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 austin417
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Registered: 11/14/11
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 Re: The Case Against Meditation  [Re: Ped]  1
#15368702 - 11/14/11 01:01 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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i think you have the wrong idea of meditation. meditation is a stilling of the mind, when the mind is still, it automatically comes into a state of focus. focus is the natural undisturbed state of the mind. meditation is totally non effort, its so easy that its extremely difficult because we are so used to doing doing doing.
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 Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 79,929
Loc: underbelly
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Re: The Case Against Meditation [Re: austin417]
#15369468 - 11/14/11 04:35 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Zen monks usually do have the wrong idea about meditation. 
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"Hang on tightly, let go lightly" -anonymous
“under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.”
― Robert Anton Wilson
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husmmoor
moshi moshi
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Re: The Case Against Meditation [Re: Ped] 1
#15375175 - 11/15/11 07:53 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ped said:I can't think of anything more disastrous than to focus our mind. When we focus the mind, we are creating a distortion within our experience. By its very nature, focus is selectively inclusive and broadly exclusive. If we take a moment to reflect on our lives, we'll see that we already ignore more than 99% of what's in our field of experience, and the remaining 1% is split between those things we push away and those things we pull toward us. With some consideration it is easy to see how this disrupts our life and causes us great distress. If we approach meditation with this focused intent, we are in fact deepening our ignorance of the totality of our experience, pushing away even more and pulling forward only the slightest and most often completely imagined facets of our life. We imagine this ideal state--tranquil, blissful, wise, enlightened--and we attempt to pull that imagination in to reality, all the while ignoring what is right before us. Such an effort is of course completely futile and causes us even greater confusion than when we started.
You come up with some wild but unsubstantiated ideas and attempt to generalize them to the rest of us. I wonder if they even hold true for you? People must not create a "distortion within their experience"? Aha! So what exactly is a distortion in experience... ? What exactly is NOT a distortion of experience?*
If you aim to refute the most basic teachings on mind training in yoga, Tantra and Vajrayana, you need to come up with a bit more than some rehash of New Age style Zen/Neo advaita or Bhagavan Osho Rajneesh on a bad day. Even traditional Zen starts with breath concentration and/or meditation on koans, etc.
Most people who actually do the practices soon give up any fantasies of enlightenment. It's the ones who just read books and worst of all modern Western books on these subjects who are most prone to these fantasies of future grandeur.
*Riddle just for you to "unmeditate" on: Maybe there is some basic unity to all 'experience'?
Edited by husmmoor (11/15/11 08:02 PM)
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bigmike7104
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Re: The Case Against Meditation [Re: husmmoor] 1
#15375515 - 11/15/11 08:39 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
We imagine this ideal state--tranquil, blissful, wise, enlightened--and we attempt to pull that imagination in to reality
meditation is not the same thing as wanting to become enlightened. if when meditating your focusing on becoming peaceful and wise, then your not doing it correctly.
Quote:
all the while ignoring what is right before us
kind of ironic you said that, seeing as meditation is practice for living in the moment which is the opposite of ignoring what is right before you
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Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind
Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must
Feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines
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Ped
Circumspect
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Re: The Case Against Meditation [Re: bigmike7104]
#15376888 - 11/16/11 12:19 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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It's always awkward when somebody misses the punchline.
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Az0th
quantum transfiguration
Registered: 02/13/00
Posts: 53,499
Loc: The Void
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Re: The Case Against Meditation [Re: Ped] 1
#15392008 - 11/19/11 05:06 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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I think one could define meditation in 5,000 different ways and ways to practice it, were one so inclined.
It is a tool, for a specific purpose and like anything can be misused.
To me it's not anything at all about adding or removing. It is the process of living in the now. Being aware of the present reality. BEing in the reality.
Taking a temporary role as the observer rather than the orchestrator. Watching your thoughts as if they are clouds in the sky.
It is "good" to be able to shift to different perspectives.
A zen master once said the goal of meditation is to focus on one single thing for a full minute, and once you can do that, you have mastered the art of meditation.
Of course that is fucking impossible, because in the average human mind you have 10,000 things flying through every millisecond. Which is why you have people practicing meditation every day for 50 years or whatever. Because it's a continual process of practicing an 'unreachable' goal.
You can paint it many different ways if you like, but being able to concentrate and focus the mind in a particular direction at will is a useful skill.
And being able to silence the mind is also quite equally useful. Especially in those with non-stop inner dialogue that never shuts the fuck up. Silence is golden sometimes.
It has absolutely nothing to do with ignoring reality and distorting the truth, at least in my truth. It has everything to do with going within and exploring the inner beauty of your own cosmos. So many people spend their entire lives looking for here or there outside of themselves for some type of satisfaction, when all you need to begin is within. If you only focus on the outward, then you can just as easily create a distorted egocentric experience.
It's not about enlightenment or other such nonsense, there are much faster ways to enlightenment.. such as drugs. I suppose you could become enlightened through meditation but it would take fucking forever. That is not the goal.
It's about training the mind, the most powerful tool we have. There is no ideal state of blissful/wise/enlightened, life is a rollercoaster to be experienced from every perspective and emotion possible. Meditation is just a way to take it all in and reflect and get back to baseline. It's not about letting go of disturbing thoughts. I mean it COULD be if you want it to I guess. I don't use it that way. I embrace my disturbing thoughts, I explore them, I find out the reason for their existence and try and understand them. But this isn't meditation, this is something else entirely.
And of course like anything, moderation is key. And it's not going to be for everyone.
There are also thousands of ways to "meditate". You don't have to be sitting in a lotus position humming a mantra. I meditate while doing 90 down the highway listening to Blotted Science.
I could also say sleep is useless and a waste of time. I mean who just lays there for 8 hours every night? Of course you need sleep to survive. But cant you function just as well on 3?
In the end, the truth is in the eye of the beholder. What works for me may not work for you. And that's cool.
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~Thought Creates Reality~
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jayfromtheSE
Mushroom Enthusiast.
Registered: 04/22/11
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Re: The Case Against Meditation [Re: Az0th]
#15394110 - 11/19/11 06:35 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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This is not a case, It's just speculation.
I don't agree with anything you said, at all.
I'm sorry.
I haven't read the replies but I'm sure people are picking you apart and there's no need for me to conjure up a rebut to post as it has probably been posted.
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I dreamed I was a butterfly, floatting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder; Am I a man who dreamed of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?
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Simms
Fuckwit
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No-one knows what meditation really is. Bechause it is an experience that can only be explaned or thought to oneself. Its like being. Umwelt. You can not express "self" to others, this is something that only YOU can experience. Meditation is part of "self".
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g00ru
the kava crow
Registered: 08/09/07
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Re: The Case Against Meditation [Re: Simms]
#15399309 - 11/20/11 09:13 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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this thread has so much bullshit in it
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 79,929
Loc: underbelly
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Re: The Case Against Meditation [Re: g00ru]
#15400420 - 11/21/11 01:12 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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how can you tell? I mean compared to other threads?
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"Hang on tightly, let go lightly" -anonymous
“under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.”
― Robert Anton Wilson
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g00ru
the kava crow
Registered: 08/09/07
Posts: 17,473
Loc: atlantis
Last seen: 14 minutes, 28 seconds
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Re: The Case Against Meditation [Re: Icelander]
#15401626 - 11/21/11 09:02 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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cause this one, if taken seriously, would strait up confuse me and my meditation practice which is going great for now. I guess you think it's all bullshit though.
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