
If You're Too Busy to Meditate, Read This - bcrawl
http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/10/if-youre-too-busy-to-meditate.html
======
up_and_up
In my opinion, Meditation and Mindfullness are not the same thing.

Meditation is a state, where the mind is completely silent, the breath slows
waaaay down, the heartbeat slows waaaay down. Slowly ever so slowly, some
bliss starts to bubble up from within. It is the climax of one pointed
attention. Few people who say they "meditate" are reaching that point since it
requires years of sincere effort. In Yoga, meditation is known as Dhyana, or
the state resulting from the mind becoming one pointed for 100 seconds.
Samadhi, which is considered a state of deep bliss is considered reached when
the mind becomes completely still for 1000 seconds.

Mindfullness, is the act of being more aware during daily activities. Like
watching actions and interactions. There is a gradual tendency to modify
behavior to being more calm, collected and centered which helps to go deeper
when attempting to meditate. The mind is still active during mindfullness, but
it is being directed or corrected as needed throughout the day.

Meditation helps to develop deeper Mindfullness and vice versa. Meditation is
like taking a shower, whereas Mindfullness is avoiding rolling in the mud and
getting dirty. It is important to keep in mind that Meditation is literally a
state where the mind is free from thought and that all the "meditation
practices and techniques" are just different paths of reaching that same
place.

~~~
prawks
If one were looking to get into Meditation, what is a good way of going about
it? Preferably a DIY way if possible, but if a class is really _the_ way to go
that's okay.

When you say years of sincere effort, are you talking devoting a full-time
job's worth of time, or just keeping a routine?

I've been interested in meditation for a while, but it seems whenever I try
and dig around I get completely lost in literature and terms and fail to see a
proper starting point. I'm not looking to go crazy, I like the idea of
Mindfullness and having a better understanding of how to control the ebb and
flow of your thoughts.

~~~
starpilot
I've read maybe a dozen books on vipassana meditation (the type usually posted
to HN), zen, and mindfulness. The two best _practical_ books on meditation
I've read are:

1\. The Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh

2\. Mindfulness in Plain English, Bhante Gunaratana. This one is free online,
though the paid copy is a bit more edited for clarity.

My primary guide is 1. It's concise and provides just the right amount of
breathing exercises to help me focus while I "sit." 2 is more comprehensive
but I've found it a bit too scattered, with _too many_ tools to help with
breathing that I go in circles attempting different ones. Most people I think
employ a couple and ignore the rest. 1 is much better written and just a more
cohesive book than 2 IMO, but they're both great books and either one alone
works well as a guide to meditating.

~~~
rdudekul
I highly recommend the book Passage Meditation by Eknath Easwaran.

~~~
eternalban
Reading it now. (ot: His commentary on the Gita is also quite lovely.)

------
webwanderings
The misconception about meditation is that it requires one to give up
everything and sit silently. This is not true in its entirety as it depends on
how one interprets the word "meditation".

The meditation does not necessarily require you to give up one thing for the
sake of another. The goal of the meditation is to "be in awareness" and you
can achieve this same goal by being alert and aware with any activity your
find yourself doing at any given moment. For example...

You are washing dishes but you are not really washing dishes because your mind
is wandering with thoughts on what you need to do tonight at the place you
need to visit. By the time your dishes are done, you have already planned for
your future as your mind kept you busy with the thoughts of the future while
you forgot what you were doing in the present (which is, washing dishes, which
you really didn't).

The meditation is to be-in-present with whatever activity you do and love to
do. If you had washed your dishes with full alertness and awareness, you would
have achieved the same goal of meditation.

Let's go even further with another example.

You love to play music as your passion (or dance, or paint, or fill in the
blank activity here) but you don't get enough opportunity in the day to do
what you love to do more with passion. When you dance or sing or play music or
run or exercise, you get the opportunity during that activity to forget
yourself in the act (the subject merges into the object) and you become one
with the reality, or you transcend that favorite activity by merging your self
into it. That moment of transcendence is meditation, and you should find more
opportunities to be in that meditation, in those moments.

