Unlike all the garbage apps which ask you for subscriptions and DLCs just to play 10 minutes of audio, every single thing is free and freely downloadable. It also has customization options, a journal, a very simple and rational interface and a small corpus of advice.
Yes.
> have my phone tell me what to do next"
The phone is a tool. It doesn't tell me what to do.
> you are unable to mediate without the help of an app, start here, instead of pretending you are meditating just because some app tells you every step along the way.
Mindfulness and Buddhism is traditionally practiced in a teacher-student setting. Are they all pretending to meditate because they have a teacher telling them what to do every step of the way?
Your entire comment reeks of utter mindlessness. Maybe an app would help?
You can even get an EEG reader for biofeedback meditation like Muse. Works well as long as you stay away from the Deepak Chopra stuff.
I've used analogue timers to determine when to get up from my session. Please explain the difference between an analogue timer and a digital one, for this purpose.
I wouldn't come to a tech site to air the counter-tech opinion and I wouldn't anticipate a fair and balanced response.
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240003927
Here's more detail about how it was tested. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/2022-apri...
Many people rarely experience a state of mind where they are fully present in the moment, where the past and future are irrelevant, and only the immediate moment matters. Some may have experienced this while watching a sunrise or after a moment of joyous exertion. However, through the practice of mindfulness meditation, one can intentionally enter this state of mind, which can be profoundly healing.
Mindfulness meditation is not goal-oriented. It's not practiced with the intention of achieving peace of mind or eliminating stress. The desire for things to be different, for wanting to be "there" instead of "here," is the modus operandi of our thinking mind. Mindfulness meditation allows us to enter a different state of mind, an observing mind that perceives things as they are. It observes the thinking mind and realizes that we are not our thoughts, or our thinking mind. We are much more than that, a meta-mind.
This concept may be challenging for many participants on this forum to accept, as they are entrenched in an outcome and achievement-focused mindset. They may have never experienced a mindful moment, and therefore dismiss it as nonsense.
It's nonsensical to "evaluate" mindfulness meditation in terms of results to be achieved.
Mindfulness meditation is not about striving for specific outcomes, but rather about embracing a set of practices that cultivate acceptance. It's about acknowledging and accepting our thoughts, feelings, and experiences without judgment. It's about observing reality as it unfolds, moment by moment, and embracing it in its entirety, with all its complexities and contradictions.
This practice encourages us to regularly connect with the present moment, to truly experience the 'now' rather than getting lost in the past or the future. It's about letting go of our preconceived notions, our biases, and our incessant need to control. It's about surrendering to the flow of life, allowing things to be as they are, and finding peace in that acceptance.
It kind of works. But the corpus of Buddhism is what makes it powerful. And this is hard to make palatable for the West.
The main goal of buddhism is giving you meaning & joy in life despite of stress or tragedy.
Very important aspects of Buddhism that make the whole much more powerful are:
- Living & acting out of compassion (boddhicitta): if your main focus is other not yourself, a huge relief of worries is gone, and meaning arises naturally.
- Accepting change. There are 2 ways to see change: "nothing matters" or "no need to worry, just relax". Buddhist meditation is geared to getting you to the positive kind.
- Understanding emptiness (or space) as the nature of all experiences, both rationally but in the end resting in this experience in meditation means dissolving into everything and experiencing deep bliss.
And of course the power devotion & social aspects of all religion can not be overlooked, good & bad.
My teachings are from Tibetan kind, which is more mystical & compassionate oriented then the southern countries which are more focus on self-actualization (they teach the Vispasanna retreats)
I don't say that it doesn't "work", but one should be aware of the limitation of mindfulness practices, and look at it just as one of the tools in a tool set to fight stress, not as a holy grail, like many of its proponents preach.
The mind has a natural tendency to zoom in on scary things. I guess that is our prey-animal heritage.
Certainly, for rightfully stressful situations immediate action is needed and mindfulness is not a solution, but in modern life almost all stress comes from the imagination. If you are not conscious of your own thinking fearful thoughts may suck you in indefinitely.
Mindfulness (and psychedelics) can greatly help with becoming (more) conscious of fearful thoughts and that enables you to deal with them constructively.
