This is very important to point out and I think is actually the big trap when approaching meditative practices. I fell into this nihilism trap when I was starting meditation in college and I abandoned my practice almost completely for the next 10 or so years.
It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self. The latter is an extreme view that leads to nihilism. At least in the Buddhist traditions I’m aware of, nihilism is a wrong view and the teachings are explicitly not nihilistic.
Yet it’s exceptionally easy to get confused and fall into it if you’re just meditating without any real notion of what the teachings are. All the corporate “meditate for productivity” that has invaded the dialogue in the west I find at least misguided, and at the worst actually harmful.
For anyone that is interested I’d suggest reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s translation and commentary on the heart sutra called “The Other Shore”. It clears up a lot of the teaching on emptiness and will help you not fall into the nihilism trap.
(It’s also useful to note that the modern vipassana movement that is so popular in the west comes from a tradition that doesn’t emphasize the teachings on emptiness, even though they are in fact there in the Pali cannon.)
Yeah, basically you have to realize that the fact you observe all of the normal brain noise is gone does not mean you are gone. You still observe. And most critically, you are not your brain noise, but something beyond that.
The beyond implies a spatial expanse in which one progresses. Becoming implies a temporal expanse in which one progresses. The cessation of these spatiotemporal limits is fundamental to that "state of being" (this phrase itself betrays that). In that sense memory itself creates that time-space substance, because it is through that, that it exists.
This is something that is very difficult to reconcile with, because this would also imply that cause and effect are non-objects. So then what is it that one "realizes"?
Cause and effect are no less real than, say, the sun. But the sensation of them and the conceptualization of them as we conceive them is a figment of the brain.
Brain itself can be wired in any way. All of our senses of external world are hallucinations inside our head driven by stimuli from sensory organs. All we can ever 'observe' is this hallucination. Yet it would be folly to believe that the external world would not exist. But! Our interpretation of the sensory experience can create lots of unreal things which are not true nor real.
I think the difficulty and key is separating the figments in our heads which reflect actual things from associations and fantasies made by our mind.
I think part of the issue is that the words/concepts really don't translate into modern english well at all. Another example is how frequently the first of the Four Noble Truths is misrepresented as "Life is suffering". We don't have good ways of saying or explaining shunyata or dukkha that preserve the nuance of the concepts.
Edit: Thich Nhat Hanh is always a solid recommendation. I'll have to find his commentary on the heart sutra.
Absolutely, translations are difficult and imprecise, having multiple meanings even in the original Sanskrit or Pāli. Even different lineages place concepts in different categories, like whether or not suffering is one of the three dharma seals or not. Vipassana as taught by the Theravada would say it is, whereas Mahayana and Vajrayana would sometimes say it’s not.
No wonder new meditators get confused when they try to start a practice with all these modern apps and books that avoid teaching any of the lineages!
"The word is commonly explained as a derivation from Aryan terminology for an axle hole, referring to an axle hole which is not in the center and leads to a bumpy, uncomfortable ride."
That being said you can have a non-nihilistic ego-death or medidate only until your more intrusive thoughts "go away" without you loosing your complete identity, that's kind of like a scientific fact. Of course if you get "addicted" to it or start chasing the "ego-death" experience it can be harmful.
There is a sutra that actually addresses nihilism, as it was a view that some schools of thought taught at the time of the Buddha. [1]
He considered it to be wrong view, a denial of the results of good or bad actions (karma) and rebirth. With the teachings on emptiness in the heart sutra it states all phenomena are marked by emptiness, “no birth no death, no being no nonbeing, no defilement no purity, no increasing no decreasing”. So nihilists would be led to cling to the view of nonbeing and not see everything else. For me at least that brought about a lot of aimless suffering.
[1] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.060.than.html
The idea that "life is meaningless" means that society cannot rely on you, because you'll do whatever strikes your fancy, whatever the consequences.
