
Meditation: Why Bother? - ulvund
http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english_3.php?
======
edo
This is almost poetry, expertly written.

"The essence of our experience is change. Change is incessant. Moment by
moment life flows by and it is never the same. Perpetual alteration is the
essence of the perceptual universe. A thought springs up in your head and half
a second later, it is gone. In comes another one, and that is gone too. A
sound strikes your ears and then silence. Open your eyes and the world pours
in, blink and it is gone. People come into your life and they leave again.
Friends go, relatives die. Your fortunes go up and they go down. Sometimes you
win and just as often you lose. It is incessant: change, change, change. No
two moments ever the same."

~~~
lionhearted
Reminds me of:

"You can never step in the same river twice." - Heraclitus

~~~
willfully_lost
It's interesting to me how much Heraclitus resembles an Eastern mystic.
Fitting that he was both behind and way ahead of his time.

"Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is
discordant. From all things one and from one all things."

"To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some
things are unjust and others just."

------
tel
This essay angers me with its presumption. It reads off like a fortune teller
reaching for whatever level of generalized sympathy will get you nodding
along. Maybe I'm just not sensitive enough to see the boiling resentment and
stress in watching families sing Sweet Caroline along with the crowd at the
local baseball game, or maybe I'm just far too aware of the postmodern
tradition of misery the essayist is targeting to, ah, buy it.

 _We try to stick each perception, every mental change in this endless flow
into one of three mental pigeon holes. It is good, or it is bad, or it is
neutral._

Does anyone actually live just like that or is it a strawman that wrings
another drop of ethos from the audience?

I don't want to make a statement against meditation, actually. I have some
mental antiviral habits that make me think Vipassana as its practiced in the
US is half truth and half marketing delusion, but at the end of the day stress
_is_ a huge problem and anything that can get people to honestly, psychically
relax has its value. My own experience is that meditation can take many forms
and truly is a perspective inversion with a great personal ROI. I go
backpacking, and I'll recommend it heartily too.

I want to go one step further. I've known and spoken to a few people who
practice meditation both here and in China and will say the essay isn't wrong
in its spiritual recommendation either. I am thoroughly convinced through
testimony and personal practice that you can learn a lot from sitting still.
There was even a link on HN a few days ago that suggested rational, tested
support.

But even if meditation were the honest cure for all existential angst in the
human condition, even if it cured AIDS and fixed Greece's financial woes, I'd
still prefer someone talk to me with respect instead of trying to wheedle
their way into my heart with meandering, gypsy-like proselytizing.

 _It only sounds bleak when you view it from the level of ordinary mental
perspective_

You too can be _extraordinary_! How many payments is Vipassana? (Well $125)

 _There is only one way you will ever know if meditation is worth the effort.
Learn to do it right, and do it. See for yourself._

The only valuable 3 sentences in this whole business.

~~~
silentbicycle
Meditation isn't a cure, it's just a good way to actually hear the alarms that
may have been going off for years - a diagnostic technique. You hear all of
the (demons? background processes?) that you've gotten tuned out, and realize
how much mental energy they drain. (Hold on - maybe I have email. And while
I'm there - are people on HN voting me up? What was I saying?)

Since meditation is basically just _sitting still, shutting up, and listening_
, anybody who wants to sell you an _extreme_ ZenTM experience is suspect.

You. Just. Sit.

It's boring. So fucking boring. At least the paint is drying. You just have
sore knees.

But it helps. While you were _so worried_ about random crap, how many little
joys did you tune out? Your morning coffee. Playing with your SO's hair. Pay
attention!

And yeah, I'm just as wary as you of someone trying to sell me _sitting and
looking at myself in the mirror_ for hundreds (no, thousands) of dollars.

Previously: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=612740>

~~~
asdflkj
Saying that meditating is "you just sit" is like saying that exercise is "you
just move". You'll get somewhere doing only that, but not very far. Things in
life that are simple, we already all do--like wiping our asses. On the other
hand, meditation ends up working for some people and not others, and different
people require different amounts of time and effort to get anywhere. This
indicates that meditation is like any other worthwhile thing in life--not
simple.

~~~
aranazo
With the school of Zen I am familiar with you pretty much do "just sit". The
practice is called Shikantaza, literally "Just sitting" in english. With 10%
chanting and bowing afterwards.