Clearly it depends on the type mindfulness. From the paper:
> mindfulness is typically defined as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment”. Core MBP elements are mindfulness meditation training, doing things mindfully such as eating or brushing one’s teeth, and collective and individual inquiry with a qualified teacher, using participatory learning processes.
Probably heightening consciousness while brushing your teeth is not the most direct way to mitigating stress.
No, stress is actually physiological. What your saying is limited to specific sources of stress.
There is no such thing as an external source of stress. You can't measure how much stress an object or situation is objectively emitting, because it is a response generated by the mind itself.
As such it can only be examined by the mind itself, and with that it can be mastered.
https://lassebomh.github.io/box-breathing/
If you scroll down there is a simple guide and some relaxing music. The site can also be installed as a PWA and added to your homescreen / desktop.
[Too Much Mindfulness Can Worsen Your Mental Health] https://www.verywellhealth.com/mindfulness-can-be-harmful-re...
Likewise, if not understood well, not accompanied by proper understanding (which is a symptom of the western approach), it can just be poorly performed.
Quality, not quantity.
If you can, meditate for 10 minutes a day.
If you're too busy, then meditate for 30 minutes a day.
Do you say the same thing about the gym, or sleep time? Are you too busy to rest in bed for 7-8 hours a night?
The "western way" is only (strictly) in opposition to Buddhism in the narrative you are subscribing to. The reality is that many Americans are acutely aware of just how toxic aspects of mainstream American culture. It is probably best to approach debate from this point of view, particularly if you want to convince people rather than simply pissing them off.
If someone says Buddhism is not for them - drop it. You don't understand their problems better than they do and your religion - like all religions - requires an irrational leap of faith whether you like it or not. This is off putting to a lot of people who favor rationality - particularly those who are so fed up with the aforementioned mainstream culture I describe (but don't subscribe to your religion).
Just to clarify again, my contention is not that you're arguing incorrectly per se. It is that you are being overconfident and righteous, which appears smug and indicates you aren't _really_ looking to empathize with contradicting points of view. It's rude. If I came up to you and told you about how Jesus was going to change your life, smiling the whole time and speaking only of the positives you might feel similarly? I don't know.
1) People who don't actually know what Mindfulness is, other than secondhand sources, word of mouth, etc.
2) People who've tried Mindfulness, and they know a little more than (1) due to direct experience, and possibly a minister who guided them.
3) People who were born into a family whose members fervently pratices Mindfulness, teach Mindfulness to others, and promote it in public.
Now let's see why people hate Mindfulness or say it's not for them.
(1) may say that it sounds weird or foreign, it can't be efficacious, it's too abstract, because they don't know what it's about.
(2) may say that it was hard to concentrate, they kept getting distracted, the classes were expensive, they traveled too far, they didn't feel it working fast enough, it was boring, too spiritual / not spiritual enough.
(3) perhaps their family life was bad, they were neglected or abused, their family members seemed to care more about Mindfulness than this person, and being that "Family" and "Mindfulness" are inextricably linked in their mind, they must reject Mindfulness because it's tarnished by the behavior of its adherents.
So I'd say, don't attack someone who is acting as an evangelist for something, because perhaps they act in good faith. Particularly in HN, this thread is optional for you and me, and so if you feel like it's proseltyzing, just flag it and move on, don't attack a guy because he believes that Emacs and Lisp are the best apps to install on your Linux machine.
> Understanding emptiness
The other points are valid to me, this one belongs in the realm of metaphysics for me.
Buddha said a lot of good things IMHO, but very questionable stuff too. "Monasteries are allowed to own slaves, individual monks not." for example. If you mention that, Buddhists get uneasy and/or defensive.
There is a nice App called Buddha Quotes on F-Droid. I recommend to install it via Foxy Droid:
> The other points are valid to me, this one belongs in the realm of metaphysics for me.
Isn't this something both the Buddha and modern science agree on? Matter if comprised of mostly empty space. It's physics, no meta.
But also emptiness as a meditative state (Samatha) can be experienced. Whether or not you end up believing it's the essence of reality, you can experience it as the essence of your experience through meditation.
