
Meditation Is Garbage Collection for Your Mind - dsernst
http://dsernst.com/2015/01/06/meditation-is-garbage-collection-for-your-mind/
======
NathanKP
I don't really meditate, but one thing I've found helpful is to make it a
point to not purposefully distract myself from mindful thought.

The truth is that we all have plenty of time for mindful thinking, even if we
don't actually set aside time to sit with eyes closed in a "meditation" state.
Think about how much time is spent just sitting on a train, or in line doing
nothing. The instant impulse most of the time in these types of situations is
to pull out your phone and distract yourself from thinking by looking at a web
article, or playing a game.

I found that by reducing this habit in my life (not completely eliminated or
else I wouldn't be commenting here) I had much more time for mindful thinking
in my normal day to day life.

Another way to get started is to go on a long walk without headphones. Maybe
even leave your phone at home. A year or so ago I was working through some
shit and found it extremely helpful to take long walks on a trail that I loved
with no electronics at all. That time spent free from distractions allowed me
to develop introspection that was extremely useful and therapeutic.

~~~
vidarh
I don't doubt that this is useful to you, but the phrase "mindful thinking"
makes me wonder what exactly you mean.

"Mindfulness" as used in insight/mindfulness meditation / vipassana and
similar schools of mediation does not refers to thinking about something.

Rather it refers to _detached but focused observation_ (though you may observe
your thoughts). The point is to instead of "following a train of thought", to
get off it and watch it closely from the sideline, and let each train
disappear into the distance.

What your use of "mindful thinking" sounds like to me (and I might be wrong
and you may be thinking of exactly what mindfulness meditation tends to refer
to), is focused attention on a train of thought. That's important too, but
very, very different.

From the sounds of it you are certainly practising your concentration and
willpower, and that is certainly valuable in itself, and if whatever you're
doing works for you of course you should keep doing it.

But I'd like to suggst an experiment: Try to "detach" from your train of
thought sometime, even if just a minute here and a minute there (a minute can
be frustrating enough...). E.g. when out walking, try to purposefully clear
your mind and fix your attention on just the path. Try to be present and
quietly observe every detail without trying to verbalize any thoughts.
Thoughts will pop up and distract you anyway. Just gently nudge them away, or
observe them but try not to "follow it up" and just let it dissipate. When you
lose focus, and notice (whether 5 seconds later or 10 minutes), just gently
nudge your attention back.

The "game" is to note when you lose concentration and try to gradually
lengthen the time span where you are just present, detached from your thought
stream and just observing. As I've heard someone say: it's when you notice you
lost concentration you're learning.

~~~
drcomputer
It's one way of thinking of what learning is. Some learning just is
experience. Simplifying the experience, using the mind, can sometimes make the
learning more complex than it needs be.

Choosing to make the distinction between the thought stream, the external
world, and the observant self is one way to think. It is already on a layer of
abstract conceptualization that is more complicated than it need be.

I just like letting go of the idea of what everyone else says learning,
experiencing, and thinking is, and just let everything flow. That's when I
feel most comfortable. When I let go of 'a way I think I should be' and I know
instead 'I have always been the way I should be. It feels like a conscious
jerk in thought when you remember to stop guiding yourself, and you just know
you are already there.

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faitswulff
Just a note - meditation _can_ have negative side effects:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-
dark-k...](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-knight-
of-the-souls/372766/)

This article, which has been submitted to HN before, investigates several
severe reactions to meditation and the nonexistent research in, or even
interest in researching, its downsides.

Having a negative reaction to meditation is not surprising, if you think about
it. Deep introspection can lead to crippling mental states, depending on what
you do or do not find. You may expect to find meaning and find none, or you
may find something haunting from your past or within your psyche. Either can
be a disaster for your personal well-being. I find it somewhat vapid to
discuss meditation as simply an efficiency lifehack.

From the article:

> For Britton, this widespread assumption—that meditation exists only for
> stress reduction and labor productivity, "because that's what Americans
> value"—narrows the scope of the scientific lens. When the time comes to
> develop hypotheses around the effects of meditation, the only acceptable—and
> fundable—research questions are the ones that promise to deliver the answers
> we want to hear.