Worse, it is also a philosophy that contributes absolutely nothing to actually understanding the nature of the world, which is kind of the point of philosophy.
In short, nihilists are utterly useless, to themselves and the world. On the upside, they won't care.
How does "life is meaningless" imply "life is useless"? Also, why would nihilism entail radical individualism? The core of nihilism is that since the indifferent universe is without meaning humans have to give it meaning, quite the opposite of what you're implying.
I'm not that familiar with nihilism, but I'm rather surprised that "humans have to give it meaning" is part of the core. That's somewhat non-obvious to me; intuitively I would have expected nihilists to believe that meaning cannot exist.
Can you point me toward some sources that say nihilists actually believe that humans are capable of creating meaning?
That's a big part of existentialism (Sartre, Camus, etc), in which life has no inherent meaning, and it's rather empty existence, and it's up to the person to make any meaning for themselves.
- Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
what marks humans out from the rest of the meaningless universe that suddenly blesses them as meaning bearers? almost seems to imply some sort of religious idea that humans are not a part of the ubiverse
Just a good-enough-for-you meaning.
>almost seems to imply some sort of religious idea that humans are not a part of the ubiverse
Well, they're not like other parts, in that they have meta-cognition, and a lot of it.
Planets and black holes and ants don't wonder about meaning.
Now whether that those answers are accurate is a different question. But I think it's clear that humans crave meaning, and are happy to relegate meaning-making to third party institutions such as organized religion or the media.
Non-human subjective experiencers also imagine meaningful objects in their own minds. There's nothing special about humans other than their ability to communicate with other humans.
(Supposing they can understand us.)
For them, we are radical individualists with no regards for nothing but ourselves.
Life is finite and it will end, just like the nihilist faction proclaims. No reincarnation, no eternal life. The eternalist faction got it wrong.
Life is an infinitesimally small spark of light but lost in the infinite darkness.
And there lies its value. Life is unique, every single moment you are alive is the most valuable moment in time, and it is therefore priceless. Carpe Diem.
Also, people always care. Even for trivialities, they always care.
I love being alive and I appreciate every single moment of it. Because I know it will be over some day.
That's bad for society. Who said it's bad in itself or wrong?
That's hedonism.
That's a very broad statement given that there are many different types of meditations with different aims, religious/non-religious, with varying degrees of scientific evidence.
What I can say is, that mindfulness-based interventions, where meditation usually represents the formal "training" aspect, have a significant and growing evidence-base.
I agree there is no panacea, however in my opinion the risk/reward ratio of mindfulness meditation is astonishingly positive!
I am really curious about the origins of these "types". Who actually came up with these things? The concept of meditation has its origins in Hindu scriptures. However, now, it seems to have become a fad, with charlatans and marketers overwhelmingly using it to scam people.
I see the same with the so called "yoga".
But I have an open mind. There might be actual research that develops the concept of meditation. Would really love to see actual evidence. Like papers, books, etc.
That's overloading the word meditation unnecessarily. There are decidedly non-Hindu forms of meditation that people around the world practice.
One example is Christian meditation as described in the Bible, which takes an antithetic form to Hindu meditation: the goal is to "meditate" on specific doctrines or scriptures from the Bible. The idea is that there is a definite "content" upon which one meditates: the practitioner fills the mind instead of attempting to empty it or focus attention on the self. A common illustration is that of an animal chewing the cud; and (iirc) the Hebrew word for "meditate" comes from the term for cows chewing the cud.
There is lots of research on the meditation's effectiveness [0]. That research includes "47 trials in 3,515 participants suggests that mindfulness meditation programs show moderate evidence of improving anxiety and depression".
While I started meditating to reduce my anxiety (and it has), the goal of mindfulness meditation isn't reducing anxiety - it's awareness. Some people who start meditating, including myself, might start becoming more aware of their pre-existing anxiety. The good news is, once you become aware of the source of your anxiety, you can do something about it.
