Go to a party. Listen to the laughter, that brittle-tongued voice that says fun on the surface and fear underneath. Feel the tension, feel the pressure. Nobody really relaxes. They are faking it....These are not people who are at peace with themselves. Watch the news on TV. Listen to the lyrics in popular songs. You find the same theme repeated over and over in variations. Jealousy, suffering, discontent and stress.
And here we have the crux of it. This is Nietasche's ressentiment, the origin of moral feeling. Observe the hatred he has for the successful and the contented. They have won at the game of life, in that they fit in, are laughing, are enjoying themselves, yet the author feels that there must be something wrong with them. They must deserve his scorn because he has not achieved the ease and confidence that they show. It must be a chimera. Meditation sets the author apart. He has stamina. He has determination. He has 'grit', and for this he is despised by the masses. Bullshit.
And isn't it suspicious that meditation always leads to a higher place? Isn't it at least possible that meditation might merely unveil yourself to you? Or maybe, more laughably, help you to obscure yourself from you? Or, even more laughably, to obscure the nature of reality from yourself so that you can continue to believe that you have the high ground in some realm of ideas, despite your losses and discontentment in the observable universe? It strikes me as suspicious that someone with this obvious contempt for the masses could take hold of a meditative practice and use it objectively, to discover the true nature of anything, let alone any inner 'true' happiness.
We have only the observed facts that the author has provided, minus his 'insights' into the 'true nature' of these observances or the 'ulterior motives' of the actors he observes.
Zarathustra's advice would be well taken by him, and all who find this article compelling: "Always love your neighbor as yourselves -- but first be such as love themselves"
"They have won at the game of life, in that they fit in, are laughing, are enjoying themselves, yet the author feels that there must be something wrong with them."
You misunderstand. After you meditate for a while, especially with a knowledgeable support group (the sangha), you become extremely attuned to human emotions (since you watch them very closely all day long). If you then go to a party, a family gathering, or if you turn on the TV, tiny changes in people's voice, expressions, and breathing will give away what they're feeling - fear, unease, and nerviousness.
Imagine two people that have truly achieved something meet for the first time. Let's say, for the sake of the argument, Einstein and Feynman. Try to imagine in your mind what the meeting would be like. Would they laugh nerviously and use smalltalk? Would they use drinks to break the ice? Would they be, even momentarily, afraid to approach each other? If they are truly accomplished people at peace with themselves, none of this would take place. Now compare this to a typical party or gathering. Do accomplished people who have no need to defend their worth act this way?
The author isn't asserting that he's "better" than the masses. He has simply observed his suffering, and now he observes it in other people. Most "accomplished" Westerners are unhappy, and use incredible amounts of substances to mask that unhappiness (cigarettes, alcohol, prozac, whatever). And if it's not substances, it's behavior (compulsive shopping, addiction to following sports, internet, any kind of waiting for something to happen in your life, and watching nothing happen day in and day out).
It's not contempt. It's compassion for other people's pain.
> And isn't it suspicious that meditation always leads to a higher place?
Er, what? Meditation is a chance for you to stop reacting to everything around you, stop reacting to the animal impulses that keep floating up in your mind, and just see the world and your mind for what they are. If somebody cuts you off in traffic or makes fun of some idea that you hold a little too close for your own good, you probably feel anger or irritation building up, but that's just some animal part of your brain making noise. (It doesn't know that not everything is a matter of life and death.) You can let it go, and you don't need to get mad and snap at people because you had a crappy day at work. (That doesn't do anybody any good.) Likewise, don't get so caught up in thinking about a bug that came up this morning, or whatever, that you forget to taste your lunch. You can spend so much time worrying about an idea, something that doesn't even exist, that you forget to appreciate the things that do.
If your idea of a "higher place" is a world in which people stop doing as much stupid shit because they're no longer reacting like threatened animals half the time, then, ok, cool. (I think that capital-e Enlightenment is another idealized thing to drive yourself crazy trying to chase. Not all Buddhists believe in enlightenment, though there are probably as many Buddhisms as there are Buddhists.)
Also, a lot of the religious stuff came into Buddhism because, well, try showing that stuff to someone thousands of years ago in India, then having them explain it to someone else, ... who shows someone else in China how to see their mind working that way, who ... and see if it gets a bunch of their cultural symbolism mixed in along the way. Nowadays, we talk about the mind like it's a computer. Is it a computer? Or do we just talk about it that way because that model seems useful to us? Will that seem weird to people in the future?
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Have you been to a party recently? I mean, a serious beer-pong-playing, beer-bonging, naked-ignorant-frat-boy flailing party? They're terrible. Everyone is clearly pretending to have a good time. Everything smells like beer or puke.