>"The main goal of buddhism is giving you meaning & joy in life despite of stress or tragedy."
See. I'm a buddhist and don't agree with this at all.
Any links or book names to read more about this?
It's more focused on the compassion part. The mystical is something which is easy to find online, but hard to find someone with the experience.
But there are different schools, more focused on study, mediation etc. Some are more formal, others informal.
2) Essential Mind Training: Tibetan Wisdom for Daily Life translated by Thupten Jinpa.
You'll easily become a victim of people who exploit "caretakers". You'll become an unpaid servant. People need to look after themselves first.
A society of people acting as isolated islands because they all think that they’re out to get eachother is how society crumbles.
You can put others first with boundaries. You can put others first and remain vigilant. The “look after yourself first”. It’s all a false dichotomy, and the basis for an attitude that especially on this website tends to just be privileged tech workers justifying their own ambivalence toward one ethical issue or another.
Another way to think of it is to consider them and you as a single thing (a mandala) and improve that.
And of course Buddhists are not necessarily going to see being victimized as bad anyway. What's that to a monk?
There is a systematic effort to plagiarize from Indian traditions and then claim them to be rediscoveries of the West, inline with historical racist-supremacist constructions. You can see this historically across Mathematics, Astronomy and Medicine in very concrete terms. That they're now doing it with Yoga, Vipassana, Ayurveda etc. is quite disappointing.
Andrew Huberman at Stanford has an entire lab (and a very popular podcast) designed to rip off Indian traditions to the point where news-releases will neither mention the ripped off name, nor even mention India. The Americans will at-best mention 'South Asia' as if Pakistan/Bangladesh, who are actively genociding followers of India's native faiths, were creators of this.
They've also tried patenting Basmati and Turmeric and many other things. It's amusing to see 'alt-right' geniuses sell things like Ashwagandha/Turmeric and other Ayurvedic nutraceuticals to their 'Murcan audiences' while hating on Hindus as 'satan worshippers who are destroying US'.
On a more important note: this raises a big point. Modern 'Western culture' is not universal, but is in fact very much Christian and with that, has inherited its extremely deep-rooted and vicious irrational hate for so-called 'devil worshipping pagans'.
Western academics will never talk about cultures they've marked for destruction either. Very much like the Anglo-media almost never lets out the real reason for why they are going for war on random far-off countries (it's not 'democracy and freedom').
I moved out of the US when I realized all this and today generally avoid US/Europe, both for business and travel.
That's just inverting Tibetan Buddhism; if you wanted anyone to believe in something you invented there, you had to claim it was old and from India.
Old and from Tibet was okay sometimes, but only if you claimed your ancestor's spirits dictated it to you or pointed you to the ancient rock it was buried under. (these are called air and earth termas)
Buddhist ideology on the other hand is up to debate and everyone is free to try it or believe it.
Maybe in your experience meditation is enhanced by believing all that stuff, but that is your prerogative. I can do mindfulness and go to a psychologist instead of doing meditation and going to a temple because maybe that oriental stuff feels too alien and doesn't seem right to me.
You don't need to buy into the esoteric teachings, or even the core belief of reincarnation. But you don't have to reject them either. Just inform yourself on the basics and keep them in mind. "If this bit was true, what would the world be like? How would my actions impact the world? How would they impact my future self?"
In the end the whole point is reducing suffering, and the longer you wait for someone else to verify one claim or another, the longer you're going to be bound to your habitual suffering.
Really?
Therapy in itself has limited scientific backing (specific types for specific diagnosis often do). But it feels rational.
However the main point is: Buddhism, and all religions, focus on why you do what you do.
The Western Way is confusing, partially career & material, bit of humanism, etc. Now that's fine. You can figure it out in this system and some people do. But there is no clear road. There is freedom in that, but it comes with a huge amount of anxiousness & confusion.
The western reason for doing things: focusing on getting external circumstances in order (friends, career, house, family) will cause a huge amount of anxiety. Buddhism, and perhaps also Christianity, give non-personal teachings to elevate your focus to a point where it's less about what you do & who you are.
You don't have to believe me and can wait for science to figure this out. But seeing the rise of anxiety, depression & pill usage, I don't have much confidence in the current understanding of the Western world in mental health.