Now, I am not suggesting that the type of meditation mentioned at the source
is wrong or ineffective. What I am suggesting however is that people don't
need to get stuck with one type of explanation of meditation because
ultimately you can achieve the same goal by shifting the focus a bit.

~~~
jemfinch
Sorry, this is hard for me to understand. You seem to be saying--and I
apologize if I misinterpret you--that it is better to focus on dishwashing
than to use otherwise idle mental time to plan one's future.

Is that really the case? What gains could one expect from focusing on
dishwashing, only to take time away from some other activity to plan one's
future?

~~~
zoul
It’s better to let yourself to be swallowed whole by your current activity (be
it just doing the dishes) than to continue in the endless chatter of your
mind. Doing the dishes can be fun if you pay attention to the textures,
temperatures, smells and sounds. You can plan your future later, giving it
full attention again. That’s the idea.

~~~
prawks
_Doing the dishes can be fun if you pay attention to the textures,
temperatures, smells and sounds._

I can't wait to do the dishes when I get home today.

~~~
7rurl
It's harder than it sounds. Your subconscious will continually try to
interrupt your mindfulness of the dish washing. The main trick of meditation
is to be able to gently push those idle thoughts away and refocus on the dish
washing (or whatever it is you are meditating on). Even if you don't end up
enjoying dish washing more, meditating like this is an excellent workout for
your focus and concentration and can be a real stress reliever as well.

~~~
corysama
It can get frustrating when you really try and yet constantly fail to maintain
focus. It helps to remember that the purpose of the exercise is not to succeed
in maintaining a laser-like focus, but instead to practice noticing your
failures. That is how you level up your self-awareness into a skill that
carries over into activities beyond dishwashing.

~~~
StacyC
_It helps to remember that the purpose of the exercise is not to succeed in
maintaining a laser-like focus, but instead to practice noticing your
failures._

Right, and I would suggest that there are no _failures_ here — just notice
what is going on in your mind, without judging it, and then gently bring your
attention back to the breath. As we practice this over time the mind will more
easily quiet down. Be the patient observer of your mind and know that you are
not your thoughts.

I highly recommend some of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s books, and/or some of his videos
on YouTube. These have been very helpful to me.

------
KirinDave
Wait. Wait wait wait.

> Research shows that an ability to resist urges will improve your
> relationships, increase your dependability, and raise your performance...

Great. Yes. Impulse control is key. Delayed gratification is part of how we
define higher intelligence.

Meditation has what do with this, exactly?

> How [does meditation help]? By increasing your capacity to resist
> distracting urges.

This entire article is predicated by this leap of faith, which as far as I can
see has little to no justification besides, "Of course it does!"

> Meditation teaches us to resist the urge of that counterproductive follow
> through.

One cannot just say things over and over to make them true.

~~~
adorton
Meditation is the focused practice of resisting distraction.

Have you ever tried sitting still for 15-30 minutes, doing nothing but
breathing? Distractions come easily in this state. Sometimes it's your
thoughts. Other times, it's very hard to resist the urge to get up and start
moving. In order to successfully meditate, you need to deal with a wide
variety of distractions and other obstacles.

~~~
KirinDave
> Meditation is the focused practice of resisting distraction.

Are we defining it this way? Because this does not jive with my experience of
meditation, focusing, or resisting distraction.

> Have you ever tried sitting still for 15-30 minutes, doing nothing but
> breathing?

Yes. As a matter of fact, meditation was part of a martial arts practice I
participated in for 2 years. In all that time I tried very hard to do this,
but never found much value in it. Eventually I settled on quietly and
methodically reflecting on the day, which is something that seemed to have a
lot more value than chasing a vague notion of emptiness.

And honestly I'm not convinced this is _any different_ from the "benefits" of
meditation.

~~~
hooande
Are you familiar with the 10,000 Hour Rule? It says that the mastery of any
skill requires 10k hours of _deliberate practice_ of that skill. Meditation is
the act of deliberately practicing and developing one's ability to resist
distraction.

The hypothesis is as simple as "Telling jokes is a good way to become funny".
Would you demand empirical evidence to support that claim as well? It might be
difficult to find research to back it up, as it's so obvious that no one took
the time to do a study.

There's no guarantee that meditation will work for you, just like some people
might tell a lot of jokes and not get any funnier. If someone was forced to
tell jokes like you were forced to meditate, they probably wouldn't like it
either. But the value of the meditation seems to be obvious - if you want to
get better at resisting distraction, then sit down and practice resisting
distraction.

