
The Morality of Meditation - sethbannon
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/opinion/sunday/the-morality-of-meditation.html#
======
300bps
>WHEN a participant entered the waiting area for our lab, he (or she) found
three chairs, two of which were already occupied. Naturally, he sat in the
remaining chair. As he waited, a fourth person, using crutches and wearing a
boot for a broken foot, entered the room and audibly sighed in pain as she
leaned uncomfortably against a wall.

...and the results:

>Although only 16 percent of the nonmeditators gave up their seats — an
admittedly disheartening fact — the proportion rose to 50 percent among those
who had meditated.

So they had 39 people total. 20 meditators and 19 non-meditators. Of that, 3
non-meditators of 19 gave up their seat and 10 meditators of 20 gave up their
seat.

Did they perform this study on sociopaths? I find it incredible that _any_
able-bodied person would not give up a chair to a person on crutches.

~~~
jessriedel
> So they had 39 people total. 20 meditators and 19 non-meditators. Of that, 3
> non-meditators of 19 gave up their seat and 10 meditators of 20 gave up
> their seat.

Small numbers, but the effect size seems big enough that this would pass the
(admittedly low) bar for p=0.05.

Incidentally, does anyone have a quick method for estimating the statistical
significance of numbers like these?

~~~
seren
You can do a student T test in Excel with TTEST(), I assume you have similar
functions in OpenCalc.

~~~
jessriedel
OK, but is there an estimate I can do in my head? Or on the back of a napkin?

------
Tomino
I cannot believe that people are actually paid and getting popular on base of
this kind of experiments. I mean, unless I am missing some crucial point, the
results are just some random numbers that can point out only the fact that not
many people have manners to give up seat for whoever needs it. And even that
statistic is useless as it would have to be performed on many more people in
order to have some solid ground. I wish I would have gone study psychology
really. Lot of money and exposure for something that could be performed by
primary school pupils...

~~~
rattray
You could say the same thing about most people who make money and achieve some
level of fame -- especially artists, designers, many entrepreneurs, and
entertainers (including sports stars). Many times, terrific results seem like
they could have been "easy" to come up with.

That doesn't take away from the fact that they had the creativity to think of
it, _did_ it, and added to our collective knowledge as a result. Sure, the
results seem obvious in retrospect, and the process doesn't seem too tough to
put together. But I'm grateful for their work nonetheless.

~~~
Tomino
I am sorry but make a study where you let 10 people meditate and 10 people not
(I am aware that the numbers are not correct, just don't want to read it
again) and then observe who is willing to give up seat is downright laughable.
It has nothing to do with creativity. I imagine that the mentioned professor
thought "Ok guys we need to do something new, meditation is now getting
popular lets take a hit on it ASAP." There are two things that really
irritates me about this:

1) The fact that they based the outcome on giving up seat for someone. They
could as well give them a gun and see who is willing to shoot someone. it has
NOTHING to do with meditation. What they should test instead is work
productivity, energy levels, sleep habits etc. those are factors that are
supposed to be influenced by meditation. But why didn't they? Well because it
would require a hell of a lot more work. Why not just do the one with taken
chair? ... lol

2) The fact that this article is published by New York Times. This "work"
should not get attention from big publications in my opinion.

------
msluyter
An alternative explanation: a group of people were selected to participate in
meditation training. This heightened their awareness of the supposed
benefits/effects of meditation as well as its historical traditions. Perhaps
some of them read a bit about Buddhism and compassion, or were freshly
reminded of such things. This primed them to think of themselves as being more
aware, compassionate, etc... and that self image would be in the foreground,
since they'd just started meditation so recently. Hence, perhaps when they
found themselves in a social situation that called for such things, their
enhanced self image was able to override the bystander effect.

IOW: "I've been meditating lately and meditation is supposed to make you a
nicer person, so I should do something!"

This would be in accord with lots of studies that show how you prime someone's
thinking can affect how they behave. You could test the above hypothesis by
studying people who weren't _recently_ introduced to meditation, that is,
whose self image had some time to return to some sort of base state. The trick
would be to disentangle the actual effects of the meditative process from the
aura of associations surrounding Buddhism in particular, and that might be
impossible.

To clarify my question: is it the _meditation itself_ that makes you more
compassionate, or the engaging in a practice long associated with compassion
that makes you more compassionate?