Also, have you watched the news lately? I don't think that needs elaborating.
Popular music is exactly as the author describes. No one could possibly be content listening to...wait, they're piping that shit in through the loudspeaker at the baseball game now? Fuck.
The fact that you accept the possibility that those people at the party and stadiums are masking their misery with beer and baseball says more about yourself than it does about the author. You seem to agree, but don't want to come right out and say it.
Starting a company is not socially acceptable. It seems 99% of startups fail. I could easily fit in and survive by getting a job at some major software company, get benefits, paid vacations, etc. Actually, I did and it leaves me with the feeling that the author describes.
I believe the author's "ressentiment" is born out of the belief that the drones at parties and baseball games have somehow given in and given up rather then getting what they actually wanted. Many people, yourself included, mask their personalities with a phony sense of optimism and say, "Hey, mang, leave my friend alone. He may be happy here at this baseball game, getting drunk and probably later falling asleep in your garden."
Also, the author implies that contentment can not be had from the material universe. Again, this may be reason enough to detest the phony atmosphere that permeates the environment of every antisocial activity.
In a way, we have to deal with the drones' innane bullshit, because they can't work out properly what they want. Racism, sexism, nationalism, extremism, isms galore. They'll grab any new idea that works rather than what works the best.
I'm a drone, just a lesser one. Proudly so. I'm not going to get worked up and punch a guy in the face because he dissed the Sox. This shit happens at every game. Every single one.
If meditation slows these people down and forces them to ask things like, "Why am I like this?" or "Is there another way?", then I'm willing to take my chances.
And, you know, sometimes it's possible to talk about a specific instance of something, without also making a broad generalisation that covers all possible cases.
The fact that you accept the possibility that those people at the party and stadiums are masking their misery with beer and baseball says more about yourself than it does about the author. You seem to agree, but don't want to come right out and say it.
To what part of my comment could you possibly be referring? Let me state that this is a direct invitation for you to find in my previous comment the line or lines that supports your statement about my purported beliefs about 'those people at the party' and that I 'agree but don't want to...say it.' Put up or shut up.
Many people, yourself included, mask their personalities with a phony sense of optimism and say, "Hey, mang, leave my friend alone. He may be happy here at this baseball game, getting drunk and probably later falling asleep in your garden."
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. First, "Have you been to a...naked-ignorant-frat-boy flailing party?", implying that I haven't, or at least haven't perceived the true nature of it, and then, "Hey, mang, " & etc., seemingly implying that this is my lifestyle and that I'm defending it. It's telling that your hypothetical example individual not only is not 'happy...at [the] baseball game,' but that, as proof he is not, he later '[falls] asleep in your garden.' Again, point to the part of my comment that supports your allegation of a 'phony optimism' or retract your insipid allegation.
It's also telling that the author's non-specific use of the word 'party' induces, in you, the concept of the most objectionable kind of party you can think of, one in which the participants are engaging in some kind of blatant mass stupidity, by your judgment. Why would one compare oneself to this particular set? Why choose who one believes are the worst of the worst to which to compare oneself, unless one wants to aggrandize oneself? That is the root of the suspicion. Why not say, "Go to the boardroom of Google. Feel the tension. Everybody is faking it."? Indeed, some do, but only those who wish to waylay the corporate as inherently evil. And they do so by making the corporate out to be the opposite of themselves, who are by definition, 'good'.
Starting a company is not socially acceptable.
I want whatever you're smoking.
I believe the author's "ressentiment" is born out of the belief that the drones at parties and baseball games have somehow given in and given up rather then getting what they actually wanted.
Look at the pejoratives: 'drones', 'given in', 'given up', 'parties' as frat-boy free-for-alls, 'baseball games' as a collection of drones, and 'rather then [sic] getting what they actually wanted'. I submit, based on this portion of your comment, that you are so accustomed to committing Nitezsche's ressentiment that you cannot even see when you are doing it, nor the sheer number of spurious value-judgments that you must make in order to support it.
It may help you to understand that ressentiment is not just dislike for a class that has bested you, but the transmutation of that dislike into a moral statement, the statement that "They are wrong for winning, and all of the qualities that make them the winners are evil, and all of the qualities that make me the loser are virtues."
Actually, [having a software job with benefits and vacations] leaves me with the feeling that the author describes.
I leave it to you whether this feeling is a function of your psychology or a function of the lifestyle in which you were engaged. Was it subjective, rooted in you, or objective, rooted in the circumstance?
While I understand your exasperation, the first 3 of the 5 statements you listed were directed at getting debt to support or retract some unjustified and repugnant accusations about my purported beliefs. I make no apologies for vigorously and forcefully demanding that my accusers defend their accusations or retract them. In this case, debt has done neither.