~~~
asdflkj
AFAIK, Shikantaza is only done after you've had a good amount of experience
with other, more structured forms of meditation, like counting breaths or
following the breath. At this point, you should already have some idea of
where you're going, and "just sitting" will be more than just sitting to you.

~~~
aranazo
I sit at a Dojo regularly and occasionally do introductions. We don't teach
counting, but do teach following the breath at the nostrils and settling the
mind in the hands, as things to come back to once the mind has wandered. There
is some technical stuff about posture to learn but basically you just turn up
and sit. If they do it differently somewhere else that's cool too, lineages
vary.

------
drblast
That's one of the best essays I've ever read. It says almost nothing about
meditation, but it nails every frustration and unhappiness I've ever
experienced.

It makes me think that if someone can be that insightful, I'm more likely to
go along with whatever he suggests because he's got it figured out so well.
Maybe it's time to give meditation a shot.

~~~
k0n2ad
If this comment was meant to be sarcastic then it was expertly executed! BTW,
you really don't need a teacher to learn meditation... just sit down, shut up
and focus on your breathing for a few minutes each day... and watch how wild
your mind is.

~~~
drblast
Not meant to be sarcastic at all. I just appreciate the insight in the essay.

I'd rather someone be an example of the results of their ideology, than have
them try to sell me on it. I think it speaks volumes.

------
davidw
I think that, given a limited amount of time, I'd rather do exercise (cycling)
than meditate, as it's a pretty good way of 'getting away from things' and
thinking without interruptions, and I also get some physical benefits from it.

~~~
petervandijck
Exercise is awesome.

I do think the concept of "limited amount of time" is a little flawed. Perhaps
the real reason people shy away from meditation is that it's hard and takes
discipline and willpower (in a good way)?

~~~
chacha102
I don't think the concept of "limited amount of time" is flawed.

Frankly, some people are constantly working and don't have time to meditate.
It isn't that they shy away from it because it is hard or takes discipline and
willpower, it is because we live in a world that (unfortunately) gives us a
limited amount of time during the day that we can spend awake consistently if
we don't want to possibly damage our health.

~~~
petervandijck
Fair enough. Still though, I don't know, I personally spend a lot of time on
things that are not obligatory, so that time is mine to choose how I spend it.
Family time, kid time, HN time...

If you're "constantly" working, then that's a choice you made, right?

[edit: just realized I sound kind of like an ass. I shouldn't speak for other
people. Just read this as me talking to myself :)]

~~~
davidw
It's not about 'constantly working' (I don't), it's about having lots of
things that I like to do, plus work. I think even if I were wealthy and didn't
have to work I'd find more ways to fill my time than time available. In some
ways that's good - I don't remember the last time I was bored - but it does
mean my time is limited.

I guess the point is that for me, exercise is probably more efficient, time
wise, in terms of benefits/time, and also includes some of the mental things
that I think meditation must give you, but of course it's a fairly personal
thing, and to each his own.

------
Avshalom
>And just because of the simple fact that you are human, you find yourself
heir to an inherent unsatisfactoriness in life which simply will not go away.
You can suppress it from your awareness for a time. You can distract yourself
for hours on end, but it always comes back--usually when you least expect it.

Or you can embrace that inherent unsatisfactoriness and affect real change in
the world.

>Examine each of these goals and you will find they are superficial. You want
food. Why? Because I am hungry. So you are hungry, so what? Well if I eat, I
won't be hungry and then I'll feel good. Ah ha! Feel good! Now there is a real
item.

I'm pretty sure happiness is the superficial goal when it comes to food. Food
can be a want yeah sure, but it's also a NEED.

In general I just can't abide by this sort of nihilism couched as noble anti-
materialism.

If the truest expression of your philosophy leads to you sitting in a cave
waiting to starve, freeze, dehydrate, or get eaten by wolves, you can just
fuck off.