> ..."But," she cautions, "what about when meditation plays a role in creating
> an experience that then leads to a breakup, a psychotic break, or an
> inability to focus at work?"

~~~
NathanKP
I would argue that if introspection has such harmful side effects for a person
that means the person's mental state was already in an artificial and damaged
state.

I think in most cases it is better to begin that introspection process and
endure some temporary pain in order to work through the root issue rather than
trying to put it off by avoiding it.

In other words, avoiding introspection won't solve the problem.

~~~
Daishiman
Which is why it is recommended that, beyond a certain point of initial
expertise, you seek a "master" in whatever branch of practice you're
comfortable with.

It's actually pretty thoroughly documented in all the Buddhist commentaries
that people can have a very shitty time with meditation.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Deep in essentially anyone's subconscious there's a lot of garbage. Sometimes
meditation kicks it up a bit. If done properly, it's a clean-up.

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ca98am79
From my experience it is even more than this. I meditate 2 hours a day and it
has had a profound, yet subtle, influence on my daily practical life. Things
are just much better. It appears to me that when you make things better on the
inside, there is a direct influence on the outside.

~~~
droopyEyelids
I'm curious what portion of your personal time those two hours takes?

For example, I sleep 8 hours, work 8 hours, commute 1.5 hours, and take an
hour for lunch.

Not counting other meals and chores, that leaves me with 5.5 discretionary
hours a day.

~~~
ca98am79
Yeah, it isn't as difficult to manage as it may appear - I just wake up a bit
earlier for an hour first thing in the morning, and then stop doing things a
little earlier in the evening for the 2nd hour.

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WalterSear
No it's not. It's strength training for your ability to direct your attention.
Sleep is the garbage collection.

~~~
segmondy
To each their own, for me it's neither garbage collection nor sleep. It's
having an organized todo list that's been prioritized.

~~~
WalterSear
IMNSHO, it's 'whatever you want it to be'. It causes specific measurable
changes to brain function and anatomy.

~~~
kybernetikos
> It causes specific measurable changes to brain function and anatomy.

So does learning The Knowledge.

~~~
WalterSear
So what? Different parts of the brain, different functions.

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stephengillie
Meditation is one of those things that people aren't allowed to not like. If
you say you don't like it or it's not for you, you get overwhelmed and drowned
out by the echo chamber.

~~~
jonstewart
It makes me really wonder about the "hacker" community that such obvious bunk
keeps showing up here. Hackers are skeptical.

~~~
jonstewart
To the best of my understanding, meditation is a mental activity. You sit
still and... do what, exactly? Think of nothing? How does one think of
nothing? Is meditation another word for daydreaming? How can we be sure that
any two people are "meditating" in the same way, since it's an unobservable
mental state? And are proponents of meditation simply saying that sitting
still, being calm, and focusing one's attention (or _not_ focusing one's
attention? which is it?) has benefits over running around like a chicken with
its head cut off? Doesn't that fall into the "no shit, Sherlock" realm of
common sense?

Any "science" on meditation faces the same problems that "psychology" faced
~100 years ago, when practitioners simply described their mental states. It
was only when psychology embraced empiricism and left self-descriptions of
mental state behind that it was able to advance as a science.

~~~
dsernst
Ah, like you say, there are many different techniques. The type I'm describing
in the OP is Vipassana[1], which is a systematic scan of physical sensations,
part by part throughout the body. Not 'thinking of nothing', nor
'daydreaming'. Of course, some other people _do_ use those sorts of
techniques, so confusion abounds.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassanā](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassanā)

~~~
jonstewart
Like an MRI scan?

------
duncancarroll
This is so true! And GC is a brilliant metaphor.

Typing this quickly since I'm on a deadline at work, but for those interested
in getting started, I set up a quarterly "Meditation Challenge" online group
to track progress and keep people motivated by having a group of people and a
goal. Myself and people in /r/meditation run it, so it's not a corporate
anything, just a public service.

You an add your email and it will notify you when the next challenge starts:

[http://meditationchallenge.co](http://meditationchallenge.co)

~~~
jackmaney
Neat! I've been trying to get myself to meditate more often. Any ETA on when
the next challenge will start?

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mping
I think the metaphor is OK, but in my own experience I think it misses the
mark a little bit. From what I have learned, you need to GC because you
generate too much garbage; one of the ways that meditation helps is that you
simply generate less garbage (less scattered, less thoughts) thus you don't
need to GC/sleep/whatever that much.

And why do you generate less garbage? It's because you become better focused
(concentration) on whatever you do (which by the way brings mindfullness as a
side-effect, not on purpose). With proper concentration, you also become aware
of the "dirt" (word that was used in the article from the atlatnic) and will
tend to avoid this dirt. This is important, because if you want to get better
at something, you must be able to recognize what's wrong. The problem with
having these insights is that if you don't have a teacher to help you, you
will get stuck at best or regress at worse.

Also there are alot of different meditation techniques, and although they are
similar, the devil is in the details. I'm sure this definition is not
appliable to every type of meditation, and that's OK.