The fourth statement was a reaction to a particularly egregious instance of an unsupported statement. I like to think of it as 'robust humor,' but reasonable people could disagree.
The final instance, "It may help you to understand that..." was genuinely polite. debt had gone off the rails at this point and clearly does not understand even the definition of ressentiment about which he is commenting. I humbly suggest that this one doesn't even belong on your list.
I forget the article, but there was a link on HN that covered, among other things, the differences between a 'community' and a 'society' online, and how these paralleled their irl counterparts. HN, if it can be called anything at all, must be called a 'society' rather than a 'community', if only because of its size. We simply cannot form communal ties with the sheer number of people on HN. And in a civil 'society', a little meanness is permitted, even encouraged, when responding to an attack by another member of the society.
debt has not played, and still is not playing, by the rules. Either his reading comprehension is so poor or his disregard for accuracy so complete that he is not fit for civil discussion on this site. This would not matter at all if he would at least refrain from making unsupported statements about others' beliefs and intentions. Just look at my original post and try to find justification for his aspersions, and then ask yourself what HN would be like if debt and his ilk ran amok unchecked. Justice and/or basic dignity demand that we give to him as we get from him until he either comes around or buggers off.
I think you can see that there's a difference between this kind of 'meanness' and the abject trolling and plain incivility present on other sites. This 'meanness' has a preservative and defensive function, I would argue, and should not be shied away from. To shy away, I think, would be to give in to an excessive squeamishness and would surrender the debate to persons, like debt, who are unfit to inherit this site.
I fail to see any other course in circumstances like these, but I am open to reasoned correction on this matter. And, if pg or the other demigods of HN want to chime in on the matter, their opinions would be welcome, even definitive, to some extent. Until then, when I am confronted with the kind of unreasoning and brutishly unfounded claims evidenced by debt, I will come out, metaphorical guns a-blazin', at my discretion.
Respectfully,
mkn
EDIT: It is bitterly ironic that a post which contains the phrase 'I am open to reasoned correction' should be downmodded into negative territory, instead of reasonably replied to. If there is a clearer indication of the ineffectiveness of this turn-the-other-cheek pussification of debate on HN, I cannot imagine it. We will get the forum we deserve, I guess.
Honestly? I don't mind your "meanness" as others see it. I enjoy it. You want answers. Good, I'd love to give them to you. However, I didn't want this to go into personal attacks. I figured if I didn't respond to it, or, at least, if I responded in the way I did already it would come off as light-hearted and die away. I really did not mean for what I said to come off as a personal attack. I'll explain my accusation anyway.
You said this: This is Nietasche's ressentiment, the origin of moral feeling. Observe the hatred he has for the successful and the contented. They have won at the game of life, in that they fit in, are laughing, are enjoying themselves, yet the author feels that there must be something wrong with them. They must deserve his scorn because he has not achieved the ease and confidence that they show. It must be a chimera. Meditation sets the author apart. He has stamina. He has determination. He has 'grit', and for this he is despised by the masses. Bullshit.
The author of the article DOES NOT say that he hates these people, that these people are miserable, that these people have won at anything. Nowhere does he say they fit in, or that it must be chimera. Nor does he directly compare himself to these lesser-thans. No. YOU have said this. YOU show us your observation. The author was saying perhaps, they want more. Not that they are winners, but that they want more. You immediately jump to the conclusion that he holds "ressentiment" or whatever the fuck you call it. When all he was saying is that perhaps, they aren't as happy as they seem. Nothing more, nothing less. They didn't WIN or LOSE at life, rather, a different life is waiting for them if they themselves wait.
It's my opinion that the only way a person can hold the point of view you hold is if they, at some point in their lives, have themselves seen others in a similar way.
On a basic level, the author is just suggesting people take a moment and reflect on themselves and their own lives.
I'm really not trying to make this a personal attack on you, but, you seem like a reasonable person and there is some subtle bullshit inherent in your original post which got past your own built-in bs detectors somehow.
First of all, starting a company is not socially acceptable. Having less money cuts out a lot of my options. It means I can't go out as much with friends. After enough times of, "Sorry, guys, can't go out, I have to work.", it becomes very socially unacceptable.
Secondly, and most importantly, I do not view a free-for-all frat party/charade/parade as winning. They aren't smart. They aren't funny or clever. They are definitely NOT winning. I am definitely not jealous or envious of their situations. Maybe a bit jealous that they get all the girls, but I can look past that once I see one of them break a bathroom mirror over their head.