~~~
wangwei
Apparently, you didn't understand the essay or the meditation. Meditation is
not nihilism or anti-materialism. I am not sure how i can explain it to you to
make it clear to you. I remember from a Buddhist saying that if your glass is
full, there is nothing one can do about it. You need to remove something in
your glass first before you can pour anything else into it. I feel like you
are full of ignorance and false assumptions about meditation. Unless you
become openminded and really try to understand what meditation is, nothing is
going to change your mind.

~~~
Avshalom
You're really going to call me close minded in defense of an essay that gets
all of five paragraphs in before calling my experiences and emotions fake?

An essay that dismisses the idea that there exists people comfortable with
feeling the full range of human emotions, that dismisses civilization as a
whole as self deception?

And you're sure you want to defend a Buddhist by telling me he's not anti-
materialistic?

Also in response to that Buddhist saying? I choose to get a bigger glass.

~~~
crayz
When he says they're 'faking' it, it's the wrong word. I would say more that
in a meditative mindset, the cognitive dissonance and sheer mental noise most
people are dealing with on a minute-by-minute basis becomes very apparent

Until you've been able to get your own mind to quiet down, to get rid of the
nagging voices and tugging emotions and distorting filters in your head, it's
very very difficult to notice this

If you've never experienced this sort of total perspective shift, I recommend
that you read a bit more and reconsider your objections. Meditation is not
about freezing to death in a cave

------
Groxx
What's with the see-saw of meditation articles lately? It's better than
expected, _science™ proves it!_ It's a waste of time, _news at eleven!_ We'll
show you how for only _some monies!_

~~~
silentbicycle
It's one of the common HN tropes. Pretty soon we'll have _yet another_ post
about nootropics or polyphasic sleep. "Ask HN: I want to be smarter, but don't
want to expend any effort! Help me get something for nothing!"

Meditation actually helps (in my experience), but it's about on par with
_actually getting exercise_ or _getting enough sleep_ \- totally lame. :)

------
switch007
This succinctly and so eloquently said everything my father has spent my
entire life trying to teach me. It's beautiful.

If I have kids, I hope that one day they understand this essay.

------
anonman1
I had an understanding of what meditation was while on an acid trip. Some
people who've done lsd describe a spiritual experience which they experience.
I can say I had a good experience. What I felt was an experience of me and
everything around me moving as one. That is to say the universe and I are
connected to one another. It is an experience which is difficult to
articulate, but something which one feels. This experience is largely missing
in the sensory experience of everyday life.

However, one of the better parts of my experience was watching the plants.
Their movement as one is what one is attempting to mimic in meditation. Plants
are immensely connected to the world in a way we are not. Mimicking them is
how we can connect ourselves to the same feeling. This mimicking of plants is
what I feel meditation is. It is why it became easier for me to meditate after
doing lsd than before as the reasoning behind it makes much more sense.

Some things which helped me understand meditation at a deeper level are:

* Bhagavad Gita - The last couple of chapters make more sense. The whole I am everything was a bit annoying before, but it makes more sense when you get the point. If everything is One, then everything is beautiful.

* Foucault's The Subject and Power or anything Foucault - Meditation is supposed to break the chains our desire. Foucault's The Subject and Power is immensely powerful in understanding that we are all part of a system and governed by rules. Humans are by no means free but are held together by a discursive power which we are unaware of. One of the things we are supposed to realize is how we are entrapped by these rules and gain the ability to break rules.

If you think this is all tripe please feel free to ignore it. This is after
all my own experience and it can be completely different to a different
individual.

------
klodolph
A lot of people find this article well written, or alternately, they find the
article patronizing and some are angry at it.

I just think the article is incorrect, which is a necessary consequence of its
sweeping generalizations. A quote from the article: "You are a mess." The
author spends much of the article telling the reader how unhappy the reader
is, how much the reader is suffering. From a rhetorical perspective, I can
understand why the author would do this. Yet I'm not convinced that I'm
unhappy, and the rest of the article falls apart without that foundation.

"It [life] is an emotional roller coaster, and you spend a lot of your time
down at the bottom of the ramp, yearning for the heights." To me, life feels
more like emotional airplane, at home above the clouds but makes the
occasional layover in Detroit.

Your experiences may vary.

~~~
gnaffle
I read the article, and instead of getting angry when he said "You are a
mess", I stopped to think: "Who is he talking to? Is he talking to me? Or
perhaps to the people who actually feel like they are a mess, and will
identify with what he is saying?"

