
Cognitive mechanisms in meditation practice - irickt
http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(15)00152-7
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hacker_9
I started meditating about 2 years ago because I liked the idea of having
better 'control of my mind' \- at the time I thought it was a gimmick but to
my surprise it actually works.

To begin with I found that after 20-30mins of closing my eyes and trying to
think of nothing, I always came out of the session feeling a lot calmer. Fast
forward to today and I can now isolate thoughts and throw them away if they
are garbage, which I'm not gonna lie is a pretty useful tool to have. The
brain has a tendency to replay bad memories over and over again (recent
embarrassing social situations, or even random events from years ago can
suddenly pop up) and they can affect how you go about your day to day when you
overthink them - you get overly nervous about a presentation you have to do
later for example.

But now I can stop the thought in it's tracks and just 'let it go', returning
my attention to my work. Because you calm and slow your mind in meditation you
are able to separate out how thoughts are formed and observe how they change
your mood and how they make you react, which gives you more power over them in
daily life.

~~~
amelius
Very interesting. What timespan did you need to start seeing good results? Are
you still improving after 2 years?

~~~
hosh
@amelius It's been in my experience "results" vary widely with a lot of
people. Part of the reason is that calmness is not the ultimate aim of
meditation, but rather, a side-effect.

For some people, the practice of meditation will quickly surface up a lot of
anxiety and existential issues. It won't feel calm at all. Having been lured
into thinking calmness is the end-goal, meditation is written off as "not
working", when in fact in this case, it worked all too well.

Just some food for thought. I had written quite a bit more on different
threads:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10142283](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10142283)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10156240](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10156240)

~~~
willhinsa
Thank you so much for your writing on this issue. I second others' motion that
you should write a book, but until you do, what book would you recommend for
someone who wants to get started?

~~~
hosh
I usually give out book recommendations based on the person's interest. So
I'll give my best shot for making a generic recommendation.

The first thing to understand is that books on meditation are not going to
help you all that much. This is not something you try to understand
intellectually. It is experiential. You are much better off attempting to
practice. If you need help with practice, there are various groups and flavors
of mindfulness meditation: vipassana, zen, insight, etc. There's going to be a
flavor, and a group of people with whom it will feel right.

Barring that, hacker_9's suggestion of the Meditation sub-reddit is not bad.
My suggestion though is to ignore the people talking about theory -- practice,
find people who practice, and allow the issues and observations to surface up
from there. It's a kind of empirical inquiry into yourself where you drive the
discussion through your observations, rather than the other way around.

Now having said that, the most generic book on helping you practice meditation
that I recommend is Mindfulness in Plain English. You can find this for free
online.

I have also heard about Calm and Headspace apps and knew people who tried it.
They are probably not a bad way to start -- though like all things, it comes
and goes, and there will come a time to drop it and move on.

Traditional Buddhist teachings don't necessarily get into the psychological
aspects of it. Or let me be more precise: the psychological descriptions don't
seem to resonate well with Westerners, and is typically dismissed as part of
empty ceremonies, or pre-modern descriptions of psychology. (For example: what
does the Padme Family or the element of Air have anything to do with your day-
to-day life?)

So a meditation practice can be paired with therapy, and will work very well
if the therapist also practices.

That leads to the other book I would recommend, since people are interested in
healing their neurotic patterns. There is a great book whose technique
complements mindfulness meditation: Tsultrim Allione's "Feeding Your Demons:
Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict". This book distilled out an older
practice in a way that combines with gestalt therapy and presented in a way
that is much more accessible for people who grew up in the West. Like the
tradition it comes from, although the full method uses visualization methods,
it ends with mindfulness meditation. Along with a regular practice of
meditation, it's a great way to deliberately gain some insight into your
subconscious.

Hope that helps.

~~~
thornofmight
Thank you for sharing.

I was reading through your posts and saw this: "The second is this: when
Shakti pierces the 4th chakra and/or the hrit padma (below it) ... you'll gain
a kind of "compass". From there on out, you'll always have a way of checking
which path to go. It might mean staying with kundalini yoga, it might not be.
The journey getting to the center involves piercing through the 2nd ganthri,
learning to surrender. It will be like peeling an onion. You'll cry. A lot.
And you'll know it is worth it."

This is related to kundalini yoga? Any recommendations on how to get started
there?

~~~
hosh
I was speaking specifically to that person, not for the general case.
Kundalini yoga is not the only way to awaken and work with the Kundalini. For
example, a martial art enthusiast might check out Scott Meredith and Damo
Mitchell's books to develop refined power and connect with Shakti through
their martial arts.

Believe or not, you can get in touch with this heart experience that going to
evangelical Christian revivals (there are some severe shadow sides related to
this, however, there are Christian mystics around) or go attend kirtans. There
are shamanic methods. Or just go to a rave and really open up your heart while
dancing. Mindful prayers, asking to be guided into this will be heard.

Email me sometime. Maybe in the course of talking, what you say will remind me
of a path that may really resonate with you.