A party at Google is a party of people who "got it". They went after what they wanted and got it. That simple. It's not at all a party made up of mindless drones that the author of this article is talking about. I wouldn't even call a party of Googlers a party unless they were doing body shots off Sergey and singing Sweet Caroline at the top of their lungs. But then what? They aren't mindless drones, but they can still party hard. At this point, the author would say, "Perhaps, while they seem to believe that they have gotten what they wanted, they actually have not. Look how they party. They seem to want more."
If what these party drones are doing is "winning", then they are certainly in the wrong in my mind. Ah, it has just hit me. I know what "ressentiment" is.
It's seeing amazing potential going to waste and "transmuting" my disgust for that into a moral imperative to actively prevent that from happening to myself or anyone I care about.
You're right I have ressentiment, but it's for everyone who's potential is going to waste. It's for all the smart people who got caught with a few grams of pot, or some smart girl who only married the guy because he got her pregnant or the philosophy major who spends more time and energy procrastinating, writing HN comments, then he does finishing his thesis or socializing or socializing about his thesis or socializing at frat parties while expounding on his great ideas in his thesis.
I would think the latter being the most beneficial at least so I have someone to talk to at those damn parties.
EDIT: All I'm saying, is that there should be nothing wrong with believing television is terrible, pop music sucks, and belligerent drunks are losers. All are a waste of time, money, resources better not spent at all. If Nietzsche says I have "ressentiment", then fuck it, that's what I have. If meditation furthers my distance from those things, then that's what I'll do.
It's an f'ing great blog post from an absurdly talented writer, so in addition to the personal jab I'm making by directing you to it, I'm also trying to enhance your evening (or morning or whenever you read this) by giving you something fun to look at.
Because your argument is, to an exasperating degree, "excluding the middle". Meditation or beer bongs. And if that weren't enough, you take it a step further than even this sanctimonious article about meditation, and draw a straight line from drunk, stoned fraternity people to, for instance, attendance at baseball games.
Whatever you think it is meditation has done for you, it isn't in evidence tonight.
LOL! Yeah, Google is like 20,000 people now, and most of them joined when Google was a "safe" career choice. A Google party is probably much like an IBM or HP party now.
> Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Have you been to a party recently? I mean, a serious beer-pong-playing, beer-bonging, naked-ignorant-frat-boy flailing party? They're terrible. Everyone is clearly pretending to have a good time. Everything smells like beer or puke.
You need to go to better parties. Note that by "better", I'm not talking about location or gimmicks. Just don't get together with people you don't like. If everyone likes everyone else, they can all be natural.
I don't know, that paragraph struck me as true in a way that has nothing to do with meditation.
When I go out with friends, I have "fun." I enjoy it at the time, but not in retrospect. I come home tired. When I go out with the person I love, on the other hand, I truly enjoy myself—even if we ended up doing absolutely nothing but, say, waiting in line all night, I come home invigorated, and remember the night fondly.
This isn't a matter of remembering them fondly. The feeling I recall is that I was able to be myself the entire night; I had none of the "jealousy, suffering, discontent and stress" that comes from a social situation where you aren't truly aware of the motivations of the people around you, and thus have to put on a "face" of only the highest of social intentions and mannerisms (perpetuating the cycle, because then they don't know what your motivation is.) This may be a relic of introversion, of course, but I think everyone can feel it to some degree.
Also, the author is speaking of a different type of party than that which you're thinking of, I believe; he's referring to open-to-anyone parties with bouncers and alcohol—amateur versions of nightclubs. In such a party, everyone is indeed on edge. In a private gathering of only your true, closest friends, you will indeed be able to "let your hair down" and the negative emotions will evaporate... but most parties are not that party. Songwriters; pop, rock, rap, and hip-hop songwriters in particular, go to the more common type of party exclusively; it's part of their their livelihood to attend these "events." Thus, this is what they sing about. I hesitate to reference a song less than ten years old, but this is a somewhat relevant description of the sentiment the author is trying to capture: Glass Danse by The Faint -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSwzvatqE6I
Now, I don't know what all that had to do with meditation, but for the fact that your own mind is another place where you can "let your hair down" and be yourself, and that many people are so socially immersed at all times that they forget that their thoughts are not bound or inspected by the same social contract. I thus imagine that meditation can invigorate you in some of the same ways.
Merely by presenting his arguments in the way he has, he shows that he doesn't actually get the point of meditation (or at least the Eastern philosophies which generally practice it).
If he did, he'd realize that all those people were miserable because they're choosing to be miserable. When they decide to stop being miserable and alter their perception of this subjective, all-encompassing, constant thing of our own creation you refer to as "reality", they won't be miserable anymore. They'll be enlightened.