Is there a forum like Hacker News, but with no "talking out of your ass"?
How could the mechanics of a forum be set up to achieve this?
The thought "Is it a long term effect or just temporary?" is totally fine. But then just posting out of your ass does not help anyobody. A quick search for "months" in the meta study shows that they looked at effects during the 6 months after the intervention.
So I think many people together could come up with an interesting discussion. But it would mean everybody has to do some work.
This particular one does a lot of math which no one has the patience to verify. It just sounds smart, like the papers on nature.com that advertise probiotics.
If you trick yourself into being happy while being exploited by the system it may indeed work (that's why rulers liked Christianity as a tool for pacifying the masses). But you are not solving the underlying issues.
Well, the way you achieve a forum where nobody talks out of your ass is by making a forum without a submit button.
However I agree, it's absurd the level of quackery that takes over HN in these circumstances, as if one SV weirdo's magic mushroom trip invalidates decades of genuine research on what makes people stressed and the ways to mitigate that stress.
Nope, apparently we are just all following the wrong religion!
Well, it's quite true that sometimes instead of developing stress resilience you should simply get rid of the source of the stress.
I’ve seen the best results with niche email lists that actively moderate the discussion quality. But the results are mixed and I eventually decided that it’s a lost cause. People who don’t bring anything to the table tend to have more time on their hands to post nonsense.
I am giving my opinion on a random forum, not writing a study about mindfulness. I didn't even say anything controversial, a glance at the wikipedia page would list a bunch of criticism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness#Concerns_and_criti...
> Is there a forum like Hacker News, but with no "talking out of your ass"? > How could the mechanics of a forum be set up to achieve this?
For example, you could try not to be an asshole and not to "talk out of your ass". Be a change you want to see.
Btw, in your case, a mindfulness practice could actually help. Instead of pretending to be an angry internet gestapo, you can try some basic breathing practices for a few minutes.
Asking people to post their work and downvoting/flagging/banning them if they refuse.
This only makes sense if you assume that being stressed is a correct and useful response to your environment.
As a Christian, my contemplative practice is focused on the source of truth and life, Christ Jesus. There will still be suffering in this life, but it will pass away, and Christ will remain, our Source of peace and comfort.
My contemplative practice helps me prepare for that day by peeling away all the distractions and false trappings of everyday life, and discovering what is truly important. It is a journey of discovery, a journey of finding Jesus, and thereby finding my identity as a child of God.
I don't think anybody is advocating mindfulness as a response to an abusive spouse, but more of a "here's a tool to help you let go of work when you leave the office"
Especially among the HN crowd, I imagine I am not the only one thinking about how to move forward with a project or what I should say in tomorrows stand-up meeting.
There is no core issue to deal with. I can figure both out when I arrive at work tomorrow.
This isn't bad. One can take medicine to reduce a fever to help the body heal.
Nobody says "but reducing the fever is worthless, that is just treating a symptom".
None of which is possible for an App to do, because an App isn’t aware.
This outsourcing of basic human awareness and community to tech is quite concerning and actively harmful to our mental health IMO.
Buddhism is for me the religion people worshipping him created.
Now i get it! Thank you for explaining it that way!
This is my experience and it is true. Getting people to apply philosophy of other cultures without taking into account the context, it's a recipe for disaster. You can't blindly follow the advice of the OP in the western society - at least no without awareness and being vigilant that there are always people ready to exploit something that they perceive as weakness.
"I am the Word, the truth and the light. Nobody get's to the father (ie god) then through me." Ascribed to Jesus, whos' life story got written down 40 years later.
> facets of truth
Since Immanuel Kant we "know", that we can never get to the truth, since our senses are easily fooled. The basis of rational science for me. We can only say what is least likely to be wrong.
[Addendum] Socrates knew he knew nothing.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness#Concerns_and_criti
Nothing in that Wiki link supports your claim that mindfulness doesn't fight the root cause of distress. The 'Scholarly Research' subsection says reviewers want more reproducing studies with larger sample sizes and better randomization (they always do), the 'Shortcomings' subsection claims it's too commercialized and departs from Buddhist practice (so what?), and the 'Risks' subsection describes some side effects that are proven rare in the literature.
