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Quite to the contrary. Keeping a meditation journal is an invaluable, underutilized tool that allows students and teachers to see patterns that arise during me

by orasis 12y ago

Quite to the contrary. Keeping a meditation journal is an invaluable, underutilized tool that allows students and teachers to see patterns that arise during meditation sessions, diagnose progress, and recommend next steps. If you want to see some people making some seriously fast progress, check out practice logs on these sites: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/category/2658626 http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/messa... http://awakenetwork.org/forum/kfd-archive-wetpaint http://awakenetwork.org/forum/kfd-archive-wetpaint

xtian 12y ago
His feeling that his thoughts were too precious to let go of might be more important to examine than whatever he wrote down.
- mentat 12y ago
  Absolutely agree with you. The point is to let stuff going, to be in the present.
- stolio 12y ago
  Or maybe the thing to examine is he didn't trust the leaders of the retreat on a fairly small thing, yet he did trust them to lead him through a very dangerous amount of meditation in 10 days.
zaroth 12y ago
Interesting... at first I did agree that the journaling and use of technology seemed to be a direct violation of the ground rules and defeating the purpose. But glancing over some of those logs, I can see how central they were for those students. I'm definitely seeing some Gladwell's "10,000 hour" experts there. This is a very deep ocean of practice with which I have only the most passing level of acquaintance. It's interesting to imagine investing enough time to actually become adept at this, but hard to square with the reality that the business(es) demand 26 hours from every day. I'm not sure I'd trade it for my time spent on HN, it doesn't sound nearly as entertaining!
- orasis 12y ago
  Yes, there are certainly some experts, but also people that have done only dozens to hundreds of hours who have made enormous progress. As for not having time, most of these folks have worked up to 2 20 minute sits per day. Myself, I take a single 40 minute walk and meditate each day. Thats not so much especially considering that I'm also getting exercise.

by orasis 12y ago

xtian 12y ago

His feeling that his thoughts were too precious to let go of might be more important to examine than whatever he wrote down.

mentat 12y ago
Absolutely agree with you. The point is to let stuff going, to be in the present.
stolio 12y ago
Or maybe the thing to examine is he didn't trust the leaders of the retreat on a fairly small thing, yet he did trust them to lead him through a very dangerous amount of meditation in 10 days.

zaroth 12y ago

Interesting... at first I did agree that the journaling and use of technology seemed to be a direct violation of the ground rules and defeating the purpose. But glancing over some of those logs, I can see how central they were for those students. I'm definitely seeing some Gladwell's "10,000 hour" experts there. This is a very deep ocean of practice with which I have only the most passing level of acquaintance. It's interesting to imagine investing enough time to actually become adept at this, but hard to square with the reality that the business(es) demand 26 hours from every day. I'm not sure I'd trade it for my time spent on HN, it doesn't sound nearly as entertaining!

orasis 12y ago
Yes, there are certainly some experts, but also people that have done only dozens to hundreds of hours who have made enormous progress. As for not having time, most of these folks have worked up to 2 20 minute sits per day. Myself, I take a single 40 minute walk and meditate each day. Thats not so much especially considering that I'm also getting exercise.