I mean, he even goes on to question the time he's spent meditating. Questioning anything in this way, i.e. deciding if something belongs in the "Good Bucket" or "Bad Bucket" again simply shows that he doesn't get it. For the love of God (or whomever), if you have any interest in meditation, of seeking enlightenment, of altering your perceptions, just ignore this entire article.
There is a "higher place". There is such a thing as unveiling yourself to you. You can come to understand that there is nothing objective. And you can do it whenever you are ready to. If you feel you must meditate or seek a Zen Master or whatever, then you should do it. But only because you feel you must.
Personally, I'm not through with the game just yet.
You're looking at everything through Zen-colored glasses.
> Questioning anything in this way, i.e. deciding if something belongs in the "Good Bucket" or "Bad Bucket" again simply shows that he doesn't get it.
What this shows, to me, is that he is an empiricist trying to decide if meditation is an effective path toward what he seeks to achieve. It might be that once you are "of the Eastern philosophy", you no longer accept empirical evaluations; however, you have to bootstrap yourself into that sort of thing. You can't evolve straight from a fish into a bird, you have to have a middle stage where your fins (empirical thought) assist your wings (seeking enlightenment) before your wings are strong enough that you can shuck the fins off.
Well, I wouldn't say I'm quite "there" yet either, but I understand it enough to realize that you can't find something you already have (e.g., a "path"). Empirical thought still assists me too, but the point is he's looking at meditation and everything else objectively: "People are miserable, they should meditate, it will help" when the real message should be "Try meditation. It'll work if you feel like it should and put forth enough of an effort to satisfy your own requirements."
Now that might make a newcomer wonder, "what on earth does he mean by that?" Then they can actually learn. Instead, they think "Okay, I will sit in silence listening to myself breath 2 hours a day and somehow that will help me be happier!" They're still waiting for "stuff" to "happen" to them. There is no "stuff"! Nothing "happens" to you! They're already on the wrong track.
Meditation doesn't solve any real problems; at least not more than any other religious belief. It seems really strange to me that nerds frown on certain religious beliefs while lauding others. We're in the territory of the unmeasurable here, so I'd say that tolerance goes first.
But a lot of smart people bash the belief in God when it presumably gives meaning to depressed people, or helps drug addicts and criminals get their lives in order. The same smart people praise psychotherapy or meditation for the same results. It's hypocritical. I'm a tolerant guy and as long as other people's beliefs don't get in my way, I accept them. But when rationality and reason are your most important virtues, it's contradictory to support a schism like this one.
These questions are always questions of the current immeasurable, unprovable part of human nature, and should be treated as such. You can't use the words meditation and scientific in the same sentence.
Do you know anything about meditation? While its origins are religious, it's a secular practice that's about learning to stabilize your mind and develop inner balance.
It's only religion if you think that you're developing a communion with God through meditation. If you meditate to commune with yourself, then it's entirely sensible to laud meditation while bashing religion. Meditation is not superstition.
Meditation is not superstition, true, but one should still be aware. It does tend to attract the same people. I'm an atheist meditating, and occasionally I have to grit my teeth.
You don't know what you're talking about. Meditation absolutely solves problems, it teaches you to control your mind and your emotions and most people need to be better at that.
It's just a matter of awareness, meditation is nothing more than practicing awareness of how your own mind and body operates. There's nothing unscientific or irrational about this, in fact it's quite rational.
Meditation is also not anything remotely similar to a religion, nor does it require you to believe anything absurd. That you chunk them together like that says you haven't really ever looked to deeply into the subject.
Religion requires that you believe in things that require faith. Meditation and psychotherapy don't. I don't really care about that myself - if Jesus helped you stop smoking crack, great, whether he's real or not, but it's a big deal to some people.
There are measurable effects of all of them, including meditation. You can quantify depression, personality traits, drug abuse, etc. You can measure brain state, skin resistance, heart rate, blood pressure, etc. All of this has been done.
If anything, meditation pulls one away from all harm that religion pushes -- namely lack of one's own will, "sleep-walking", belief in illusions created by other people.
I got away from my stupid childhood illusions and dreams (including religion, love, patriotism, etc) by meditating, taking disassociative drugs and astral projection.
After you experience these really perverted delusions you start questioning other delusions and hence get closer to a reality.
So: religion = delusions, meditation = reality. There is a reason meditation is called exploration while religion dictates unquestionable obedience to other humans.
I'll submit that it could be measurable and provable, but we haven't figured out how to do it yet. It's quite obvious that after meditation, something has changed within me. I don't know how to quantify it, but it's a marked change. The fact that modern scientists aren't able to measure or reproduce that change doesn't necessarily mean it's not real; it could mean that we simply haven't yet established the tools to do so (or, maybe some have, but are ignored).