~~~
notJim
> The hypothesis is as simple as "Telling jokes is a good way to become funny"

Right. So practicing meditation is a good way to become better at meditation.
There's no guarantee that that skill transfers over to very different
situations.

I'm not saying your intuition is wrong, however, I actually suspect it's
right. But to claim that you can definitively say that it's right is not
scientific.

------
javajosh
What the author calls "impulses" the Buddha called sankhara, or reactivity.
The ones the OP is talking about are minor reactions.

These reactions do indeed impede our progress, as when our actions are driven
by reaction we are not fully aware of what's going on around us. I first
recognized the practical implications of this playing billiards - when I would
strike a ball and miss, I would feel slightly dejected, and neglect to analyze
what I just did to learn from it. When I would strike a ball and make it, I
would feel slightly elated, and neglect to understand what I just did to learn
from it.

My game got a lot better when I started playing the game, fascinated but
detached from outcomes. There are a remarkable number of ways to strike a ball
wrong - and it is interesting to consider _why_ , having learned the game
sufficiently, one would ever strike the ball wrong. Where does the variation
creep in? Why, if I examine a table and decide to put the cue ball "just so",
can I not do that? The answer, of course, is that there is countless non-
verbal data that your body is sending you on each stroke - feedback from your
bridge hand, the hand on the cue, even your stance and the feel of the felt
all factor into this.

If you are attached to the outcome, all of this goes out the window. There is
nervousness, fear, and excitement instead of systematic understanding.

------
ricvg
I highly recommend to take a 10 days retreat in a Vipassana[1] meditation
center. I know that 10 days is a lot to ask but in my opinion is well worth
the effort.

I've been there twice in the past three years. I thought that I understood
everything the first time. Boy, was I wrong.

[1] <http://www.dhamma.org/>

~~~
konstruktor
If those rules don't creep you out, then I don't know what does:
<http://www.dhamma.org/en/code.shtml> No talking, no outside contact, no other
forms of practice. This is not a healthy environment unless you know very well
what to expect and are sure you really, really want this. It sounds very
cultish to me, even though I do know somebody who goes on Vipassana retreats
regularly and seems to benefit a lot. Those retreats are for laypersons,
including beginners, but the rules are similar to the most intense meditation
periods of monastic buddhist life. Compare that to western zen: There's a
small zen temple in my town that will not allow people on 3 day retreats
unless they have meditated for a while and know what to expect.

~~~
pavedwalden
Cults have rules like that to cut you out of your old life, but in this case I
think it's a legitimate desire to eliminate ALL distraction. I did one of
their retreats many years ago and concluded that the changes in my internal
life that could only happen in such an environment.

For example, after a few days my internal monologue petered out and for the
first time I realized that a good portion of my mental activity was normally
devoted to thinking about things I was going to say later on. Once I was out
of the habit of talking all the time, I stopped cooking up little quips and
observations about everything and really felt an expansion of non-verbal
thinking.

So, although I had my doubts about the place going in, I left feeling that 10
days of intense internal focus was the only possible way to reach the insights
I'd had, and that I was glad I'd done it. The months afterwards (while I kept
up the practice, before I got "too busy"), were the most contented of my life.

~~~
idoruby
I share your experience.

------
dkokelley
I think the author has an excellent point about training one's ability to
resist urges. Urges are spontaneous. They don't necessarily fit with our work
flow. In fact, they interrupt it. Maybe a good analogy is the Time Management
Matrix by Eisenhower (and popularized in Steven Covey's '7 Habits' book).
Urges almost always present themselves as urgent tasks, but they aren't always
important.

I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion that meditation will make you more
productive. The evidence presented reminds me of a scenario from The Office,
where Michael defends Monday morning movies by claiming they are more
productive the rest of the day. Of course the reason they are more productive
is because they have to be in order to recover the time spent watching a
movie!

Rather, I think people don't realize how much spare time there is that gets
wasted. Tasks expand to fill the time allotted. It's possible that meditation
can help you identify those wasteful activities (urges) and address them
appropriately.

------
tylee78
Happens to me all the time. I am working on a piece of code in the afternoon,
and can't move forward or looking to identify a bug or optimizing some
algorithm - wasting hours. After a meditation session I walk back to the
computer screen, take a seat, and my hand clicks around the tabs, my fingers
scroll around, my eye catches one obscure line of code which is EXACTLY where
the problem sits. I had this happen so many times, it's a given by now. The
article (and I am sure all who do meditate) shares the same kind of
experience.

