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- Hacker News
- I find just going for a walk in nature, after walking for 2 hours something happens with my brain. I'm more calm, relaxed, focused, and coherent in my inner thoughts. I think it takes around 2 hours of inner monologue and thinking about all the problems I'm facing in my life until I feel like I'm done and I can let them go, or I've gone over them enough.
- One of the most concise and to-the-point explanations of meditation I've ever seen.
One thought I had while reading it: isn't trying to get more comfortable with doing nothing just another thing to do? isn't it another form of changing what already is?
EDIT: I'm advocating and practicing mindfulness but I always have this thought on the background and it's a real dilemma. Any thoughts?
- I used to sit alone for 30-40 minutes, 100's of meters below ground, in absolute darkness, absolute silence, no life around, no movement around, not even a breeze of air. Only mild thoughts to stop myself from falling asleep. Above ground, I slept under the stars and sky, in the wild, with no buildings around.
What I learnt is, recent generations have too much of self awareness, causing the communities and groups to become weaker, compared to the tribal settlements that helped humans to dominate other species.
by zkmon - > and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts.
I see this study cited often, and I always reject this interpretation. I'm perfectly content sitting for long periods, with or without my thoughts, but if you give me an electric toy I've never seen before, of course I'll play with it! Can I make muscles twitch? Move my arm? Are some parts more sensitive/conductive? What happens at the limits?
For me, the pain would be the cost of playing with a new toy that gives me novel sensations. I would do it even if I had other, less painful activities available. It's not necessarily a way to avoid boredom or whatever else the common interpretation claims.
by BoppreH - Been doing this for 20 minutes in the morning for a few decades now. It has had an impact. I am a rather “high gain” person emotionally. I now tend to notice emotions and observe them, which helps when they threaten to suck me into a self-perpetuating ruminative vortex. Also, it has made me gentler, and an easier person to be around. I’m now well aware that whatever disturbances occur, there will be echoes and resonances tomorrow morning during my sit! Now for a moment of honesty: this is a religious practice for me. A prayer that “landed” for me: “Lord, I ask to be a conduit of grace.”by gregfjohnson
- As the Buddhist joke goes 'don't just do something, stand there'.by jmfldn
- I kept hearing about meditation. And at one point I tried it. With one app that was given to me for free through my employer's benefits.
It had a counter of your current uninterrupted streak. (Meditating every day) I kept at it. First for 5 minutes a day. Soon for 10m a day. Then 20m
Then twice a day at 20m.
Then semi-guided, and in the end unguided (only a beep at the end).
I never felt anything from it. Truly. Nada. Not better, or worse or calmer or more present or really really nothing.
Yes while meditating I would catch my mind drift, I would come back to the breathing and continue the count.
After this has been on for over 6 months and my counter of my streak was nearing 200. I decided to skip a day, only to see if I would get back to it if my counter was back at 0.
Result?
I never meditated again. Could it be that did it wrong? Possibly.
Could it be that it just doesn't work on me? Possibly and this is the one explanation I'm going with
The whole thing is just...nothing
- In "Four thousand weeks" by Oliver Burkeman, he breaks down that this obsession with action stems to the industrial revolution when it was decided that workers should sell their time for a living.
Before that we used to have task-oriented jobs, like milking the cows, which you cant do more than once in a while, or harvest the fields, which you can't do until it's ripe. In general humans are more evolved to this kind of work given our 200'000 years of task-based genetics versus 150 years of time controlling your action.
by augment_me