Disclaimers. I am also an atheist. I took this exact meditation course 20+ years ago and know people who have followed it for decades. I am not so enthralled.
The meditation itself is fine. However the problem is in the tapes. Goenka is not just trying to teach people to meditate, he's trying to teach a particular religious philosophy. He doesn't want you to just be aware of your body, he wants you to pay attention to how things arise and pass away, and from that conclude that all attachment is bad because you will feel grief when it passes. This ties into Buddhist philosophy.
To me the problem with this philosophy can be summed up by, 'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.' I was fascinated by the experience, but receiving indoctrination while I was in such a delicate state was not to my liking.
As things are right now, any meditation technique worth the effort is coming from one or another religious background. So there is going to be some infusion of dogmatic elements into it. At least some schools are honest about it and tell you to feel free and ignore the mythology and focus on the psychological work.
I practice a different meditation system, and they have their own dogma attached to it. I found that whether I "believe" in it or not is irrelevant. Meditation itself is far too fascinating to get distracted with extras.
Another way to look at it is that some dogmatic aspects may not represent literal truths, but are metaphors for certain psychological aspects occurring in meditation or as an effect of it. This appears to be a very appropriate interpretation for many pantheons - heck, even the Greek gods are quite obviously representations of states of consciousness and functions of the mind, and the ancient greeks were not exactly famous for their meditation techniques.
I've been doing transcendental meditation. I imagine its roots are from a "religious background", but I don't feel like there are any religious elements. There are only a few dogmatic rules such as don't eat 2 hours before/after meditating.
There is a recommendation to wait a while after eating until the main digestion is completed before meditating. But there is no recommendation to wait any time after meditating before eating.
Ninety percent of Maslow's pyramid has been taken care of for as long as I could remember, leaving me to arrogantly believe it's my responsibility to improve this world
-- that resembles a feeling that often brings me angst, but I always struggle to put into words.
Disclaimer: I haven't actually read Maslow's original work.
Looking at Maslow's pyramid, way more than 10% of it has to do with very abstract stuff. Given what the author has written, he almost by definition hasn't achieved "self-actualization" in the sense Maslow means. He almost by definition hasn't achieved 90% of the pyramid.
Only a small part of the pyramid has to do with food, shelter, clothing, and having people to socialize with.
I like to run once a week or so. It helps me shed a lot of stress, and is supposed to be good for me.
At first I hated it. But then I began bringing my iPhone and listen to music. I mostly listen to electronic dance music, but there was a specific genre that I found worked well for runnig; Trance.
There is a reason for that name. I found that this music, in combination with the deep breathing in coordination with my steps sort of lets me enter a state of trance. I can empty my mind and just be. Stress over deadlines and finances - and even stress over being stressed - pretty much are gone when I get back home.
Sensory deprivation is known to cause hallucinations, often within a matter of minutes. People are primed to believe that sensory deprivation in the form of meditation provides profound insights, so they do. If you force a prisoner to sit still for several hours in a silent room as punishment, they perceive it to be a dreadful torture.
It's mystical nonsense. "I did a thing that made me feel better" is a perfectly legitimate statement. "I did a thing and believe it to be deeply profound and meaningful in ways I cannot articulate" really isn't the sort of thing we usually countenance on HN, because it's a line of thinking that we recognise to be dangerous.
For various cultural reasons, mainly ignorance, rationalists are unusually tolerant of Buddhist nonsense, often believing it to be essentially benign. If you know anything of the history of south-east Asia, you will know how foolish that error is. I rather doubt that a post extolling the virtues of Islamic or Christian monasticism with such breathless naivete would have garnered so many upvotes.
Meditation is one of the things that most people should do, it enlightens you as to your faults, bringing them to light so that you may change yourself for the better. It's also nothing to do with making you superior to other people(if it is you have other issues that won't work themselves out until you learn some empathy.)
For those of you looking for a place to go on a similar 10 day retreat, there is:
Northwest Vipassana Center (PNW Region, I've heard really good things about this one from friends who have done the program)
http://www.kunja.dhamma.org/
I hate to be "that guy", but clicking your timer more than once seems to be cutting the intervals down each time (ex: click it 10 times, and it goes crazy fast).
I only say this because I love that you actually went ahead and embedded a timer in your post -- knowing that the process of reading and absorbing the content was just as important, if not more important, than the content itself.
Basic brain washing routine. You want a religion. Just pick one. Stop trying to convince yourself you're rational. You're a human being: you're not rational. Irritating post. Why the hell did I read this?
Self contradictory title. Once again we're mixing up chemical imbalances (however induced) with this notion of a Creator. If there really is this God thing, then do you really think they give a damn about you sitting on hot rocks? If you do, then you've really missed the point of it all. If you don't then you'll quickly realize you're just wasting your time, the most precious resource you have.
I think the title is intentionally somewhat provocative (which might justify some distaste, depending on your personality. I didn't really mind because I had a good idea what the author was getting at from the title).
