Some Skeptical Thoughts On Meditation

[danishispsychic]

Most "New Age" stuff and modern-day "gurus" that I've comes across have been extremely misguided, either mistakenly with good intentions or even possibly malevolently. But proper meditation, done as its explained straight from the source, such as the Upanishads or the Bhagavad Gita (NOT with any commentaries because it's those commentaries which, although well-intentioned, totally mess up the intended meaning of the texts) is very much in-line with Peat's guidelines the way I see it. The teachings are meant to reduce learned helplessness, and meditation increases dopamine, decreases serotonin, increases GABA, turns off the stress response (HPA axis), and increases CO2. Not sure if there's anything else which is that "Peaty" except for thyroid itself. You just have to be careful not to fall into the falsely-empathetic, weakening, vegetarian, "all-is-well and I should never fight anything" train of thought which unfortunately most people do because of misleading fake Internet "gurus" who put their own misguided interpretations onto piercingly insightful texts that really don't need any commentary to be understood.

your comment on vegetarians is ridiculous.

 

[lampofred]

your comment on vegetarians is ridiculous.

I'm sorry if you're vegetarian and I somehow offended you?

There's nothing wrong with being a vegetarian if you want to be one for personal reasons, but many people I know have been misguided into thinking that being a vegetarian is a prerequisite for doing yoga and being spiritual when that is actually not the case according to the original Hindu yogic scriptures. As far as I know, they make no mention at all about vegetarianism--the only things said about eating are to eat fresh, sweet food and to eat in moderation.

Modern day Internet "gurus" mix their personal viewpoints and ethical beliefs with what is actually written in yogic scriptures, and the end result is that people who are sincerely trying to pursue yoga and spirituality end up achieving the opposite of what they intended to achieve. Instead of becoming strong, calm, and clear-minded, they become overly-emotional and high off of excessive estrogen resulting from a lack of sufficient animal protein intake and a zinc deficiency, and they think this excessive emotionality is "spirituality" when it's precisely the opposite. Then they get health problems, and they blame yoga for their issues instead of their misinformation.

 

[meatbag]

Barefooter,

You just never made any progress at it. Perhaps a lack of effort, lack of decent teachers, bad karma. You have no clue about what you're talking about.

LisaFerraro,
For good reasons, the bible says "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak".

 

[lollipop]

Possible interpretation:
For reasons such as that the writer of that bit of the a key document in one of the major patriarchal religions was male and he may have felt comfortable preserving traditions of male domination, he wrote: "Shut up, women". Sepulchrave reinforces male domination tradition by quoting this old text in order to tell a present day woman to shut up.

What an elegant response. I didn’t feel it worth responding to but I surely was lacking your verbal eloquence Thank you for your balancing presence on the forum.

 

[Blossom]

Barefooter,

You just never made any progress at it. Perhaps a lack of effort, lack of decent teachers, bad karma. You have no clue about what you're talking about.

LisaFerraro,
For good reasons, the bible says "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak".

Could you please elaborate on your comments? It comes across as rude and I'm not sure if you meant it that way.

 

[charlie]

Could you please elaborate on your comments? It comes across as rude and I'm not sure if you meant it that way.

 

[Sepulchrave]

Sorry to give offence. I was a little irritable then and read part of her post quoted by Dbutter and was irked. It seemed like she was espousing wrong view.

"And what is wrong view? 'There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no contemplatives or brahmans who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.' This is wrong view."

Maha-cattarisaka Sutta: The Great Forty

 

[lollipop]

Sorry to give offence. I was a little irritable then and read part of her post quoted by Dbutter and was irked. It seemed like she was espousing wrong view.

"And what is wrong view? 'There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no contemplatives or brahmans who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.' This is wrong view."

Maha-cattarisaka Sutta: The Great Forty

I find that most women I meet lack the qualities which indicate some advancement. Indifference to the world, dispassion, solitude, silence, etc. I tend to roll my eyes when I see one write as Lisa does.

Just taking a breath here at the intense judgement you passed on me, not to mention other people you have never met. You have zero idea of my background, history of practice, lifestyle choices that may have given rise to such a statement. By not aproaching the post with any level of curiosity or questions to UNDERSTAND where my perspective might be arising from, you committed the very same behavior you are criticizing. Fascinating.

 

[tara]

Sorry to give offence.

Then stop doing it. It's one thing to have a different opinion from someone else's post.
It's quite another to dis her and all women. In my opinion, you have just exacerbated that problem.

 

[Blossom]

Sorry to give offence. I was a little irritable then and read part of her post quoted by Dbutter and was irked. It seemed like she was espousing wrong view.

"And what is wrong view? 'There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no contemplatives or brahmans who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.' This is wrong view."

Maha-cattarisaka Sutta: The Great Forty

I find that most women I meet lack the qualities which indicate some advancement. Indifference to the world, dispassion, solitude, silence, etc. I tend to roll my eyes when I see one write as Lisa does.

I appreciate your attempt to explain your views further and it's quite sad that you see women this way.

Just taking a breath here at the intense judgement you passed on me, not to mention other people you have never met. You have zero idea of my background, history of practice, lifestyle choices that may have given rise to such a statement. By not aproaching the post with any level of curiosity or questions to UNDERSTAND where my perspective might be arising from, you committed the very same behavior you are criticizing. Fascinating.

I apologize Lisa that you have been this way on the forum.

Then stop doing it. It's one thing to have a different opinion from someone else's post.
It's quite another to dis her and all women. In my opinion, you have just exacerbated that problem.

