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You grow Brain Muscles
Meditation is about a fundamental shift in the mind. Aim for a transformation, a steadying, a stabilization. Think of it as mental recalibration – a process called samadhi, a perfected state of meditative focus.
This focus breaks down into two main avenues: Shamatha, the ‘calm-abiding’ meditation, which cultivates stillness, and Vipassana, the analytical meditation, which seeks insight. These aren’t separate practices but tools designed to administer your mental actions. It’s about gaining some control over the internal monologue that insists on narrating your existence.
The most interesting part is that in the absence of external stimuli, the mind reveals its true nature. Like discovering the map isn’t the territory. It implies that the path to enlightenment isn’t found, but rather emerges when the search itself ceases. Meditating on the state beyond meditation leads to… well, sublime Enlightenment.
My view : meditation is a thing that you do with your awareness.
We have two techniques. The concentration, and the observing while refraining from moving your awareness thing.
Both lead to stillness although via different means.
One shrinks, the other grows.
- Mutant healing ability
- Irresistible to the opposite sex
- Permanent +27 boost to Mana, which stacks
heck yes
You’re essentially telling your nervous system it’s safe, right now, which seems like an important thing to do frequently, in the current climate.
It will give you an excuse to sit down and do absolutely nothing for 20 minutes for free.
Just try and see for yourself, it’s not some sort of investment so important that you need to do some research first.
Depends how you do it. But I can tell you three things it does for me:
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Allows me to detach from myself and sort of Alt-F4 a lot of those background processes that are churning up my anxiety and wasting my emotional energy.
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Lets me bank some calm that I can withdraw later in emergencies.
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Helps me practice shutting out distractions to focus on a single stimulus, eg. when someone is talking or when I need to watch something over a period of time.
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- Waste your time
- Reduce your likelihood of being hit by a car (when compared to activities such as walking across a street, assuming you are not meditating in said street)
- Increase the odds of becoming an insufferable douchebag who tells people all about how meditation has changed their life
I like your fire.
Have you ever directed your attention at a thing? Or concentrated?
Of course you have. It’s a great trick. You might even call it indispensable.
Well imagine if you could take it further.
And imagine if there was another trick.
I can imagine a lot of things. That doesn’t make those things real or meaningful.
Well if X has value then 2X probably has double the value. Does that make sense?
From a pure math point of view with some assumptions about X being greater than zero, sure. There is an upper limit to the value of thinking about a thing though and it’s somewhere between “thoughtful consideration” and “huffing my own farts in lotus position for 12 hours a day”.
“thinking about a thing” isn’t how you meditate.
See, your conclusion is based upon a false assumption.
Would you please provide your definition of “meditate”?
Edit: Merriam-Webster entry for reference so I’m not asking you to do all the work here.
Destroying your thesis is sufficient. For now I will simply let your uncertainty fester.
- You’ll have meditated. Full stop. Bragging rights included.
- You’ll probably be calmer. If not, you likely have a lot more practice to do.
- Ummmmmm. If you sit just right you might understand the universe in its entirety. Or at least the relevant parts to you… Well, you’ll understand yourself better.
Personally it lowers my anxiety, increases my patience, and increases my motivation to do this (fix: things). Helps put me in more of a positive mind set and held to stop singer (fix: some) of my negative thinking.
Ummm Ermmm Ohmmm
You will hear the sound of the universe as it passes through you.
You will learn a new skill.
You will know what it’s like to be free.
