barefooter
Member
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2013
- Messages
- 218
This might be a little ranty, but I've been formulating these ideas for a while now, but was too worried I might offend others to post. I think this will at least lead to some interesting discussion. I've been thinking a lot about meditation lately, mostly a lot of skeptical stuff, since there seems to be increasing numbers of people and studies recommending the benefits. The first thing that interests me is theories on how meditation was discovered in the first place. I see a lot of websites that talk about the history, various forms, etc. but not what events may have led to its original discovery.
I think it seems likely that meditation was developed by repressed people who had little ability to change their physical circumstances in life. I mean, if your life was good, why would you sit around and breath when you could be doing many other far more interesting/useful things? Meditation would have served as a useful escape for those unable to change their life in other means, not too dissimilar from escaping with drugs. I used to be somewhat into meditation, and most people I met who were into it where the type always trying to fix their problems, and never quite sure about where to go in life.
Now, I DO believe all the hype that regular meditation can grow the brain, increase focus, improve depression, etc. But what's the big deal, these results seem obvious to me, so can practicing any skill. People are benefiting from meditation, because they're using discipline, will power, etc. to regularly practice a skill and get better, which in general leads to people feeling better and more confident.
I see the kind of improvements from meditating as similar to what you'd expect from pouring your focus into some skill like paining, carpentry, bike repair, music, etc. But the big difference with practicing a real skill is that you learn something useful other than just how to sit and breath, and you create something you can be proud of and show off to others. And if you're in it for the spiritual purpose, I'd say you can find god, or whatever you're looking for, just as readily in the flow state required to make fine wood pieces or beautiful music.
In a lot of types of meditation, it seems the goal is to work on non-attachment to your thoughts/feelings. To me, this seems like an absolutely horrible skill to be practicing. I feel like it's basically a self induced dissociative trip, which I guess could be useful if you're in tremendous emotional pain, but really seems like the wrong way to be going in life. If your thoughts suck, my leaning would be to examine the life circumstances that are leading to such crappy thinking and begin making changes, so you can associate with and love your mind. Thinking of the mind and thoughts as the enemy that needs to be ignored/banished seems like a bad way to frame things. I hear a lot of negative talk about the brain and thoughts in meditation communities, and it really bugs me.
Learning how to disassociate from your thoughts seems like a bandaid at best, and potentially dangerous at worst. In fact practicing this type of disassociation does seem to have it's dangers. I've read many reports of people actually increasing their anxiety and causing themselves to have a depersonalization episodes through meditation. I think in these cases they're TOO successful at disassociating, and they cross a line and it seriously freaks them out, because they have basically altered their consciousness in a way they were not prepared for. I think this is pretty similar to a bad drug trip, and I'd say repeated severe episodes could cause PTSD in the same way a bad drug trip can.
I'll end my rant with one final thought about so called enlightenment, which seems to be the end goal of meditation for some. Is it possible that what has been called enlightenment is just a very severe/persistent self induced depersonalization, where the enlightened one would feel at one with the world and unaffected by pain/suffering because they are simply spaced out all the time? And if so, is that really a state we want to be striving for?
I think it seems likely that meditation was developed by repressed people who had little ability to change their physical circumstances in life. I mean, if your life was good, why would you sit around and breath when you could be doing many other far more interesting/useful things? Meditation would have served as a useful escape for those unable to change their life in other means, not too dissimilar from escaping with drugs. I used to be somewhat into meditation, and most people I met who were into it where the type always trying to fix their problems, and never quite sure about where to go in life.
Now, I DO believe all the hype that regular meditation can grow the brain, increase focus, improve depression, etc. But what's the big deal, these results seem obvious to me, so can practicing any skill. People are benefiting from meditation, because they're using discipline, will power, etc. to regularly practice a skill and get better, which in general leads to people feeling better and more confident.
I see the kind of improvements from meditating as similar to what you'd expect from pouring your focus into some skill like paining, carpentry, bike repair, music, etc. But the big difference with practicing a real skill is that you learn something useful other than just how to sit and breath, and you create something you can be proud of and show off to others. And if you're in it for the spiritual purpose, I'd say you can find god, or whatever you're looking for, just as readily in the flow state required to make fine wood pieces or beautiful music.
In a lot of types of meditation, it seems the goal is to work on non-attachment to your thoughts/feelings. To me, this seems like an absolutely horrible skill to be practicing. I feel like it's basically a self induced dissociative trip, which I guess could be useful if you're in tremendous emotional pain, but really seems like the wrong way to be going in life. If your thoughts suck, my leaning would be to examine the life circumstances that are leading to such crappy thinking and begin making changes, so you can associate with and love your mind. Thinking of the mind and thoughts as the enemy that needs to be ignored/banished seems like a bad way to frame things. I hear a lot of negative talk about the brain and thoughts in meditation communities, and it really bugs me.
Learning how to disassociate from your thoughts seems like a bandaid at best, and potentially dangerous at worst. In fact practicing this type of disassociation does seem to have it's dangers. I've read many reports of people actually increasing their anxiety and causing themselves to have a depersonalization episodes through meditation. I think in these cases they're TOO successful at disassociating, and they cross a line and it seriously freaks them out, because they have basically altered their consciousness in a way they were not prepared for. I think this is pretty similar to a bad drug trip, and I'd say repeated severe episodes could cause PTSD in the same way a bad drug trip can.
I'll end my rant with one final thought about so called enlightenment, which seems to be the end goal of meditation for some. Is it possible that what has been called enlightenment is just a very severe/persistent self induced depersonalization, where the enlightened one would feel at one with the world and unaffected by pain/suffering because they are simply spaced out all the time? And if so, is that really a state we want to be striving for?