------
ncphillips
I thought this paper was fascinating! Here is my brief summary of this paper.

This paper is discussing meditation in a fairly broad sense, which includes
practices related to eastern religions (Buddhism, Hindu), abrahamic religions
(Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), as well as modern practices found in a
modern clinical setting (CBT).

They propose a classification of meditation practices. At the top level, there
are three types of meditation: (1) Attentive Meditation, (2) Constructive
Meditation, and (3)Deconstructive Meditation.

Attentive meditation has to do with controlling ones focus. These practices
generally have the practitioner intentionally narrow or broaden their focus.
Zen breath counting and body scanning meditation are examples of Attentive
meditation.

Constructive meditation practices aim to create and strengthen healthy habits,
or commitments to certain values. This could involve imagining what it's like
to be others, or imagining yourself as an embodiment of certain values.
Constructive practices may also have the practitioner contemplate their own
mortality, so that they can consider what is truly important in life.
Christians praying to God for strength and thinking about their immortal soul
are examples of Constructive meditation.

Deconstructive meditation practices aim to foster insight into the
perceptions, emotions, and cognition of the practitioner. Self-inquiry and
contemplation on these objects themselves are often a part of this type of
practice. CBT and other modern clinical techniques are examples of
Deconstructive meditation.

\------------------------------------

A couple other notes:

* All three types of meditation seem to be useful in different ways. * It's uncertain to what extent do the effects of specific meditations rest on the frameworks, beliefs, and world views that underlie these practices.

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irickt
Open access pdf: [http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-
sciences/pdf/S1364-6613...](http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-
sciences/pdf/S1364-6613\(15\)00152-7.pdf)

------
siavosh
One resource I've found to be a refreshing take on the nuts and bolts of
insight meditation that I think may appeal to engineers is the free book by
Daniel Ingram.
[http://integrateddaniel.info/book/](http://integrateddaniel.info/book/)

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geomark
As someone who has done some meditation and spent some time as a Buddhist
monk, I find this scientific treatment of the subject very interesting. When I
was in the robe we meditated a lot under the guidance of senior monks who were
very accomplished. Other forms of meditation were only mentioned in passing.
I've heard many incomplete descriptions of the differences between various
types of meditation and wondered if there was a good taxonomy somewhere.

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mindfulgeek
If you're curious about current scientific research around Meditation, check
out the Advances in Meditation Research conference at Sloan Kettering Cancer
Center in NYC ([http://meditation2015.com/](http://meditation2015.com/)) The
one in 2013 had many great talks and interesting findings (like meditation
causes "wakefulness" instead of helping you sleep).

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noahlt
Anyone have recommendations for learning meditation in San Francisco?

~~~
lincolnpark
Try MissionDharma on 15th st. Pretty secular. Howie is a great teacher.

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dominotw
Why do people do all these strange things?

To make more money with "better brain" ?

~~~
benihana
To be happy.

I don't do meditation (and in fact get kind of irritated that practitioners of
it seem to imply the _only_ way to get in more control of your brain is
through meditation), but I practice CBT. The idea is to be in greater control
of your conscious and subconscious processes by being more aware of what's
going on in your brain.

For example, I noticed that when people make suggestions on products I work on
that have the potential to violate users' privacy, I tend to get defensive and
argumentative over that point. Using CBT and practice, first I was able to
identify the emotions that rush over me when that happened. Then, I was able
to notice and acknowledge those emotions happening and finally I was able to
control them and let them pass without influencing my behavior. The last step
in the puzzle is finding out why that particular issue is so triggering to me.

After becoming aware of these things, I'm a lot less anxious, my relationships
are much stronger, my communication is better, and I'm just in a better mood
and happier in general.

~~~
goldfeld
Actually you do meditation. Just because "science" finally acknowledged and
formalized the power of doing what your second paragraph describes, it doesn't
stop being precisely what Buddhism has advocated for millennia with
insight/vipassana meditation. You actually don't have to sit down in lotus
position (or lie in bed) to practice meditation, that's but a convenient time
and setting of intensive practice, but the goal is to have meditation be an
all-encompassing activity permeating your life.

Many techniques of contemporary dance, for example, are meditation. They teach
you to be aware of your full body in motion, fiber by fiber stretching and
contracting, moment by moment. It's meditating on bodily impulses, not
consciousness ones, but a trained dancer in action has in any case no
consciousness of anything else but her body, rhythm and the abstract meaning
(i.e. the image) of that, but those three get dissolved into one in dopamine
and that's what people call "incorporating", you lose the sense of self.

~~~
DanBC
CBT isn't meditation or mindfulness and there's not much similarity.

~~~
godDLL
CBT is the medical approach to mindfulness. You're looking at mindfulness
through a microscope, that's why you can't quite make out the shape of the
subject.

~~~
DanBC
I don't know what to tell you - CBT has some small overlap with mindfulness,
but they're not the same and there are important differences.