The Buddhist critiques are closest, but are largely framed as a critique of authenticity rather than efficacy.
You're entitled to you tone, and your initial comment is valid, yes, but it's way to much assertive. Respecting people you're discussing with implies two things: strong assertion needs objective backup, opinions comes with deference.
If not, then, people feeling disrespected are entitled to their (civil) call for proper etiquette, whatever how it stings your ego. You both failed.
And yes, I sort of deliberately put this comment here to see how HN users react if their believes or their bussiness model are seemingly "attacked".
The unconscious is the mind too.
Body and mind are interdependent, without mind the body would be dead.
No, I think this is meaningless. What you're refering to is the brain. Positing a subcoscious mind adds nothing to the explanatory model since everything this supposed entity does is already done by the brain and pretty well understood at that. Occam's razor. You're stuck in old Cartesian metaphysics (dualism and parallelism) which has been superceded by better scientific undetstandings for quite a while now.
except when you tell someone they should try mindfulness and they look at you as if it was voodoo crap
I say to each their own, so long as "their own" does not harm others. If Buddhism works for someone, cool. If going to a psychologist works, also cool. When it comes to mental health, I think we can all agree that a one-size-fits-all solution doesn't exist.
That mindfulness-based programs show promise in reducing distress isn't changed by the fact that the people who can simply remove their stress sources from their life. Go ahead and do that. Now let's talk about everyone else.
Someone who is practicing contemplation should not be held prisoner by a robot voice or a glowing screen, but instead reach an inner presence of God, and His stillness encompassing all that we experience during that sacred time.
It is absolutely necessary to shut out every distraction possible. At the same time, we acknowledge that the practitioner will be distracted in some way, not through his own fault, and we must learn the proper response to fleeting distractions. But to purposely tether yourself to a created, pagan object is to invite failure from the outset.
No it isn't.
> to distract us and hold our attention. Even with a well-behaved app on it, it's still designed and configured to constantly beep and whistle and send notifications, and fly into our hand and compel us to doomscroll something unimportant.
That doesn't match my experience in over the decade of using smartphones.
> Someone who is practicing contemplation should not be held prisoner by a robot voice or a glowing screen
A smartphone is a tool.
> but instead reach an inner presence of God, and His stillness encompassing all that we experience during that sacred time.
Buddhism is non-theistic. There is no God.
> But to purposely tether yourself to a created, pagan object is to invite failure from the outset.
Is this meant as satire? I mean, pagan? Really?
This is a bold and untrue statement. There's every kind of Buddhism possible out there. Pure Land is pretty theistic…
So, where is the problem here? Maybe you are arguing an uninformed strawman.
I could argue the same thing about going to a place of worship. You are surrounded by people (the thing that biologically distracts us the most since we crave social interactions) that make sounds or move about, plus sometimes there is a master guiding people in their practice.
Isn't that the textbook definition of distracting? Why can you magically ignore a whole drove of people around you but somehow a silenced smartphone is just too much to handle? Double standard much.
> instead reach an inner presence of God, and His stillness encompassing all that we experience during that sacred time
>pagan object
this is just baseless cultist talk
The idea of corporate worship is that the assembly is united in their purpose, there is an order observed, and the people develop discipline from this orderly worship. Also, people are not machines and that's disgusting that you draw this analogy.
People may distract, even in that situation. Many have their minds elsewhere, some don't want to be there, someone may even be actively disruptive. But corporate worship is not usually contemplative meditation.
I have been in worship sessions where silence is strictly enforced, and there is no master guiding an order of prayer. This adoration is always in a group setting. Hey, I've even used my device sometimes to look up Bible verses. It's not sterile.
But if someone is sitting at home, alone, the best practice is to shut out unnecessary distractions to the extent that it is possible. And your phone obeys its corporate master. A mobile device is not under the control of the user holding it.
Hesychasm, and in modern times, Centering Prayer as well, are not without controversy. There are people who accuse us of attempting to "empty the mind" and push out all thought, but my goal is to fill my mind with Christ's abiding presence and peace, shifting focus away from my ego and physical body.