~~~
eshvk
I am personally incredibly skeptical of eastern religious practices so getting
in mindfulness was a big step for me. So the way mindfulness works, it
definitely forces you to become more aware of the world. Self-compassion is a
big component of the mindfulness process (it is very hard to sit quietly for X
minutes without having to calm your own judgmental thoughts).

I don't' think there is a long term biological effect in me. If I stop
meditating for a few days, I can feel myself coming back to a base state.
However, as I keep doing this, it gets much better. So yes I think the very
act of regular meditation helps you become more compassionate. It is like a
daily priming of the system.

------
d23
Prediction: this comments section will be filled with people claiming this is
a load of hogwash (and I can already see it happening). My response: do the
results _really_ seem that crazy?

To me, it seems as obvious as comparing two groups of exercisers and non-
exercisers to see who are about to last longer on a treadmill. If you practice
something enough, you're going to see benefits. Practicing getting past those
negative elements of your psyche for 8 weeks is surely going to cause you to
be a bit kinder to those around you.

------
rayiner
> A number of “mindfulness” training programs, like that developed by the
> engineer Chade-Meng Tan at Google, and conferences like Wisdom 2.0 for
> business and tech leaders, promise attendees insight into how meditation can
> be used to augment individual performance, leadership and productivity.

Management fads rank right up there with parenting fads and diet fads in their
ability to attract otherwise intelligent, and often highly intelligent, people
to their inanity.

~~~
lnanek2
Meditation has many studies supporting it, including imaging studies showing
changes to the brain. Calling programs that teach it inane is just ignorant.

~~~
wozniacki
Is there a single major study involving a randomized controlled trial that
strongly suggests that long term meditation indubitably aids in a certain
function of humans?

For the sake of clarity, a major study is designed like this:

Low-fat dietary pattern and risk of colorectal cancer: the Women's Health
Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS:

The Women's Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial, a randomized
controlled trial conducted in 48,835 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 years
recruited between 1993 and 1998 from 40 clinical centers throughout the United
States.

Source:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16467233](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16467233)

~~~
delluminatus
If there is, I would love to hear of it. However, I have to wonder if you
really only make decisions based on randomized controlled studies with over
10,000 participants...

------
tinbad
Great to see that enlightenment in the form of meditation is getting attention
from the main stream media. We are getting caught up in our daily routines so
much that we often forget who we are and what it is that actually makes us
happy. Meditation, even when done for a short period of time, can truly change
ones perception and bring in more happiness into ones life.

Taking meditation into a business perspective, I believe it can truly enhance
teams and have people work together better. At my previous company, one of our
developers introduced me to meditation for the first time. I enjoyed it so
much that I've asked him to 'lead' a collective meditation session every
morning in the office for all the employees who were 'open' to it. After a few
weeks most of our team participated in these sessions and the feedback from
our employees was very positive.

Now I have never tried to find a correlation of these sessions with actual
productivity, but overall everybody seemed to be more focussed and happy in
the office. If I ever get to found another company, I would definitely like to
explore the options of team/office meditation sessions again.

For anybody interested in connecting with the inner self, Eckhart Tolle really
knows how to translate the concepts of our inner spirit into plain language:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE1dWwoJPU0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE1dWwoJPU0)

------
dschiptsov
"MEDITATION is fast becoming a fashionable tool for improving your mind." \-
Oh, RLY?! LOL! WUT.

As for rest of the nonsense, any more or less authoritative teacher will tell
you that it requires _years_ of deliberate practice to attain very basic level
of being continuously aware and in control of ones inner states. It is not
mere sitting and counting one's breath. This is just a training drill for the
very first realization, that thoughts are not continuous, that there is a gaps
between them, and that the thought could be stopped, but not by self-denial or
will, but naturally ceased, like an unnecessary tension. This is just a
realization (the most important one) but one cannot stop ones mind without
forcing oneself, and even that only for a few seconds. This is _NOT_ the goal
of meditation. It is only the very first step.

But the next step - from this very first realization to developing a _habit_
of being self-aware continuously, without any conscious effort requires
_years_ of practice.

Different schools and branches has different techniques to practice _daily_ in
order to develop this habit of permanent self-awareness with in pop-culture is
called the third eye (which looks inside). Practices which are based on
body/breath control to change the state of the mind usually called yoga, at
least in Tibetan or Indian tradition, but there are many so-called analytic
meditation techniques, such as famous Tibetan meditation on a corpse (to
realize the true nature of our body) and so on.

So, please, cut that 8-week-course crap out. What they "measured" is elevated
self-esteem, or better self-confidence, or just felling special or even
enlightened - any kind of these naive pre-mature "experiences" each and any
novice had had.

It takes years of daily practice, as any other talent development.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
The tone of this comment is not one I associate with self-awareness.