I have lots of problems, but I don't feel that I'm a mess. I'm overall quite
happy. I still really appreciated the article, and it made me think that
meditation might be a good thing for me regardless. There are certainly lots
of things in my life that I could be better at dealing with, and probably some
things that I'm not aware of.

And let's say that something terrible happens in my life. My family dies, I
lose my job and get cancer. Would I be sad and unhappy? Probably. Would
meditation help me in that situation? It might. Even though it wouldn't revive
my family, get back my job or cure my cancer, it would perhaps help me deal
with the situation in a better way.

If you spend your programming life never looking at your old code to see if
you can improve it, always making the same mistakes and always getting a
headache by supporting your old code, there's something you could do (code
reviews, refactoring) - but you might not realize it or be motivated enough to
do it. I think it's the same with the rest of your life.

That said, there is no point in spending all your time refactoring your code
if you don't learn anything from it and if you're not shipping working code.
And there's no point in meditating if you don't feel it has a positive impact
on your life. :)

------
nickpinkston
Based on most of the people I know who meditate, they don't seem to be any
different from a random sample. Are there studies that show that meditate is
good for X? Perhaps the causation is actually that people with X tend to be
good at meditating? Just wondering...

~~~
iskander
I know several people who have taken up meditation and they each have changed
significantly through their experiences. Perhaps it's more useful to compare
someone who meditates to their former selves rather than some nebulous concept
of an "average" person.

~~~
nickpinkston
Yea, it's quite true about that seeing improvement longitudinally would be
better than the "average person". The study cited in the below BBC article
studied people (Buddhist monks) that don't pass the self-selection filter
though.

This study shows brief mediation gives improvement, however I'm not sure how
they controlled for those who didn't complete the experiment. Could those
people be self-selecting out of it due to difficulties - ADD perhaps?

Overall - I'm love to try a simple form of meditation to see if it'd work for
my ADD self.

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100414184220.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100414184220.htm)

~~~
jonhendry
I'm ADD, and I found it to be helpful during a period when I was sitting
regularly.

I prefer just vipassana, watching the breath and watching thoughts as they
arise and fade. No chanting or 'OMMM'.

An interesting book is "Zen and the Brain" by an emeritus professor of
neurology, published by MIT Press. The author started doing zen while in Japan
in the late 60s. Over about 1000 pages, he tries to come up with testable
hypotheses explaining the phenomena and results of long-term meditation
practice.

It's very detailed and dense. There are a few chapters that describe his
subjective experiences, but the rest is pretty scientific. There are few
illustrations, it's a massive block of text.

------
delackner
This is very odd. The Buddha expressly forbade charging money for a Vipassana
course (yes, Vipassana is that ancient). A real 10 day course is 100% free,
including room and meals.

Some have suggested simply reading the sutra or running your own course at
home, and I won't say it is impossible to achieve the benefit of meditation
this way, but the distractions of the world will make it very difficult to
really get started.

This is why when you go to a Vipassana course, you are instructed to bring no
books, no electronic devices, not even a pen to write, as any and all
activities will simply help your mind to become distracted from the monumental
task at hand.

------
ryan-allen
For what it's worth, I've known a couple of people who have gone off and done
the meditation course through Vipassana, and all have heartily recommended it.

Saying that, apparently the drop out rate of their course is something along
the lines of 60-70%, most people do not have the discipline required to
complete it.

I personally haven't done the course so I can't comment directly. I would say
though, that meditation is beneficial, and I'm sure there are proper
scientific studies that attest to the benefits.

Certainly the 'bio-feedback' movement is merely meditation techniques with
some output you can discern, kind of like a server with monitoring.

------
ca98am79
I did a 10-day vipassana meditation course and it changed my life. Meditation
helps you to understand yourself and your thoughts, and I can't think of
anything more important than that. I highly recommend it to everyone.

~~~
ulvund
How did it change your life?

~~~
ca98am79
It is a 10-day silent meditation, so you can't read or write or speak to
anyone for the entire 10 days. This means that you are stuck inside of
yourself, with no distractions, for 10 days. What happens is a lot of your
problems come to the surface and you are forced to deal with them, and
meditation helps you to deal with them. After the course, I have been able to
use meditation to better understand myself, and my thoughts, and to deal with
anxieties and problems that come up in my life. Email me if you have questions
about it.