~~~
thirdtruck
I can second this. I can't begin to count the number of times that spending
five minutes walking and with my mind on anything _but_ a given problem has
lead to the recognition of a major time-saving change in plans.

Think of it as pulling off of the highway for a minute to check your map
instead of trying to unfold it in front of your steering wheel.

------
ambler0
I took a mindfulness meditation class a year or two ago and I thought this was
a pretty nice introduction to some of the ideas.

For anyone interested in the science, I have found lots of good articles by
subscribing to this mailing list:
<http://www.mindfulexperience.org/newsletter.php>

The ideas have been around forever, but scientists have really taken to
testing them in recent decades.

------
qbit
"And you will have experience that proves to you that the urge is only a
suggestion. You are in control."

This is the most interesting part to me. Don't we always act on the urge that
is strongest at the moment? If I decide to continue to meditate even though I
have an urge to stop, doesn't that just mean that the urge to continue
happened to be stronger than the urge to stop? Did I really get to choose
which of those urges was strongest at that moment? Of course, this gets into
questions of free will, which has been discussed on HN before. But when I
meditate, it becomes very clear that I am definitely not in control of my
thoughts, feelings, and urges. I see that I have multiple, competing urges at
any given moment and that I don't control which urge emerges as the victor and
compels me to act.

------
ta12121
There's nothing in this article that isn't said better elsewhere. I'd
recommend the (free, online) Mindfulness in Plain English:
<http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html> (also available as a "real"
book).

------
kevTheDev
I've been meditating pretty much every day for a few months now, and the thing
that got me into it was getsomeheadspace.com

I've found it incredibly helpful - having a different guided meditation to do
on the train every day makes the London commute, whilst not blissful,
certainly better.

------
stephth
_Focus on your breath going in and out. Every time you have a thought or an
urge, notice it and bring yourself back to your breath._

From what I've heard so far, meditation is based on focusing on your body in
order to quiet your mind. Are there other schools/techniques?

~~~
Dove
Yes, the emptying of the mind is the style of oriental meditation. In
contrast, there is an old tradition of Christian meditation which attempts to
fill the mind completely with one concept.

For example, in the medieval Lectio Divina
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_Divina>), one takes a few words of
scripture and repeats them and considers them and ponders them for many
minutes. _The Cloud of Unknowing_ recommends doing something similar with the
concept of God, or with a simple word such as "love".

This is actually a pretty tough mental exercise to do for even just 20
minutes.

------
demigod
When I meditate concentrating on my breath,my mind interferes with my
breathing and it becomes uncomfortable if I dont relax

I believe this acts as some negative feedback for the control freak self
inside me. Every time I exert unnecessary control it becomes uncomfortable.

Meditating long enough may show me that the mind will wander in its own ways
regardless of what I maybe doing at the moment, and its best for me to let it
wander on its own ways and focus on what I am doing. Thus helping me
understand that all the thoughts about ego, and judgements is just come
process on the sidelines, and different from the core of me, the core that is
focused on what I am doing.

This is the impression I have of where meditation is taking me.

------
tryitnow
What about comparative effectiveness? For example, if we did an experiment
where we started subjects on the following regimes, which would have the
greatest effects on impulse control: 1) Learning to program (assuming the
subject is not already a coder 2) meditation 3) aerobic exercise

Then we would have to figure out ways to measure "impulse control."

Such a study would have a lot more credibility than the author's contention
that "I control impulses while meditating; therefore, meditation makes me more
productive."

One controls impulses during a wide variety of activities; the burden is on
the pro-meditation crowd to provide evidence that meditation is an especially
valuable form of practicing impulse control.