~~~
dschiptsov
Why, there is no anger of hatred involved, just few under-controlled
emotions.))

~~~
mnemonicsloth
Every one of us is a novice at almost everything, so contempt for the ambition
of novices is an emotion worth controlling.

------
seren
It is not clear from the article how the empathy level of all participants was
assessed _before_ the beginning of the experiment. From what I read, it could
have been random luck that people with more empathy were selected to follow
the meditation training. What I am missing there ?

~~~
csbrooks
I'm not a scientist, but doesn't a large enough sample-size greatly limit the
chance of this, statistically?

~~~
pekk
Making a sample larger cannot correct for nonrandom biases in who you sampled.

~~~
mjb
"We then randomly assigned 20 of them to take part in weekly meditation
classes"

It makes sense to be critical of bad experiment design, and skeptical about
extraordinary results. On the other hand, claiming bad experiment design based
on the amount of data presented in the article seems premature. Maybe wait for
the full paper and criticize the methodology if it appears flawed.

~~~
jessriedel
> Maybe wait for the full paper and criticize the methodology if it appears
> flawed.

Eh, if the authors and their university are going to promote this in the media
--and, make no mistake, this has been promoted heavily in order for it to
reach the NYTimes--then I think it's fair game. You don't get to publicize
your claims on the national stage and then avoid criticism until after your
paper is published and the reader has forgotten everything (except the vague
impression that meditation is backed by science).

------
mchusma
I found this to be a great example of the flaws with "evidence based"
reporting rather than "science based"

Science would suggest that this result is preliminary, and results should be
studied with Bayesian statistics. This article makes headlines, sure, but
shouldn't on its own dictate any behavior.

PS. I found the false dichotomy between things like "moving for a person with
crutches" and "being good at your job" annoying. This was likely more a
product of reporting than the study though.

~~~
rattray
It seems more like the difference between "reporting" and "science" to me. If
you're interested in the science, consider reading the linked research paper
instead[0]. It may adopt something closer to the tone you're looking for.

FWIW, I agree that Bayesian statistics strikes me as regrettably underused in
modern social science. But it's my impression that scientists of many stripes
continue to use classical statistics instead, so calling something that
doesn't use Bayes "not science" seems a bit off.

[0]
[http://www.socialemotions.org/page5/files/Condon.etal.2013.p...](http://www.socialemotions.org/page5/files/Condon.etal.2013.pdf)

------
Alex3917
> My favored explanation, though, derives from a different aspect of
> meditation: its ability to foster a view that all beings are interconnected.

What a load of crap. There is no way you'd experience that after meditating
once a week for eight weeks.

~~~
rattray
Have you ever meditated?

~~~
Alex3917
I've got one 10-day vipassana retreat under my belt. But I've also read enough
to know that the 'feeling of interconnectedness' the author is describing is
associated with states that take several years of serious practice to achieve.

------
neves
Nice article, but it looks like a simple case of reciprocity: "Hey, the people
here just gave me an 8 week meditation course. The guys here are really nice.
I should also be nice to everybody here".