 

[Blossom]

@lisaferraro, I meant sorry you have been treated that way.

 

[lollipop]

@lisaferraro, I meant sorry you have been treated that way.

I understood. Thank you. I can appreciate disagreement and difference. It is actually refreshing. Judgement without curiosity can end up shutting down someone with a sense of “superiority” or “authority” as in this case. The awesome aspect of this forum, for the most part, is the attempt to create a safe space.

 

[Blossom]

I understood. Thank you. I can appreciate disagreement and difference. It is actually refreshing. Judgement without curiosity can end up shutting down someone with a sense of “superiority” or “authority” as in this case. The awesome aspect of this forum, for the most part, is the attempt to create a safe space.

I'm so glad you understood what I meant! Just omitting one word made it sound much different than I intended.

 

[Xisca]

you committed the very same behavior you are criticizing. Fascinating.

This is the most fascinating behavior of human beings ever...
We either commit what we critic, so that we have less reasons to critic, or we litteraly create similar situations so that we can experiment the same stress again, in the hope to finish a very old story and not suffer any more about it!
Personaly, the only moment ever I break something in the kitchen like a glass that escape my hand is when I am tense about people damaging some stuff of mine. It is the only unconscius trick I have found to forgive I was hurt!

I was a little irritable then and...

and that is enough to forge a s-word!
When we awake from the dream, we cannot believe it... "sorry" carries so much helplessness....

 

[lollipop]

This is the most fascinating behavior of human beings ever...
We either commit what we critic, so that we have less reasons to critic, or we litteraly create similar situations so that we can experiment the same stress again, in the hope to finish a very old story and not suffer any more about it!
Personaly, the only moment ever I break something in the kitchen like a glass that escape my hand is when I am tense about people damaging some stuff of mine. It is the only unconscius trick I have found to forgive I was hurt!

and that is enough to forge a s-word!
When we awake from the dream, we cannot believe it... "sorry" carries so much helplessness....

Soooooooo true about “sorry” - never thought about it as helplessness, but yes, I can see it so clearly. Cool thoughts. Thank you!

 

[Waynish]

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 see you haven't addressed my questions yet... I think it is important to be honest with yourself on this issue to the degree of addressing every argument out there in some at least semi-complete fashion. Especially if you're going to try to figure this out using the intellect, like you are. Can you rephrase your questions about it in a simpler and more concise manor? For example, if I were going to try to rephrase some of what you said, then wouldn't this be fair: "basically everyone out there who claims to get such extreme benefits is either a liar or greatly deluded"? Or, "Either they're lying about how much it can improve or increase experience, or I am wrong about the degree of experience I need to infer the true range of experience." Something like that... And then test your hypotheses :)

 

[Waynish]

Amazing the dopamine hit we get when we come into alignment with another even for a brief moment, the Serotonin stress driven conflicting argumentation wears me down.

This seems to imply that others need to change in order for you to reduce your stress. I'm replying in this manor because someone got himself in trouble saying mean things to you :) And then someone saying to ban him right away annoyed me. Banning speech annoys me... Maybe because I know at least 1% how to meditate - and when you know 1% from direct experience, then you know the type of speech that would make sense to someone who has not yet 1% of real meditation experience. Maybe this is what that fellow (@Sepulchrave) was trying to express - and to be weary of such people who claim "all is love & light," while demonstrating a method that will not lead there consistently. Such weariness seems relevant in a thread concerning whether meditation is "real" or not because anyone who has experience within any significant meditation tradition knows that such traditions are very concerned with which methods really lead to freedom and which lead to more suffering.

 

[Regina]

My teacher's book was just released. The Rinzai Zen Way: A Guide to Practice by Meido Moore. I just got my copy (from amazon)

 

[Sepulchrave]

Just taking a breath here at the intense judgement you passed on me, not to mention other people you have never met. You have zero idea of my background, history of practice, lifestyle choices that may have given rise to such a statement. By not aproaching the post with any level of curiosity or questions to UNDERSTAND where my perspective might be arising from, you committed the very same behavior you are criticizing. Fascinating.

I'm not propagating any wrong view by criticizing you. I'm not at all curious about your practice. I don't want to converse with anyone. I just didn't want anyone who will read this thread to be mislead by you.

 

[Xisca]

many people I know have been misguided into thinking that being a vegetarian is a prerequisite for doing yoga and being spiritual when that is actually not the case according to the original Hindu yogic scriptures.

Ayurveda is not even vegetarian.... It is older than this political long-lasting fad in India!

falsely-empathetic, weakening, vegetarian, "all-is-well and I should never fight anything" train of thought

You are right and this is a freeze response of the nervous system, when you gave up a fight, and maybe find another fight, like in religious wars!

Meditation is great when you are present, because you are in a reciprocal parasympathetic state, with no charge in the sympathetic system. But as most of us have a sympathetic charge of past implicit memories, the state of parasympathetic is not reciprocal, but it is dissociative! Just because when the big sympathetic activation comes out, it is so strong that the body sends the freeze or dissociative response! This is normal, but we are unfortunately misled to think that our anestesia is a real "I have overcome my bad emotions" state. No, it is burried, anestesiated, kept like pus in a kyst.... View it as you want, but it is there and the mere reaction of the body implies that it feels invisible and thus wrongly absent!

All people who felt bad while doing vipassana unblocked their carefully kept freeze response, and most of the time were not helped to discharge properly, so their body re-enter a freeze response, maling them think they have over-come the problem. As it will be even more frozen, because it acted as a re-traumatization, they will feel less and believe they have gotten better while going through this painful experience.