You’ve dismissed the parents view (and import of the linked article) as overly broad, and you have asserted the existence of an evidence base to support this.
Is there any summary of this evidence that you think is compelling?
The meta-analyses in [1] are a good starting point. Note that in particular in a clinical setting, the intervention usually comprise more than just the meditation aspects, e.g. psycho-education, a group setting, or some form of body movement.
You can find further evidence if you pick a specific intervention, e.g. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) [2], which is considered the ancestor of modern mindfulness-based interventions.
However, you might find it more compelling to learn about the mechanism rather than effectiveness. In that case an interesting starting point are the studies that have been done on Buddhist monks as "extreme points" in the set of meditators, e.g. see the references in [3].
Regarding the original article, I find the title a bit clickbaity (X can worsen depression and anxiety is true for almost all X, in particular doing nothing can worsen depression and anxiety!) and it is a bit concerning to me that the author does not differentiate between mindfulness and meditation.
I couldn't find the paper from the article, my understanding is that 8 % of subjects reported adverse effects when doing a self-guided mindfulness meditation. I find 8 % quite low - 92 % did not report adverse effects?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness#Scientific_researc... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_stress_reduc... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthieu_Ricard
My current use is to create a quiet time for meta-cognition where I can organize my thoughts.
Some people use it to try to let go of thoughts and be mentally still, others might use it as a chance to observe and focus on their senses. There are likely thousands of uses for meditation.
There are people go by without ever questioning their wants, and never take responsibility for their own emotions in the most basic ways. They make every single one of their upsets someone else's responsibility and they come in hourly.
They aren't that many and they're easy to recognize when you've been burned by one though. They would also do everyone a big favor by embracing this advice.
On the other end are people who are driven to reduce their needs and scope as a response to pretty much anything. They'll be less of a hassle to others but advising them to reach harder for their familiar crutch is a disservice to them, and also their loved ones; neglect of others can be the the natural result of neglecting oneself. We don't do well with this advice.
Only very specific types of meditation, at their advanced levels.
The kind of meditation the vast majority of people do in the US, for example, has absolutely zero intention of achieving ego-death.
Saying meditation is specifically aimed at causing ego-death makes as much as saying running is specifically aimed at qualifying for the Olympics.
This is true for far Eastern styles of meditation, but it's not true for Christian meditation[1]. It aims to fill the mind rather than to empty it. In general Christian meditation is practiced more by the various Eastern Christian Churches, but there are Western traditions as well. I'm by no means an adept at the practice, but it has benefited me pragmatically and spiritually.
" Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12:24
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. " Galatians 2:20
" For whoever strives to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. " Mark 8:35
Lots more.
apophatic is more similar to negation of self
however, it is not the same
the idea is to remove accidental properties until one perceives the essence itself, like peeling an onion with a diamond in the middle
Modern / Hindu / Buddhist meditation (or what i have read and understood) typically centers around emptying one’s self or chanting a certain phrase to reach enlightenment.
Christian meditation is about filling oneself with the Holy Spirit and denying our own selfish desires.
When God gives his law for humanity in the book of Joshua he commands the people to “meditate on it day and night” because that is the way he intends them to know Him better.
On the other hand, I met my now-wife in the depression ward, which in the "active" phase right before my admission I visualized and wished for quite often.
I don't regret the 2-3 months of active ego dissolution phase, life has never been more beautiful and strangely peaceful and jarring at the same time.
However, I did lose my job, my apartment and almost permanently lost my sanity as well, but now in hindsight it looks like it was all for the better.
Nevertheless I don't think you should force something like this (like I very much did), the consequences to internal and external reality can be absolutely dramatic and I've preferred to live in peaceful ignorance since then... save for the short moments of.. remembering. Everything and nothing at once.
I _accidentally_ fell into a vipassana state of mind after the first time trying a particular religious chant, seriously, from out of the pains of boredom as a 20 year old.