The comparison to organized religion is invalid. Outside of the religious context, meditation can be considered breathing techniques that calm the mind.
I have read studies which compared the brain activity of monks who have regularly mediated for decades and lay-people. There are measurable differences.
There are measurable differences between the brains of concert pianists and checkout clerks as well. It doesn't mean that the change necessarily represents something that improves the human condition. If I was to practice balancing pencils on my fingertips, four hours a day for 40 years, you could certainly detect that my brain had become different from that of a random individual.
Whether meditation brings a peaceful state that is preferable to the one that comes from drug use, a stable family, rustic living or some other lifestyle is an entirely different question which probably can't be answered by science. It's nothing more than a lifestyle choice.
My intention was to point out that the results of meditation are something we can measure. This was, when I read about it at the time, news to me, and it appears to be news to the person I was responding to.
My intuition is that anyone who engages in focused practice of an activity that one can improve in will show similar differences in their brain activity. That is, I think there is a similarity to meditation and what we call "being in the zone" for activities as varied as basketball to programming. My personal experience is that such practice is beneficial.
Objective measurement is cool, sure, but more important here is how meditation makes you feel.
Actually this is a kind of measurement, one to which only you have access. It might be condemned as subjective rubbish by some, but it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Unlike religion, you aren't required to believe anything. Unlike mainstream science the result will not be publically reproducible. But that's OK: you're trying to advance self-knowledge, not public knowledge.
If someone could objectively show that focused practice of an art has the same mental benefits of meditation, then I would consider that personally useful, not just "cool."
Yes, that would be useful. And it remains open to you to try both now and compare how they make you feel.
The article seems to be claiming that all lifestyles without meditation lead to suffering. This is a pretty strong claim, don't you think? It goes beyond benefit and utility. At root, all of us are trying to feel better. Even physicists are motivated by perceptions of beauty.
People seem to think that being motivated by feelings isn't rational. But irrationality ultimately feels bad.
Is it possible that what is being measured isn't actually the _result_ of meditation? What if people whose brain works a certain way are the only ones who can sit still for hours at a time every day for many years? I know I couldn't.
You have mentioned some important commonalities, but what do you think make psychotherapy and meditation stand apart from religions? Would you list a few of the major differences?
I do vipassana but with a different organisation (www.dhamma.org). For the last five years I have meditated for the recommended 2 hours a day (mostly every day). Its a big time commitment and I often wonder how different things would be for me if I'd taken up painting or playing a musical instrument instead.
However, I don't regret the time I've spent meditating as (knowing me) I would have squandered those hours anyway. Its often easy to forget the benefits of meditation and I sometimes question whether I should carry on. However, in common with others I have talked to, when I stop for a few days all the old thought patterns come back such as anger, fear, arrogance, sadness and desire for material gain. I still feel these things when I've been meditating but they don't control my actions and distort my thoughts nearly as much. Yeah, if I stop meditating it becomes obvious I should start again as soon as possible.
Meditation isn't for everybody. Only a small proportion of Westerners who try it actually carry on practicing long term. However, I'd recommend anyone thats curious to give meditation a go.
The feelings you state above come back, and you view them as a problem, because you've not really made an attempt to understand them. When you view them as problems, and not ephemeral conditions, they become problems.
The feelings will always come back. The question is whether they are overwhelming or rootless, and that is a question of view. The various forms of insight meditation help see through the solidity of experience.
At the beginning it reduces the impetus of your emotions. Your emotions do not change, but you do not feel you have to follow them. The biological change is more inhibitor neurones from your neocortex to your hyppocampus.
Further down the path, it changes the left/right balance of your brain functioning leading to a more pleasant and holistic experience. This can also occur with a left-brain stroke, but you lose brain functionality that you don't with meditation. Eg:
While there is a lot of superstition, it is foolish to assume that all pre-scientific experience is invalid. Just like many people with high school science believe in a "scientific religion" (i.e. it doesn't fit with theory therefore is wrong, rather than doesn't it fit with theory? hmm. how interesting!), many Buddhists believe in a Buddhist religion. That does not mean that there is no valuable knowledge gained by the best practitioners of Science or of meditation.
"The feelings you state above come back, and you view them as a problem, because you've not really made an attempt to understand them. When you view them as problems, and not ephemeral conditions, they become problems."
very close to a religious discussion imo. Without acepting the underlying dogma of the mystical school (vipassana in this case), the above sentence makes no sense at all. By this logic two Christians arguing whether music is allowable in Christian worship and its impact on a worshippers mind is valid discussion on HN.
People making unverifiable claims about inner states and so on. What's next - a discussion of the subjective effects of various recreational drugs on the human mind?
