

Meditation on Hacker News: What are you guys experience with meditation? - ulvund


======
untitledwiz
I attended a 10-day Vipassana course (<http://www.dhamma.org/>). In my
opinion, this is the easiest type of meditation to start with. There are sites
for these 10-day course pretty much everywhere around the world. The course
runs on a donation basis: you are fed and housed for free during the duration
of the course and at the end you choose whether to donate or not.

I met a lot of very nice people in my course. Some were new (like myself) but
some were experienced veterans (a couple of guys had been practicing for over
15 years) and everyone seemed so happy. The course is very difficult, both
physically (you need to sit on the floor for at least 9 hours a day, and
believe me you will only realize just how bad/painful this can be once you do
it) and mentally (you are not allowed to talk at all during the duration of
the course). But it was all more than worth it at the end.

During the actual course I became more at peace with myself and gained some
important insights on my personality and some of the roots of my misery.
There's a lot of philosophy behind the actual technique but the basic idea is
that you are taught to be indifferent to sub-conscious sensations of 'good'
and 'bad'. By no reacting to 'good' sensations, you limit your craving and
hence your misery. Similarly, if you do not react to 'bad' sensations you can
keep your cool, not get distracted and just be happier.

I am definitely very happy I was exposed to this technique at a young stage of
my life. Even though I haven't been practicing since I took the course I am
determined to make Vipassana a part of my every day life.

~~~
psynix
Ditto. I've actually done the 10-day course a couple of times (highly
recommended btw). One thing that amazes me every time is how busy/noisy urban
life seems afterwards. It generally takes me a couple of days to readjust.

~~~
untitledwiz
Haha - oh absolutely! The first day I was out of the course I just could not
stop smiling at people on the street. Have you been practicing regularly?
Where did you do the course? I did mine in France - a little south of Paris,
great center!

~~~
psynix
My girlfriend commented that everything I said or did seemed much more
deliberate on the days just after I returned. Guess that fades as well ;)

Unfortunately I've been unable to keep up the practice for more than a couple
of weeks after I get back from a course. I'm not even sure why ... I really
enjoy it when I do meditate daily. Something to work on.

I really should do another course (<http://www.rasmi.dhamma.org/>) to see if I
can get back into it. When I do go back I'll probably follow it up with a
10-day stint of kitchen duties as well; about time I gave back.

------
sharadgopal
A couple of years ago, I was able to sit still and focus on my breathing, for
upto 30 minutes at a stretch, and those days I felt more at peace with myself.
It was like internal 'world peace' and harmony. Of late I haven't been able to
sit still for longer than 15 minutes even when I try, but that may have a lot
to do with the fact that I am in college, and constantly juggling n number of
things.

These are some previous discussions that you might find useful:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=454146>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=612276>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1462178>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1471244>

------
ikeepadiary
I've been meditating with different levels of practice for the last 7 years. I
also attended a 10-day vipassana course (taught by s.n. goenka
(<http://dhamma.org>). Recently, I've been sitting at least 30-60 minutes per
day.

For the last two months, I've been sitting while wearing the NeuroSky Mindset
and using it to record my brainwaves as I meditate!

The Mindset is a $200 BCI (brain-computer interface) that looks like a pair of
headphones. It measures the electrical activity of your brain via 4 "dry
sensors" and sends the raw 8-channel feed of your electrical brainwave
activity (alpha, beta, gamma, delta, etc) wirelessly via Bluetooth to your
computer. Additionally, the chip in the headset has algorithms that interpret
the raw data stream and give readings of "attention" and "meditation."

The manufacturer has put together a pretty decently documented developer
center with several different APIs you can use to create games and
applications that make use of the headset.

The fancy headset costs $200: <http://store.neurosky.com/products/mindset>

Here's a link to the developer center: <http://developer.neurosky.com/>

I haven't written any apps yet, but I've been using this app to record and
chart the brainwaves in my sessions over time:
"[http://store.neurosky.com/collections/alchemy/products/medit...](http://store.neurosky.com/collections/alchemy/products/meditation-
journal)

After I get a couple more weeks data recorded, I plan on writing up a longer
post!

If anyone in the NYC area would like to come over and have their brainwaves
recorded and try it out, give a shout. I'm in the East Village and I'd love to
compare my brainwaves to other people interested in meditating and seeing some
sort of "tangible" measure of "progress."

------
radu_floricica
Compares favorably to modafinil. Well, in my case modafinil tends to give
headaches, so it loses by default, but comparing 50 mg to 10 minutes of
meditation:

\- meditation works faster - 10 minutes compared to about 1 hour for modafinil

\- meditation tends to be shorter term (but it varies) - 2-4 hours vs ~6

\- modafinil has several side effects (though your mileage may vary)

\- meditation kills most of my social instincts. Unless I focus on
interaction, I tend to be really quiet and slightly non-responsive. But if I
do try to focus on being social, it's ok.

------
michaelty
I'm curious how the MagicRuby group is doing.

------
miha123
Do hackers meditate? And if they do, what it is having to do to the condition
of "hacker"? Maybe ask "do taxi drivers, meditate?" or "do traffic police
meditate?"

------
phlux
When I was between the ages 16 until I was about 22, I would meditate for at
least 1 hour per day - at night prior to going to bed.

I would just focus on my breathing. If I had anything in my mind - I would
choose a mono syllabic word to repeat over and over in my head, once with each
inhalation and once with each exhalation.

I would breath slow and deep, typically, however - when I was focused on
healing myself after strenuous workouts - I would breath more rapidly.

I was doing bujinkan six days a week for at least 4 hours per day.

I have recently been trying to regain that level of discipline in my
meditation as the correlation between my awareness, my mental fitness and
ability to focus while I was meditating then was amazing.

I am now 36 - and I regret very deeply not continuing to have this as my daily
routine for the last decade.