At the time I lived nearby mountains, and after 'coming to', I saw them through the window. I cannot describe to you the overwhelming feeling of beauty and awe that crashed over me. It was as though this was the very first time I had ever seen mountains. I think the best description I can manage comes from 'Both Sides Now' by Joni Mitchell.
'I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all'
The experience was so disorienting. As if I was seeing the mountains for what they were directly through my senses and not mediated by my knowledge of what mountains were like, linguistically.
It changed my entire life -- weeks later later I lost my job and fell into a 5 year extreme depression / anxiety spell in the attempt to reconcile my adolescent religious upbringing with the continued insight from that experience. Absolutely worthwhile, in hindsight, but it cost me near everything for it.
ducks
So the only course of action was not to search for rocks to cling to, but of learning how to swim, and dive in. As backwards as it may read, I only felt secure after having let go of myself.
As odd as this description may sound to someone who has not experienced this, it is instantly recognizable to those who have -- which helped discover others who traversed this before. It so happens that Buddhists have a rich tradition for navigating these waters, which helped satisfy my intellectual curiosity of what was happening. To know that I was not 'defective' but merely in an initial stage of 'unlearning' was a big jolt of positively to my psychology.
What topics could I read about to learn more about this?
Then, follow your nose through the bibliography. =)
All the best to you.
The Buddha wasn’t about meditating so you could be more productive at work. It’s about letting go of all such desires.
I read some spiritual books about LSD in my late teens and I almost believed the "holy spiritual drug changing consciousness" motive.
But I was cautious and never took it and wanted to wait for the right time (it never came so far). One of the main reasons of waiting longer was, that I met some LSD gurus in real live - who where just retards.
So I focused more on staying clear .. but a bit later I also met quite some "clear" people who never do or did drugs, but only meditated - and they were also so disconnected from reality, I found it even quite faszinating. Not illuminated. Just disconnected.
So, when I meditate, my focus is to connect more to reality. And to find a balance between it all. Drugs can be tools. Various meditation technics can be tools. Nothing is the universal golden way. Find the right balance of technics, that works for you. That is my takeaway after quite some years exploring the area.
I am right now thinking about simracing as a way to meditate. You totally have to just focus on perception, no thinking, no ego, no self, nothing but the car and the road, and you repeat, and repeat, and repeat the track, over and over.
It works your mind, without any harmful effects (that I know of).
Well, I kind of do that from time to time. Play old videogames my mind can do it in autopilot mode. But I do not consider that too helpfull for myself. Sometimes it is. But on average I would say not.
You still have the flickering screen, which I think is not god for my head for too long. And I have the screen already for work, so I rather go outside, when I can.
One very simple technic to calm the mind while walking (or running or sitting) is use peripheric vision. Meaning the gaze is not focused, but wide. Seeing all at once. My theory is, that this uses more brain processing power, which leads to useless thoughts going silent. And breathing. And feeling. And smelling. And listening.
(so a nice area is recommended)
I mean more about the experience of driving. Clicking buttons is quite different to feeling the road through the steering wheel. In a normal video game you can just memorize the timing sequence.
I am trying to highlight the "focus on perception" part of the experience.
I would love to go and drive in an open road somewhere remote. And see and smell all these real things.
But I can't use my car right now (without paying a fine for breaking quarantine) so I use simracing.
As for Buddhism, which is at the root of what most people mean by "meditation" today, calling it a religion is a bit problematic because it doesn't involve worshiping gods and, in theory at least, is not supposed to be primarily faith based. Both of those things: god worship and faith seem so fundamental to the western concept of religion that applying that term uncritically to Buddhism seems ill-founded.
So it is neither atheistic nor theistic.
Yes, the roots of meditation are in religious practices (as, are, arguably, the roots of every human activity). That doesn't mean that contemporary meditation practices are necessarily religious. Many aren't.