I suspect the subjective descriptions of mental states would be very similar "I got high and I observed my thoughts arising blah" "No you didn't do it right .. you should have ... "
"I been conflicted about whether to pursue Buddhism. "
Ok. Great for you.
I would have preferred it if this pseudo religious stuff were left off HN. I am very surprised that this made the front page of HN, leave alone such a high place in the rankings.(I tried to phrase this carefully so as not to violate any HN guidelines).
cutting TV is more important than meditation. If meditation forces you to watch less TV then that's probably where some of the "benefits" are coming from.
Dropping TV is the single most life-changing thing any modern person can do.
I used to think that. Then I did it, and it was true for about 8 years. Now the internet has all the TV I'd ever want to watch in an immediately summonable window right next to all the other info-crack which had taken the place of television. I'm thinking dropping the internet is going to be the next big life changer. I went on a laptop free vacation a couple months ago and felt like I had 6-8 hours of extra time per day. Watching a couple TV shows in the hotel room at night was actually kind of relaxing and quaint, like I'd taken a time machine back to a simpler age...
Same here - I waste a lot of time with the internet, including watching some TV online.
It's said that alcoholics and drug addicts have a clear path to getting clean - completely cut out the addiction from your life. But people who have problems over-eating can't make as simple a change to solve their problem. After all, you need to eat to live.
The internet is kind of like that for me - it's something I need to do work on and learn from, but is something I frequently over-use.
I been conflicted about whether to pursue Buddhism. Its ideals of not wanting too much makes a lot of sense. However, civilization thrives and life expectancy increase because we work towards our ambitions and wants.
Another reason is that I admire Zen Buddhist practitioners Steve Jobs and Phil Jackson (zen master). Ironically, take Steve Jobs for example, his demanding and often angry management style is the opposite of Zen teaching.
I love to hear yalls opinion on how great achievement and Buddhism can co-exist.
Buddhism is primarily about reducing the amount of suffering in the world, in both ourselves and others. Part of this includes trying to let go of the cycle in which you think you need _ to be happy, strive to get it (perhaps successfully, perhaps not), then forget about it and reflexively start worrying about the next _ . This sort of behavior ("retail therapy" and subsequent credit card debt, for example) usually causes problems which get in the way of great achievements, or even being able to think clearly enough to enjoy our day-to-day lives.
(This is a quick attempt to summarize the idea usually translated as "desire is the root of all suffering.")
One can do great things because they seem like the best thing to do with one's time, not just because they're terrified by the feeling that they'll never be happy / have a meaningful life without it.
I would look at the people who practice the technique rather than the doctrine itself. If Steve Jobs sits regularly and he still acts like Steve Jobs, there's your answer.
We should note that Vipassana is a form of Buddhist meditation, which takes as its base observances the four noble truths. The first of which is: To live is to suffer.
Perhaps if the author tried a form of meditation that isn't based on such a fundamentally negative philosophical basis then on his journey to enlightenment he may find a more enjoyable and charitable viewpoint.
My first encounter with meditation was with a Tibetan Buddhist tradition. I fully respect what I learned from their teachings, particularly about cultivating compassion, but I was put off with this negative base assumption. Later on I learned a form of meditation whose philosophical approach characterises life as a glorious struggle to expand ourselves in every possible dimension of existence, and along the way overcoming our flaws and weaknesses.
To some, struggle might also seem negative, but struggle is NOT equal to suffering - just ask all those struggling to get their startups off the ground whether hard work and effort are suffering?
That's not to say that suffering doesn't exist - of course it does, but I personally don't accept that it is the fundamental condition of humans.
Once you take a different philosophical basis then many of the observations of the condition of others also take on a very different hue.
It's a bit disingenuous to claim that Buddhism has "such a fundamentally negative philosophical basis"-- one shouldn't forget that the third noble truth is that there is a way to end to suffering, and the fourth noble truth is the description of that way.
Furthermore, a lot of translators think that "suffering" is not the most felicitous translation of "dukkha"-- the root words mean "a wheel with a bad axle", and it might be better to translate it as "unsatisfactory".
Sorry, my intent wasn't to dissuade anyone from Buddhism or to be disingenuous, only to point out that it isn't the only form of meditation and also that the fundamental assumptions taken as the basis for meditation can and do (heavily) influence your approach and view of life.
Personally, I chose not to accept that to live is to suffer or in your words that life as a human being is inherently unsatisfactory, rather that it is a state full of potential and opportunity to grow and help others.
