Okay, then explain it to me. Explain what it is that can’t be done by someone.
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I think I’m done with you. I’ve tried explaining it. You told me I was wrong. You tell others their reactions are incorrect, that what goes on inside their brains is “wrong”. You know everything, everyone else is wrong. What’s the point of engaging with such a person?
Fortunately I know enough people who meditate who are not insufferable know-it-alls and would never presume to know someone else’s brain.
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Okay, here’s my point and I’m sorry if I’ve offended anyone:
“Failing at meditating” is still successful meditation. It is not something than can be done wrong or badly or unsuccessfully. That isn’t a property of minds; it is a property of meditation. To say, “I can’t meditate” is like writing, “I can’t type the word ‘can’t’.” To even introspect enough to think “I can’t meditate” is already to engage in some sort of meditation.
I apologize for taking this off topic.
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I tend to agree fwiw. On one hand “the effort counts” is a valid mindset in plenty of situations, personal enlightenment being one of them, but if trying to meditate itself becomes a trigger, or if the methods and ways of being taught meditation are not something a person can access it’s a complete barrier.
I literally just read a sad personal post about a deaf person attempting to take a yoga class with an interpreter that involved the deaf person being repeatedly told to “close their eyes…”
Ya’ know?
FWIW my mother tried EMDR therapy concurrent with other therapies and it helped her a lot. My take on it is anything that helps … helps.
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Exactly. I once had a therapist who suggested some relaxation tapes because I was wary of taking drugs. In order for the tapes to work I had to somehow overcome my anxiety around the tapes not working, of not having the exactly correct environment to listen to them, of having such a damaged brain that simple relaxation techniques won’t work. I just couldn’t calm down enough to even try the tapes beyond a few minutes.
I told her about my experience and she said that the tapes are worthless if you can’t even calm down enough to try the exercises. She recommended drugs, not as a cure, but as a way to take off that edge a bit in order to actually try other therapies.
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I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t do something successfully. I fully agree that if the therapy you were given didn’t work for you, then you were right to stop it. I am not claiming that every person can do everything that anyone has ever described as meditation and I agree that a lot of that is unhelpful.
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It can feel a bit like this…
PS:
I used to work for a company with weekly Tai Chi and relaxation classes, and I went to them for months. I wanted the balance for the slow walk, but I saw no point in much of the rest. One day the instructor couldn’t come and I found myself thinking “Great! I can get a whole hour ahead at work”. I stopped going there and then. But my elder brother meditates and benefits from it, so it is good for some.
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“Wild monkey mind.” When your mind goes from thought to thought like a monkey swinging from tree to tree. QAnon conspiracy theories are the political version of this.
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Yeah, Buddhist literature uses this term frequently.
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Been meditating in my own idiosyncratic way for about 55 years. Sometimes all it takes is one breath to get into a meditative state, at least for me (but I could be fooling myself).
A simple way to approach relaxation is to use 1-2 breathing: inhale through the nose to a count of one (or a multiple thereof) and exhale through the mouth or nose to a count of two (or a multiple thereof). This automatically relaxes the vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system.
Learned about from a free course on https://www.breatheology.com/
It works for me.
I do a gratitude meditation most mornings before getting out of bed and tend to spend a few minutes standing in Yi Chuan, a qi kung posture, for sunset or dawn or the moon, softening my eyes and just giving thanks.
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Brad Warner weighs in (specific mention of this story at about 3:10):
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I’ve done a bunch of irresponsible hypno in VR with friends… They have helped me get a bit closer to those states. I have to admit it has been quite an transcendent experience.
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I think this is great. Not everyone has the patience nor fortitude to meditate to enlightenment.
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Ah. I was thinking of wild, screaming, shit-throwing monkey, sort of thing. Still not me, though. I am pretty methodical and laid-back enough for my needs. But this may be how a ‘being of pure light’ yoga instructor sees me, though. Whatevs, doods.
PS: In answer to the title question - yes, I probably would if I ‘enlightenment’ was something I wanted. No objections to the technology as described.
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I’m totally open to being completely wrong on this, but when I read headlines like this, it reminds me of the whole “freedoms versus responsibilities” in a way.
I think that the discipline of sustained meditative practice might result in more than the enlightenment, but also the discipline and responsibility to best wield that power/privilege.
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I came here to make a similar comment, and found that you made it for me; Thanks!
:puts the tasp back into it’s holster:
If this technology ends up having uses in treating people who’ve suffered trauma (or any other thing) then I wouldn’t disparage it. I do disparage the idea of “neuro-hacking your way to enlightenment”.
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Calling this thing “enlightenment” is just branding.
It’s an ultrasound tranquilizer.
If it has that effect, great!
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I can only speak of my own experiences as a meditator (in several disciplines, but mostly Buddhism) of many years, but IMO meditation is work. It is harder than it looks (i.e. just sitting, quietly, with one’s eyes [semi-]closed, being mindful, whether or not a mantra is an object of focus).
Thank you to the numerous people posting in this thread about their own struggles with meditation practice. I hear y’all. Each human is wired uniquely. I wish you well. I hope you find things that really do work, given your situation and mindset. No judging. We live inside our imperfect bodies, stumbling at various rates toward enlightenment.
Perhaps this is meant to be taken in jocularly. I am having a hard time construing the spirit in which these words are intended. But for the record, plenty of us who meditate have a total lack of crystal-y things, copper bracelets, incense, gongs, metal bowls, etc.
I have meditated in quiet places and loud places, in public and private, inside, outside, the ground itself (if it is free of fire ants!). One meditation tradition boils it down to “if you can think a thought, you can say a mantra.”
To sit (or walk!), to focus on the breath, to soften toward oneself and observe thoughts, to mentally say a mantra, these are all part of meditation as a human practice, a very old one with some nice time-tested common data points to consult.
Thanks for this, in case some folks here have skipped watching the video. It was nicely done. The plants were beautiful.
Such a skillful comment.
Thank you for this.
HHDL again reminds me that attachment, impermanence, and imperfection are the mileposts along my way that I must pass by, put behind me, every day. He reminds me that kindness, and clarity, must come first.
Well, there’s a world of difference between getting relief from trauma / learning to be present and mindful / connecting with one’s breath / getting grounded
and
having lasting insights, behavior changes and habits (acknowledged in The Guardian video) that would in any way qualify a sincere neuro-hacker as having “enlightenment,” itself a term much in need of a definition in this context, specifically. My takeway from watching the video is that it’s more about the ability to get some relief than to gain total cosmic awareness for the rest of one’s life.
Yes and yes.
It may well depend on the practitioner, the meditator.
I hear you.
And… that sticky matter about forming attachments… (sigh). From my own experience, the attachment to outcome is my pitfall. Am I getting attached (to some tool, some experience, some result)? Am I forming expectations about how my meditation should go?
I had a roommate (who has been meditating for decades, several traditions, including Vipassana) once ask a Tibetan lama if a person can get attached to meditation. Answer: meditation is just another tool, and at some point, it might be possible to abandon it as one leaves the boat for the shore, having spent much time and effort rowing across an ocean.
It me! Some days.
Maybe this will help, in addition to the wiki entry posted by @prooftheory (thank you!):
Or… not.
It’s ok either way.
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