Why not just give it a try on your own? Do it for 21 days and don't let yourself have an opinion on it until that stretch of time is done. Then see how you feel and make a decision.

At least in the western Zen tradition, there's a strong element of 'try this and see if it works for you' which I deeply appreciate.

Empirical religion ftw.

Buddha, the first proponent of peer review?

> "Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas. Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering' — then you should abandon them.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.tha...

Given how complicated the brain - and its interactions with the body - is, and even how many successful medical interventions depend on placebo effect, it seems reasonable that the approach of "try it and see if it works for you" is quite effective.

I think it's just common sense. Sure, we could wait for science to prove XYZ fact about meditation...but if it makes you feel better today, why wait? You might be dead by the time the study comes out.

Sure, but my point is that this works beyond the expectations of "common sense".

The XYZ fact may turn out to actually not generalize. With mental phenomena, often how you got somewhere matters more than the thing itself. For a nice negative example, think about taste - many of us have strong repulsion towards some foods caused by random events in the past. Like, for many years parsley made me nauseous, and it started when as a kid I ate a broth and then threw up. It's a common thing that when you're sick your brain can create associations between how you feel and what you smell or eat. So you end up hating some food not because it's objectively bad, not because everyone else hates it too, but because of a random event in your life that happened to get associated with it.

I treat n=1 experiments as a way to probe such random associations. If you find out that something works for you, it doesn't matter that it isn't scientifically proven. It doesn't matter the effect doesn't generalize. It doesn't matter it works only through association and that this association was created due to you doing the experiment. If it works for you, it works for you.

But to be clear - "it works for me" is the only thing you can say in such case. N=1 experiments are ok, but trying to generalize from them isn't. Saying "it must work because it worked for me" based on such experiment is of course quackery.

What is the end goal? What is supposed to happen?

That's the question I asked before just starting and being consistent (which is absolutely key) about it. The answer was that I learned the mind could operate in a radically different way, and that malleability led to greater understanding of the dynamically different ways others can perceive the world.

But that was just my experience of it after a short time (one month)--it's an empirical process of consciously observing your own mind (and letting things go), which is fascinating, and leads to continuous changes in how you interact with the world and others in it.

Let's guess how much money has been spent investigating the possible benefits of meditation, compared to the research funds available for commercially exploitable therapies, I'm guessing it's probably similar to that spent on sleep, in relative terms, zero, what's the point of a commercial organisation showing something free has health benefits?

Who said it must be a commercial organization? Public universities and non-profit institutes do plenty of research.

Do they, care to cite some research on sleep or meditation?

Sure, I'll spare you the five minutes of web searches:

http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/192255_en.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866254/

http://sleep.stanford.edu/research/recent_publications.html

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/org/ncsdr/research/

http://www.pennstatehershey.org/web/psychiatry/research/over...

https://www.unisa.edu.au/Education-Arts-and-Social-Sciences/...

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsr.2016.25.issue...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27460004

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27429096

thanks, useful list, still, if we added up what was spent in the same period on exploitable research are you arguing that it's a non-issue ? I think your list serves as more evidence for my case, these areas are very under researched especially in the light of the good outcomes that the research that has been done offers, no ?

The benefits of meditation have been studied (not the "10 IQ points" bit), are well-documented, and easy to find. The studies have been ramping up recently, too, which is great, and long-overdue.

Please don't get into a mode of thinking that I need evidence for everything. It is free, try it yourself and see it works, if it doing any good for YOU, then it's just immaterial if it was never proved or not worked for anyone else (coz everyone is different, something works for you may not work for them)

I'm saying this with first hand experience, I was skeptical (I think lazy is better word), but I started recently, been on four weeks now and it is working for me, never going back.