So if you're talking about the term "meditation" in general (as we were), to limit it to a religious practice is a mistake. It's much broader than that, even if it derives ultimately from something that once had a religious aspect.
But it also means that we can’t claim that there is an evidence base for the positive effects of meditation, and more than we can for ‘medication’ or ‘food’.
Meditation can be beneficial. Meditation can cause severe problems.
Both are clearly true statements.
The question is - what kinds of meditation are beneficial to whom?
It’s worth noting that the Asian religious traditions had a history of being very selective about who was taught.
Of course people want quick and easy so "accomplished master" can easily be subbed out for "local yoga teacher" or even "NYT best selling book".
Most people who claim benefits from meditation would likely reap even more benefits from just making sure they had an hour or half hour distraction free with time for their thoughts. Go for a walk alone, or find a quiet place and write in a journal, give your self some time before you fall as sleep to think just think to yourself.
I didn't know that. But I can see that being a "guru" or a "priest" is a profession, say like being a doctor is one.
Now doctors are unlikely to say "go heal yourself". Rather they are likely to say "Come see me in 2 weeks and pay another $300 bucks".
So I suspect if ancient texts say "Do not try this without a teacher" the reason may be that teachers need students.
I recently read "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong, which covers the evolution of religion and various mystical traditions in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. It's a really interesting book and one of the points she brings up is that there are many historical examples of attempts at mystical experimentation that end in madness. The teacher is supposed to be a sort of life guard.
Ultimately, the book made me even more skeptical of religion and meditation than I already was. Spiritual/meditative introspection seems like a risky and dangerous process.
On a personal note, depression is not only about anxiety, or any beliefs about oneself. It may stem from understimulation. In this case, lowering input (as with meditation) is unlikely to help.
MBSR and MBCT course with qualified teachers do have a very good track record and solid scientific backing.
There are also some replicated studies of the synergy between mindfulness and psychedelics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10538...
For a lot of people it's simply a 15 min break in the day, between work, kids, netflix, games or whatever, we never just sit down, do nothing, relax and listen to our inner selves
I think that's why it became hype in the last few years, it's not so much that meditation will "heal your soul" or whatever pseudo science bs, it's more that it allows people to truly relax for a bit, unplug their brain of the incessant flow of information and distractions for a few minutes and reconnect with the baseline
Meditation for medical purposes is almost always just a relaxation technique, e.g. autogenic training. The rest, beyond relaxation, is rarely recommended and usually frowned upon.
If you do something and you don't like the outcome, you stop. Driving a car may also lead to ego-death ... probably much more likely than from meditation. Yet we do it. There are certainly forms of meditation that are risky. There are also forms of Olympic sport that are risky. People disappear simply while taking a walk through the great outdoors.
Are there many hucksters trying to cash in on 'yoga' trends? Sure! I understand from many very old and very-earnest- traditions that a -real- spiritual teacher would -never- charge for help. 'Cashing in' is, after all, pretty much the antithesis of 'uplifting'.
Jung often pointed out that our waking egos are like planets orbiting a Self that's Sun-sized ... and much more in control than we realize. Most spiritual traditions emphasize that there are many stages of realization. (In the east, chakras symbolize this.)
While our present culture places little value on compassion or wisdom, this time is unusual in that way. (We're born with both, but it's easy to get lost.) Many people over millennia have learned that if we make the effort - noone else can do it - there are definite rewards. One place to get an overview of this history (Western perspective) is in Huxley's 'Perennial Philosophy'.
Do you mean driving as a form of meditation or about having a fatal accident on the road?
The idea is simple, and that is to remove one from the chaos of the world, to not be defined by it, and especially to 'be in the moment'.
'Quieting the mind and being present' in a tiny aspect of the more religious aspects.
The 'big problem' is possibly that they are 'doing it wrong'.
If you want to 'get people in the moment'?
Play sports.
Meditation is supposed to be about 'less thoughts' but usually it leads to more and more self contemplation - which is the opposite of what we want.