That said, I didn't see anything in the post that would lead me to believe the author was espousing a belief in God or having found religion. I'd pretty much say the opposite according to these sections:
My frustration with the inclusion of Buddhist beliefs such as reincarnation, kalapas, and omniscience -- we were told to ignore these beliefs if we so chose; I ignored them.
I'll leave you with what attracts me most to this bizarre practice: It is ordinary.
There are no gods, there are no drugs, there is no magic
I also tend to think that the notion of wasting time is hugely subjective.
> If there really is this God thing, then do you really think they give a damn about you sitting on hot rocks? If you do, then you've really missed the point of it all. If you don't then you'll quickly realize you're just wasting your time
What you said is logically analogous to, "There are no cars in the parking lot, but if you think there are cars in the parking lot, you have to think they are blue."
In other words, blatantly illogical.
You can't reason about the properties of a false hypothetical (unless you think that it's not a false hypothetical).
So you sat on some stones under extreme physical duress. Congratulations. Your puny mammalian brain acted in a manner dysfunctional from its normal operating environment. Now you can go to parties and feel even more superior to your friends. They won't get it of course because there's no way for you to accurately explain it to them.
Why so dismissive? Religious or feel-good benefits aside from the 100-hour regimen, the guys deserves kudos merely for sticking with the exercise to its conclusion. Even without the discomfort, sitting/standing/whatever for 10 hours a day doing nothing physically takes some dedication.
I find his experience amazing on so many levels, and I am gracious for such a intimate account of that experience (I read the full-on article he references).
I would totally give you kudos for piercing your scrotum a hundred times. From the people I know in the body modification community, genital modification can be a very spiritual experience.
Also, think of the crazy rush that you would get from the first piercing, when your body is changed forever, till the end of the hundred-piercing ritual. That would absolutely be something worth blogging about.
There's a difference between doing something harmful to yourself repeatedly for shits and giggles, and at your own discretion, and voluntarily following something through to its conclusion when somebody else plans the exercise for you. Perhaps the subtle distinction is only in my own head, but I do believe there is one.
The dude doesn't deserve a pat on the back for the meditation itself. If he had been fasting, following a running/swimming program, studying go/baduk life-and-death problems, or playing guitar exercises for 10 days, and he stuck with it to the end and documented it similarly, I feel he would still deserve kudos. Giving one's undivided attention to a new and uncomfortable activity, 10 hours a day for 10 days, is a challenge for most people.
Hell, I'm lucky if I can give up coffee or power drinks for 10 straight days. The 2 or three times I completed a 24-hour fast, I felt some sense of accomplishment. And keeping up with some kind of exercise routine? Forget about it.
And that's why I found his story so layered and interesting. It's not just about the meditation (which was interesting in its own right), but about his dedication, and his privilege, and his turning his mind's eye inward.
Berate him (or me) if you will. You said it best: to each their own.
I would say such things to the author in person. I have said such things to people who've professed to me special insight from such benign activities. I think they're kidding themselves and bullshitting other people when they do it.
I responded to everything I read in the original article. The author claimed humility but what I read was not indicative of someone whose motivation is to be humble. The author claimed to have learned something from the experience and draws eir conclusions from eir own bias.
I would consider my response aggressive but not uncivil and certainly not undeserved.
Now if you meant to point out that my criticism was not constructive then touché. Here's my suggestion then: don't let your personal bias influence your writing, author, draw your conclusions from your observations. Share what it was like to be at the centre. Everything you described indicates cult-like activity: what about it indicated that it was not a cult? How can you argue that is true?
I think any sort of spiritual experience is best kept to oneself. No matter your intentions you will come off as humble-bragging if you try to explain your experiences and insights to others. I don't appreciate the new-age, spritiual, self-help "industry." I think it's a scam and intellectual fraud. Anyone who offers spiritual insight is probably lying for one. And if they're offering it at a price then they're scamming you.
I am also completely against the new-age, spritiual, self-help 'industry.'" I experienced something that one might call "spiritual" (I don't believe it was) or whatever on many awesome shroom trips and don't go bragging about how I gained some powerful knowledge of the multiverse, and I laugh whenever others make those claims too. But.... I don't think the author is advocating anything and trying to convert someone to a cult. Hell, there are many studies around meditation associated with other CBT studies for depression and other issues that help give cred to practising meditation. Think you might have judged the guy a little harsh. Besides even if he did do that, attacking him likely won't help you change his or anyone else's belief. Try using a strategy from this http://www.skepticalscience.com/Debunking-Handbook-now-freel...
The meditation itself is fine. However the problem is in the tapes. Goenka is not just trying to teach people to meditate, he's trying to teach a particular religious philosophy. He doesn't want you to just be aware of your body, he wants you to pay attention to how things arise and pass away, and from that conclude that all attachment is bad because you will feel grief when it passes. This ties into Buddhist philosophy.
To me the problem with this philosophy can be summed up by, 'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.' I was fascinated by the experience, but receiving indoctrination while I was in such a delicate state was not to my liking.