Focusing first on the breath is a fundamental building block of this technique, but it is thoroughly a spiritual technique. To rob this contemplative prayer of its Christocentric nature is to eviscerate all meaning and all purpose from it as well.
Mindfulness is not merely a meditation technique, even when understood by mental health clinicians. It is a state of being in the moment and aware of what we're doing, and why, while we're doing it. Mindfulness is especially helpful to people who tend to dissociate, such as a defense against emotional flashbacks or stressful situations. Contemplative prayer is also a way of life and a state of mind, and likewise helpful for this, but only when it's been practiced on the regular, because under stress, we revert to our basic training and become reactive, so it is necessary to internalize those breathing techniques and exercise control of conscious thought.
Many people, myself included, don't realize that we are in control of our thought processes. It's common to helplessly obsess and ruminate over something good or bad. It's common to expend so much energy on unproductive thinking. But there is a more excellent way. Saint Paul tells us: "the weapons of our battle are not of flesh but are enormously powerful, capable of destroying fortresses. We destroy arguments and every pretension raising itself against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive in obedience to Christ..." (2 Cor 10:4-5).
The Philokalia Vol 5 [1]
I started reading more on it after reading The Experience of God[2]
I was suprised to find out there was a breathing component as well and being so close to the eastern meditation practices.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09X9HRWXH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E64EH0K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
Some languages are better than others for this purpose. Latin and Greek have excellent word formations with good vowel sounds, and these languages easily become legato, connected syllables throughout a smooth phrase. English and German, not so much. The Eastern Churches worship using the vernacular tongues, or sometimes using sacred, ancient languages, and so YMMV there.
The Rosary itself is a meditation and a regulation of breath. Jesus admonished us not to "babble like the pagans" because their "many words" were meaningless and fruitless, calling upon created things, rather than the Creator. So praying the Rosary (auricular, in groups) is not liturgical, but it is a discipline. The leader chants half of the prayer, then the participants chant the other half, and they take turns breathing. It is an intimate, primal, profound experience in itself, but the breathing is not a mere goal or object. The object is to enter into each Mystery, meditating upon its meaning for us, in full context: the context of the prayer, the place and time, our individual lives, and the life of the Church herself.
> Focusing first on the breath is a fundamental building block of this technique, but it is thoroughly a spiritual technique. To rob this contemplative prayer of its Christocentric nature is to eviscerate all meaning and all purpose from it as well.
So you've robbed mindfulness of its "budacentric" nature and it still works but if we rob it of the christocentric nature that you've added it wont work?
> It is a state of being in the moment and aware of what we're doing, and why, while we're doing it.
This is basically what every western source also says so I don't see why you think that "western" mindfulness doesn't work.
Buddhist contemplative traditions predate Christianity, and arose in distinct geographic locations, so nobody's de-Buddhizing anything here. Authentic understanding of the practices doesn't need to be a sectarian monopoly.
The uniquely indifferent, secular practice of "cafeteria Mindfulness" is the only novelty. It's exactly the M.O. of science: dissect a living thing and run tests until you think you know what substance makes it tick, then you isolate it, independently synthesize that substance, patent it, mass produce it, and then you wonder why you've got such shitty results in practice, and then you cover that up along with the adverse side effects, and charge the insurance companies triple profits.
As somebody who doesn't practice mindfulness but has read a fair bit about it this sounds like a strawman. What I've read is about internal circumstances that have a spill over effect on external. Which doesn't sound much different than the eastern teachings.
> You don't have to believe me and can wait for science to figure this out.
This discussion is happening under a link to a scientific paper ... what are we waiting and what is wrong with this paper that is being discussed?
Dualism is proposing that there is a clear division between mind and body, which is your original claim that I'm debating.
You're making a division between mind and body, stating that stress can occur without the mind.
Meditation is a very personal experience and strangely many people are telling eachother how it "should" be done. As if their way, which works for them personally, is the only way.
I find the direct involvement of a digital device to be somewhat unnerving and distracting. I use my Apple iPhone with my paid app about 50% of the time.
Frankly, why not just leave it out of the room? Oh, except for the app I guess.