~~~
pyre
I'm curious why you seem to be indirectly asserting that learning to program
and/or aerobic exercise will have some effect on impulse control.

------
edwinyzh
Some of you pointed out it's not easy to control/stop the mind, yes, that's
very true, especially for some people. To solve that, I suggest to read Ekhart
Tolle's The Power Of Now, I think it's the modern book that explains the
orignal Zen in a easy-to-understand way.

I used to think/worry/imagine too much about the future, and thus missed every
actual moment I was living in, and it made me unhappy. I was living like that
since I was very young and until I read the book The Power Of Now. So I highly
recommend it.

------
rohun_ati
There was a study done by Sarah Lazar at Harvard Med a while back. They
concluded that meditation can not only prevent age related cognitive decline,
but it can actually physically reshape our brains, thickening our cortical
structures. There's a TED video online, and the actual study is available
online if anyone is interested (<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16272874>)

------
brianmcdonough
Jonathan Haidt, the author of one of my favorite books, "The Happiness
Hypothesis," points out–based on extensive research–that there are only three
ways to change "automatic reactions" to circumstances like a flooded
kitchen...meditation, cognitive therapy, and Prozac. Meditation is an
inexpensive and natural alternative to the other two, it's been around for
thousands of years and there are no negative side effects.

------
tehayj
I'm into the basic practice of mindfulness since years. I read research papers
about it every month and also train people in mindfulness skills. Here is the
essence of what I learned.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sspY43lxqhE&list=UUh-
TdJw...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sspY43lxqhE&list=UUh-
TdJwz4z0dN9hAYnCWZow&index=12&feature=plcp)

------
sandGorgon
For casual meditation, all that has been pointed out here is fair and good.

But if you want to delve deep into meditation, then I seriously suggest that
you look up MCTB - it talks about several of the dangers that lie in that
path.

www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB

------
natex
I'm seeing quite an interest here for the principles and techniques of
meditation. Here's a link for some talks given by a wonderful teacher, on
mindfulness/meditation and other topics.

<http://www.audiodharma.org/>

------
yresnob
Read Pragmatic thinking and Learning for good explanation as well.. Meditation
improves focus... this is not based on reports or data but from my own
experience. That is always the best proof for me.. trying it myself.

------
vividmind
I use fishing for the same purposes. Helps me concentrate on just that
activity and get my mind off work-related stuff. Every time after a fishing
trip I feel really rested, although might be tired a bit physically.

~~~
mtts
Maybe someone will do some research on this at some point, but yes, it seems
fishing is indeed the western male's (it's usually western males that do
fishing for leisure, no?) version of meditation. It's not about catching fish,
surely.

------
ricknew
This excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki might add another approach to the
conversation.

<http://www.kingstonkendo.org/mistakesinpractice.pdf> (PDF)

------
gavanwoolery
I meditate while walking my dogs or taking a shower. Unless you are trying to
achieve the title of Zen Grandmaster (which you probably are not) there is no
need to sit still while doing so.

~~~
kylebrown
I think you are on to something here, but there is a difference between doing
something relaxing and "meditating". I'm most relaxed while sitting on the pot
and I get my best insights while taking a shower, but during neither of those
am I meditating (in the zen sense).

A Zen Grandmaster can probably meditate while rollerblading through NYC and
simultaneously debugging a kernel driver. For beginners, it helps to sit
relatively still with eyes closed (or eyes focused on eg a candle, tree,
waterfall etc. but not darting about), to chant or use beads to count breaths,
etc.

------
palderson
For me, meditation is a way of separating myself from the issues I'm dealing
with. The act of distancing my mind from the issue itself provides renewed
vigor when returning to the problem.

------
lloyddobbler
If I'm too busy to medidate, why will I have time to read this article
(presumably on meditation)?

------
001sky
(Yet) Another venue to for the competitive display of subtle nuances and
arcane desiderata.

