Ignore the naysayers in this thread. They have never experienced assisted meditation before. The biggest impact in my life (outside of having kids) was when I discovered Qi-gong and the power of assisted meditation. The thing that clicked the most for me was having calm soothing meditation music to help enter the trance state of consciousness. My mind tends to wander and focusing on the sound helped deliver clear thought.
Meditation isn't a "trance state". There are recurring refutations of this throughout Buddhist literature over the millenia. The answer to a conditioned existence is not more conditioning. Yes, states of refined pleasure can be used as springboards for insight, so-called "jhanas" but they are by no means the dominant method of practice. Seeing through conditioned reality doesn't require any trance or altered state at all, just a lot of practice and time and patience.
Qigong is its own thing and should be addressed as its own thing. It's an energy-based practice with various claims to longevity and health through proscribed movements.
Qigong exercises are very much like guided meditation, almost like kata in martial arts. You can gain the benefits of Qigong as meditation without buying into the energy work as anything other than a metaphor.
Meditation is many things. One of those is a trance state, although I can see how that is not helpful to "beginners", when awareness and clearing the mind is generally more the point.
But using meditation to achieve trance states has a long history. To the extent that it predates history.
Qigong is a form of meditation. I've been practicing it for over 20 years. I learned it from Shih Yan Ming of the USA Shaolin Temple. My term "trance state" is an anecdote to the words he used. "Emptiness of the mind". I'm simply stating my own experience here.
I've been helping an organization that hosts retreats (yoga, qi-gong, and other types) and I still think a lot of these practices still suffer from the New Age era, and it still ripples to these days because some people read those funny names and bind it to "oh that's just some crazy people/cult/weird/hippies non-sense".
So I'm beginning to wonder if we shouldn't drop the names completely and call them for what it is: like you said, assisted meditation. Or just rebrand them into something more contemporary.
Don't take me wrong, a lot of people still seek these events, but the masses will always frown upon them.
I agree, meditation would benefit a lot from a no-nonsense approach and wording.
Then again in my experience a lot of practitioners of meditation and related techniques use those New Age terms not for a lack of better terminology but because they actually intend to convey the New Age meaning (whatever that is exactly). So I'm not sure they would agree with you to drop those names.
Thank you for your support. It's amazing how technology influences us, and how we influence technology. Meditation or any other practice is no different.
I keep hearing about this kids thing, gonna have to get on that soon...
Also, choosing to build a meditation app is only a small part of this post really - making the leap of faith to leave behind (apparent) security is a much bigger part of this in my view. Hats off to you Troy!
>making the leap of faith to leave behind (apparent) security is a much bigger part of this in my view.
Agreed. Which is why attaching use of phones to meditation seems contrary to the point.
Perhaps leaving a world where everything is mediated by smartphones behind is the next step.