There is no doubt about the effectiveness of meditation. It is a tool. And certainly Vipassana seems to be as methodical and systematic an approach as can be possible, when it comes to learning(and seeing results of) meditation. However, as in programming, it is important to go beyond the tool/s. And the same is true about this peace thing. There is a similar path (non-dual advaita based on self inquiry), where in addition to meditation, emphasis is given on the root of the problem(or identifying and fixing the root of the problem, which they identify as "I" or mind). In fact, it is very similar to Zen Budhism, in the sense it is very direct, but is geared more more towards knowledge-based /intellectual bend of mind. Here is one interview by Daivd Goodman on this: http://www.davidgodman.org/rteach/jd5.shtml. I am sure there must be lot of internet resources on the same.
They're called koans. People in the US seem to be really attached to the koans from Rinzai Zen, to the point where anything that's vaguely surreal is a "Moment of Zen". On the other hand, Soto, the other major schools of Zen buddhism, doesn't even use koans (it emphasizes meditation), and they arguably have about as much to do with conventional Buddhism as getting your picture taken with the Santa Claus at Macy's does with Christianity.
Historically, the association seems to be because the beats and hippies (who were also pretty fond of surrealism) had a big part in popularizing Zen Buddhism, while comparatively, most other forms of Buddhism haven't spread that far past immigrant enclaves.
Yup, I know. But Soto has its share of "faith", starting with the quote above: if you do zen for any purpose, you're not doing it right. I get the point and the logic, and I agree with it. But it's just too damn hard to swallow stuff like this without chewing, and if i'm chewing it... well it usually makes sense, but it's still not easy.
Obviously if you go to a party to relax, you are going to be disappointed.
Have you noticed the similarity with the magic business model?
1. Sit down and watch your thoughts
2. Magic!
3. "harvest your crops of faith, morality , mindfulness and wisdom"!!!!
When you are happy, you are not really happy. If you observe really closely (I mean like really closely), there you will spot it. The horrible horrible evil undercurrent of all-pervading universal sadness.
When the car is moving, it's not really moving. If you observe really closely, you will see that actually it's not moving at all!
>the essence of life is suffering, said the Buddha.
Well perhaps, he was wrong?
It's like saying the essence of the electromagnetic spectrum is red.
Even before we ask whether to bother with meditation or not, let's ask what is the probability that Buddha even formulated the problem correctly?
The first step to solving a problem is to state it correctly.
The purpose of every educational system is to prepare humans for life. Supposed this we should include at least two new school subjects - meditation and a teaching on HOW to consume information. We see our body as a machine but tend to exclude our mind.
Before we put meditation in schools we'd have to scrub it really really well from any traces of religion. We'll be able to do this in some years, with all the active research in meditation, but right now I don't think we can.
I have been for vipassana. My conclusion is that there approach is to cauterization human emotions. I have also tried other meditation practices and find the zen method more to my liking.
There are thousands of attempts to say what the meditation is, but in fact, one should realize it by oneself. For me, for example, that was about to stop looking "into the mirror" and suffering, and starting looking around, but not judging, just see. But this is just a theory. Meditation is the another name of some very simple practice. It could be described as "watch your thoughts". When you can "see", then you can try to "control" this flow, and after that you can try to stop it. Suddenly, after hours and hours of failures you will catch that very moment, and realize this short "gap" between thoughts, while last one already gone, but next one still not arise. Everything will be obvious after this experience, like when you saw the light in the dark stormy night.
Of course, this moment was not that when you will drop and forget all your flawed habits or booze and dope addictions, but you will finally have something to compare to.
And here we have the crux of it. This is Nietasche's ressentiment, the origin of moral feeling. Observe the hatred he has for the successful and the contented. They have won at the game of life, in that they fit in, are laughing, are enjoying themselves, yet the author feels that there must be something wrong with them. They must deserve his scorn because he has not achieved the ease and confidence that they show. It must be a chimera. Meditation sets the author apart. He has stamina. He has determination. He has 'grit', and for this he is despised by the masses. Bullshit.
And isn't it suspicious that meditation always leads to a higher place? Isn't it at least possible that meditation might merely unveil yourself to you? Or maybe, more laughably, help you to obscure yourself from you? Or, even more laughably, to obscure the nature of reality from yourself so that you can continue to believe that you have the high ground in some realm of ideas, despite your losses and discontentment in the observable universe? It strikes me as suspicious that someone with this obvious contempt for the masses could take hold of a meditative practice and use it objectively, to discover the true nature of anything, let alone any inner 'true' happiness.
We have only the observed facts that the author has provided, minus his 'insights' into the 'true nature' of these observances or the 'ulterior motives' of the actors he observes.
Zarathustra's advice would be well taken by him, and all who find this article compelling: "Always love your neighbor as yourselves -- but first be such as love themselves"