------
ericmoritz
Aw, I know the benefits. I hoped this would help me find a way to fit it in.

~~~
brianmcdonough
Hey Eric, at risk of sounding like I know a lot about this, there are two
facets that make it hard to fit in. The benefits take days to appear and it's
uncomfortable in the beginning. Like running, it's hard to start a practice of
meditating, but if you do 1 minute, then 5 minutes, then work your way up to
20 minutes, there is a breaking point where you will do it because the
benefits are clearly making your life richer. Colors appear more vibrant,
sounds more clear, emotions more fully experienced. You will take more
moments, like while stopped at a stoplight, to meditate because it allows
joyful feelings rise to the top. Then, you won't ever think, "how can I fit it
in," it will become part of you.

------
idoruby
I have been meditating for forty years. For thirty nine years I did
transcendental meditation (TM)as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I sat for 20
minutes twice a day without fail.

Last year I switched to Vipassana not because I was displeased with TM but
just for a change and because the Goenka community seems to be very
professional. I have been sitting in this new way one hour a day for a year
now. I am not as regular because Vipassana requires more arrangement than TM.
I am satisfied with my practice and can see a path to grow in this community
for the rest of my life.

I am not sorry that I have spent so much time meditating. It changed my life.
Before I began meditating I was aware of a certain pervasive incompleteness. I
am a programmer and I love programming and I have been married for forty seven
years and love my wife. But these satisfactions were not enough. My meditation
practice did not materially change my life but it has given me a sense of
centeredness. I am in a quiet way more fulfilled.

My experience was that TM was a very practical choice. I paid $75 to be
initiated and found the TM community meet my needs for companionship on my
path. Community is important to support a meditative practice. The actual
practice is practical to do in our busy lives. If you are too busy to take two
twenty minute periods each day for your personal readjustment then you are too
busy and you need to readjust your life pattern. If you do not realize the
imbalance in your life, probably meditation is not for you. Don't waste your
time. Perhaps later.

YMMV, nowadays it cost $2k+ to learn TM. It is a good deal at this cost at
least the benefits in my life exceed almost any amount of money. But without
my experience I would never understand that. It is a chicken and egg problem.

OTOH, the TM community has changed and I am not sure I would be served by the
Post Mahrishi community. In my case, as a long term meditator the difficulties
with the community don't really affect me. Although I did consider the quality
of the Goenka to support me in future.

So the choice of TM is a possibility for a newby. One caution, I knew many
poeple who started TM and did not continue. So you are risking $2k+.

Vipassana is different. The technique requires more training and a greater
daily investment. I sit for an hour a day. But Goenka suggests a minimum of
two hours a day. And most practioners do at least one ten day retreat a year.
I find this a bit much. But given that I am retired it is easily feasable. It
merely a matter of commitment for me. A midlife married programmer will find
this a greater challenge.

The introduction to Goenka's technique is charming. You do a ten day retreat
at no cost to you. Their story is that adopting this practice is a serious
matter. You learn the technique and then practice ten hours a day for ten
days. For this learning period you live on the charity of others like a
Budhist monk. Since this technique is a way of living that extends beyond just
sitting, you need time to get into it.

I don't know how to tell which is most appropriate for you. I can just say it
works for me. But I can say one thing for certain. Meditation is a practice
that must be done everyday. Don't bother if you are not ready to commit to a
regular practice. The benefits of meditation can not be explained. It is an
experience and all that a teacher can do is give the experience and show you
how to protect it. The rest is up to you.

I will say that meditation and psychotherapy are not mutually exclusive. For
more than twelve years during the last forty I have been in therapy.

My final thought is that if you have a sense that your experience of life
seems not quite complete, meditation can work to give you greater experience
of connection.

------
dschiptsov
Oh, come on. Meditation is not the way to "exercise willpower muscle" (running
is the way to do so).

Meditation is the way to learn that your flow of thoughts is not you, it is
mere side-effect, a smoke from an engine, a screen-saver, or just idle-
running.

Yes, the practice of meditation is beneficial for will-power and self-control,
but it is not the goal.) Goal is realization that what you think you are, is
just a running total of all previous conditioning, and the ''real you'' could
be "seen" is in an instant between two thoughts.

Any good ''eastern'' teacher will tell you that.

~~~
crux
I'd think any good "eastern" teacher would be sure to emphasize both the
cultivation of wholesome mental qualities _and_ the realization of not-self in
meditation, depending on the audience and the context.