~~~
dsernst
What sort of meditation are you experienced with? Just curious :-)

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digitalsushi
I have tried meditation a few select times and over two sessions in the same
year, I had the same experience. I found that I was in some sort of odd state,
neither asleep nor awake. I did not have any recollection of my body. But my
thoughts were strikingly aware of reality. I felt an overwhelming
connectedness to essentially everything. I googled for the sensation and the
closest match I could find was an Hindu word: turiya. I have no experience
with this domain and have felt actually quite lost since I have never
encountered anyone who had a similar frame of reference. It was quite
overwhelming and has not happened but those two times. I do not indulge in any
narcotics or mind altering drugs. Very unusual experience.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
If you're still experiencing "thoughts" as entities beyond your full control,
if the "feeling" portion of the mind still fluctuates, if you're not free to
direct your ENTIRE attention in a single direction and hold it there for a
long time - then that's not turiya.

You've experienced an expansion of awareness. It's pretty cool when it
happens. You should "encourage" it and practice it more.

Turiya is far beyond the reach of basically everyone in their normal state. It
takes very long and very difficult preparation to get anywhere near it. If
it's easy to get there, you're basically an avatar.

------
applecore
Isn't this what sleep is for?

~~~
faitswulff
Literally speaking? [Yes.][0]

> "In a series of new studies on mice, her team discovered exactly that: When
> the mouse brain is sleeping or under anesthesia, it’s busy cleaning out the
> waste that accumulated while it was awake."

The NIH [also wrote about this in optimistic tones][1], if you're not a fan of
mainstream science reporting.

[0]:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/opinion/sunday/goodnight-s...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/opinion/sunday/goodnight-
sleep-clean.html?_r=0)

[1]:
[http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/october2013/10282013clear...](http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/october2013/10282013clear.htm)

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knappador
I use malloc and brk :-/

~~~
Untit1ed
This is the only context in which it's cool to like gc.

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martinshen
I use meditation to deepen good thought "rivers". The way I see my mind is...
something happens and triggers a thought which goes down the deepest "river".
For example, I hear some bad news at work; my mind processes this trigger and
goes down the deepest "river" leading me to a feeling of anxiety.

~~~
meowface
Free association of this nature can lead to both amazing creativity and
innovation as well as awful paranoia, anxiety, and fear. The mind sure is
fascinating.

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tabrischen
I like the analogy as a hook and lead in but a bit disappointed to find the
actual content a bit lacking, but perhaps that's the point?

Would be helpful to include a brief summary of the three different practises
of Vipassana or insight medidation as a whole just to provide an introduction.

~~~
dsernst
Ah sorry tabrischen! The idea was Hack Reactor tasked us with presenting a
topic of our choosing, but we were only given 5 minutes to do so.

So I'll try to go into more details for you!

The Vipassana tradition I've been taught in includes three techniques:

* Concentration meditation, called Anapana, where you observe your breath. Just watching the rhythm in and out. Trying not to miss a single breath. It helps to focus on just a very small region, like the triangle from your nostrils to your lips.

* Insight meditation, called Vipassana, where you observe the physical sensations in each part of your body, in a systematic way, from top to bottom and bottom to top. This is pretty tricky, especially at first, and believe it or not took me over 80 hours of practice before it really "clicked". If you're trying to teach yourself, I'd recommend the ebook Meditation In Plain English, linked in the post.

* Loving-Kindness meditation, called Metta, where you generate good thoughts and compassion towards yourself and others. This one is even trickier to explain! Wish I could do it justice. But it's super powerful, and especially nice way to finish after practicing the other two techniques, which can leave you feeling a tad 'raw'. There are lots of different recommended ways of practicing Metta, but I'd recommend searching for "Metta meditation" for videos and other descriptions.

Hope this helps! Thanks for the question and I'm happy to do my best with any
more.

~~~
tabrischen
This is very helpful, thanks !

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pekk
I would rather use reference counting...