Want to 'shut off' the contemplative mind -> Use another part of the brain!
Does anyone know people who 'like sports' that generally get depressed? No, I would say the opposite: generally more gregarious, positive, and care free.
You don't have 'thoughts' while you are chasing a ball, or managing around that rock you're about to hit.
And we all need more exercise.
I find running more meditative than any kind of meditation.
But I think it's probably true that none of them think meditation is a "simple stress-reliever". It is a powerful tool, and like all powerful tools, you can cut yourself with it, and should learn it with someone more expert who can guide you and keep you from hurting yourself.
I suppose what's "good for the soul" depends on your theory of the soul and what's good for it. (Those who believe something resembling "ego death" is the goal believe that's "good for the soul"!) Seeing it as a tool to make you "more effective" (sounds like some kind of "productivity") definitely doesn't seem right, although probably is common in the de-spiritualized "self-improvement" U.S. "mindfulness" trend.
. . . which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being
In fact there is scientific evidence that meditation and professional sports are the only activities that strengthen a person's will. I guess with sufficient motivation it's possible to find a study that claims anything.
> anti-. Scientists will hold an open mind, but "gurus" who charge money for fancy retreats will insist in its value without evidence.
I went for half a year every week to a free meditation meetup. The guy holding the meetup was the most relaxed person I have ever encountered in my life. Apparently he has has been travelling extensively to Japan and lived happily next to a Railway station. (Some people would go crazy living there with all the noises) For me he was the living proof this stuff actually works.
No need for Gurus here, although it's surely possible to get scammed like with everything. Probably one should get suspicious when the meditation is expensive or at a remote place.
There are hundreds of meditation types and techniques, with many different effects, just like there are treatments in medicine.
Meditation is being sold as casual activity, one-size-fits-all, often by people who received only few years of training, if not months.
Please look for credited teachers with decades-long monastic experience. Ask them difficult questions.
But if you are doing more 30 minutes per day or specially more than one hour, you need some one guid you.
Best teachers are people spending more time in meditation than you are.
How to find these people are different from region to region.
I’m Theravada Buddhist and we have some monks living in jungles or border of jungles, they are full time meditators, wake up early -> meditation -> breakfast -> meditation -> lunch -> meditation(no dinner) -> sleep. we usually go to these monks for instructions when doing series meditation.
How is a beginner qualified to ask difficult questions, or to assess the answers?
~JMJ
Oh the irony.
A king in Europe attaining self realisation could have been executed by the church.
The reason why yoga and meditation developed into an advanced form in India and not elsewhere is because self realisation has always been the ultimate goal for at least 5000 years and highly valued.
When people say "grounded" they mean their surroundings and the people around them do not approve or support their transformation and they are frightened of leaving this familiar and comfortable routine.
Ultimately machines and AI will take all the jobs, what we will have is our self, it is quite valuable for the lucky few who were able to transform yourself.
The real problem is "trying to stay grounded", you do not have to.
This is actually captured in the Indian tradition itself. One set of people who reach this transformation early in their life, and the vast majority of the people who go through the different phases in life.
Children who play Students who learn A householder who runs a family, accumulates wealth, enjoys the pleasures of life of which pleasurable sex is also one to be pursued And retirement - even kings retire, denounce all worldly possessions in pursuit of moksha
Of course there are different kinds of yoga which includes perfection of ones art, knowledge and dedication.
Of course some additional challenges today include turning yoga into a boutique business (beer yoga, wine yoga), cultural appropriation and distortion (Christian yoga, Muslim yoga & Jewish yoga) and of course repackaging vipasana and other powerful techniques void of their roots and peddling them as trademarked products.
It may hold some value, but it strikes me that there is more pro-meditation dogma than anti-. Scientists will hold an open mind, but "gurus" who charge money for fancy retreats will insist in its value without evidence. As a general rule, there are no panaceas - major changes in cognition can go either way. Be careful!