness of objects around you, tick of a clock; just about anything; the more rhythmic, the better. But for us inexperienced ones, breathing works the best. Also, we should not think about breathing, rather feel it, granted it starts with thinking :) Thinking is what meditation shuns, at least when we're practicing

gimboland 12y ago

> Why and in what way is thinking about sensations and one's body different from thinking about past or future? The sensations are actually happening, right here, right now. Thoughts about the past or future are just mental constructs and have no reality beyond that. It's all about being present right here, right now, in this moment.

chriswarbo 12y ago
> The sensations are actually happening, right here, right now. Thoughts about the past or future are just mental constructs and have no reality beyond that. Except, those sensations might not be 'actually happening'. > The sensations feel like tiny extremely weak electric currents zapping through on the surface and disappearing. Or it could be a weak throbbing and itching sensation. Sometimes you get the feeling of the area under investigation being in a state of tension. It doesn't matter what the sensation is like. What matters is that you are aware of these sensations. It doesn't surprise me at all that, after concentrating on a particular body area in silence for 8 hours a day for 3-4 days, people would associate various sensations with that area. For example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paresthesia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paresthesia If meditation has helped you personally, that's great. However, I take issue with preaching dubious advice.
- vidarh 12y ago
  > Except, those sensations might not be 'actually happening'. The sensations, as in what impulses you observe in your mind, certainly are happening. Whether or not the sensations are a result of actual physical stimuli is both the point and besides the point. If they are invented by your brain, that makes them no less valid to observe. Yet if they are invented by your brain, then observing the qualities of those sensations is still fascinating and just as valid. > It doesn't surprise me at all that, after concentrating on a particular body area in silence for 8 hours a day for 3-4 days You don't need to spend more than 1 second focusing on your body to pick up some sensation or another. He is not suggesting you should try to pick up something unusual, but observe what you already notice thousands upon thousands of time every day, but which you normally do not pay attention to. E.g. that itch on my left elbow, the way my glasses press down on my nose, the pillow pressing against my neck, my tongue pressing against the top of my mouth, the dryness of my lower lip, the sensations of my fingertips against the laptop keyboard, and so on. Of course, from a purely philosophical standpoint you could argue those sensations also could be just illusions. But that's irrelevant. > I take issue with preaching dubious advice. What is the dubious advice being preached you take offence to? There are certainly many, many meditation teachers that are teaching religious nonsense. But the basic principles of meditation boils down to practices to learn to concentrate, and practices to learn how to observe your thought processes and physical sensations well within the scope of what is actually physically possible, verifiable and repeatable. As an atheist and sceptic, meditation is something I think everyone should engage in, because, while there certainly is the possibility of "mystic" experiences because of the nature of prolonged concentration, you also have the potential to learn a great deal about your own thought processes that we usually ignore (and to learn how to dissect anything unusual you might "observe", alongside how to dissect other broken thought patterns)

vidarh 12y ago

Not thinking about, as much as observing the current sensations. > why is focusing on breathing the only way that meditation teaches? It isn't. You can focus on whatever you like, and there are descriptions of using pretty much anything you can think of as meditation objects. What you focus on is not the most important part, but that you focus your attention and your ability to go of thoughts. Breath is often recommended because it is always available (takes away the excuse of "oh, I can't mediate because I need X and I don't have it here"), it is simple yet it has many qualities for you to observe; it has distinct phases (in-out) that are cyclical, and that have distinct pauses (when you shift from breathing in to out). It also has the property that it calms as you get more relaxed and more concentrated, so that the more you focus, the more you have to focus to keep attention on the breath. At the same time, as you get deep into concentration, the fact that the breath calms lets you (if that is your goal) more easily shift the breath into the background, to focus on other things (e.g. your emotional state; observing fleeting thoughts; other bodily sensations or whatever else). For a lot of forms of meditation, focusing on the breath is considered an important part developing "access concentration", that is, your ability to easily and rapidly calm yourself and enter into sufficiently deep concentration to focus on your desired meditation object. For vipassana / mindfulness meditation, for example, the goal is not to endlessly focus on the breath, but to observe various aspects of reality (including the breath, but not limited to it) in a "detached" state where you are not engaging or reacting to them but simply paying attention to them. E.g. notice a thought arising, notice how your body reacts to it, but don't "respond" to it with a new thought - just observe the qualities of it, until it fades, and wait for the next one. Meditating on breath then is a method of getting into deep enough concentration to enable you to do that without constantly "waking up" to realise you got caught up in some strand of thinking and spent the last 10 minutes thinking about what to do about your taxes. (You can certainly observe the breath as the focus of your mindfulness meditation, but if you limit yourself to the breath you are

dthunt 12y ago
When I meditate, I usually notice my feet, for example. I notice my feet if I get a little bit jittery, and for me that's sufficient to cut a lot of the whammy out of strong emotion, agitation, moderate amounts of panic, pain. I haven't noticed increased concentration skills, except as could be wholly explained by learning the skill "calm down on demand", but I'm not willing to write off that as a possibility without testing (a little late for me to test on myself, anyway!)

estefan 12y ago

> Why and in what way is thinking about sensations and one's body different from thinking about past or future? Being aware activates a different part of the brain to thinking. See https://www.coursera.org/course/meditation https://www.coursera.org/course/meditation and "The Science of Happiness" on edx.org for more.