If you don't have access to meditation center book "Mindfulness in plain english" seems like not newagey introduction to the subject.
It describes Vipassana. It's almost like Zazen, but slightly different. In my understanding Zazen is Mahayana buddhism version of Vipassana, which comes from Theravada buddhism, but I am just a begginer so I can be horribly wrong.
One thing which I notice the most is increased ability to deal with distractions and staying focused on boring subjects . It is essentially what one practices during meditation. Dealing with distractions is very important skill for programmer: http://blog.ninlabs.com/2013/01/programmer-interrupted/ . What's more it's kind of skill, that is hard to develop without active practice. I can't think of better way of developing it than meditation.
Good stuff. Sitting still for 60-90 minutes has the purpose of eliminating the distractions from paying attention to your body. This practice also has the benefit of hopefully allowing the ego to settle some, and perhaps even allowing the baseline level that the ego is engaged to be less - or start towards that path anyhow. As you said, stress still maintains the same - it actually will feel potentially even more vivid, though that is likely counter-acted with the ability to process things easier. Learning other things, and doing deeper guided meditations and breath work, like yoga nidra - is a good way to lessen that. Physical movement, asanas - or yoga as a whole, meditation being a part of yoga - is a good way to help physically-caused stress and baseline stress reduce; There's a biofeedback mechanism: tight muscles tells your mind you're stressed, you being stressed tells your muscles to be tight. "Nice" little loop there.
my thoughts as a yoga practitioner:
Yoga is, first and foremost, a meditative practice. What separates it from sitting meditation is that the "hack" it employs not only combines breath awareness, but an ACTIVE breath/body/mind awareness. By moving through asanas, still using the breath as the "guide", one's awareness becomes on breath, on muscle, on bone, on gravity, balance, and all the subtleties of the mind and body's reactions. For example, one begins to "feel" what it is like for the subconscious to instinctively tighten muscles under slight distress, and learn how to gain increasing control over these subconscious processes as one's awareness becomes ever more focused and relaxed. Another example is one learns to feel "losing their breath" when they have lost attention to it and their body, and are stressing themselves out.
An interesting TED talk describes the seat of awareness as a primitive network of neurons in the brainstem and body, the network that gives one a sense of "I am" and experiences the rest of the neurological processes.
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/70236306?strkid=1954165956...
If true, meditation and yoga can be thought of as techniques that progressively still the later evolved "higher" thought processes, and turns one's awareness back into the experiential parts of the mind. Yoga is simply a very active and tactile meditation hack, that provides strong stimulation responses through the nerve network that one is training to become more actively connected.
In keeping with others who are mentioning / linking to books about non-new-age meditation, try the book by the Psychologists in the mindfulness movement:
It's a great book that leads you through the first 8 weeks of meditating, and contains meditation aid audio clips for various scenarios. The most useful I've found is the 3 minute "breathing space" meditation, particularly for that noisy bus - you need good noise excluding ear buds though.
If you don't like the speaking audio, and/or you've practiced enough not to need the prompts, you should check out Simply Noise:
It certainly seems like you got a lot out of meditation. My own practice is similar (20 mins most days for a few years and 130 days consecutively now), but I think in a different Zen tradition.
I've found in practice that I have most success when I treated emotional highs and lows as irrelevant. The books I've read all suggest that the point is to focus on ordinary life, not search for ever deeper trance states, and my experience has been that trance states are transient while ordinary life goes on always. Taking my meditation in that direction has tended to make it gentler, lower-impact, but longer-lasting. At least it feels that way.
If you ever meditate differently, it would be interesting to see you contrast any new effects with the ones you've already experienced.
I found your essay fascinating, by the way, particularly your precision in analysis. It's what I might call first-person science :)
Firstly, why do you think it's worth it and do you notice a substantial difference in your life when you stop for whatever reason?
Secondly every time I read something like this, or talk to people that meditate, it seems extremely unscientific and filled with subjective analysis. Can you point me to something that would convince me that it has real world benefits, past that of taking a nap, or stopping for 45 minutes to think about your day/life.
It's worth it to me because I have seen significant shifts in my baseline sensory clarity, concentration, and equanimity. These improvements benefit everything I do every moment of the day.
try doing your own experiment and just do it, I'm pretty sure you can find 20 minutes a day to set aside for it. The first thing that you will notice is that it is TOUGH, but after several weeks you'll start to gain moments of clarity and eventually it will "click" and you'll get it. Or it wont, and you can just move on
Actually since this thread I've been doing 30-45 minutes a day as an experiment. I have done meditation before alone and with a group, but never to this extent. While it's far too early to comment on how it's going without bias, I can say I have noticed several personal improvements that I believe I can attribute to the meditation. These mostly stem from applying mindfulness to my everyday life, which seems to be different to your experiences, but then again it has only been 2 weeks.
So far I find it more than worth the time investment, and at this point the 45 minutes flys by.
Thank you for putting this together and sharing it. I've been flirting with the idea of meditating more seriously for the last few years, and I always find myself making excuses not to continue with it. A 50 or 100 day challenge seems like a manageable experiment, and a better way of deciding if it's worthwhile to continue.
I have a question. Could you explain "The Deep" in a little bit more detail? What happens to your body and your mind? What is going through your head?
Thanks; feel free to join the group and start posting.
The Deep is sort of a 2nd plateau, the first being basically just an awareness of your mind being (very) noticeably stiller, ie "Hey, my thoughts have stopped--cool." The 1st plateau would occur usually at the 30 minute mark.
The Deep would occur a bit after that, usually at the 45-60 minute mark, occasionally sooner, and it is like the 1st plateau, only much more so--almost like if you were actually scuba diving and you had gone deep enough into the water that you could just barely see the light of the sun above you. The first plateau is characterized by stillness, but The Deep is a profound stillness, stillness to the 2nd power. It struck me, because I realized I had never experienced a stillness like this before in my life.
Body and mind are secondary and not thought of--in fact nothing whatsoever is going through my head, except the awareness of the stillness and calm. Breathing is barely perceptible, heartbeat not felt. It is a significantly refreshing experience.
when i see the words 'challenge' and 'meditation' being used in the same sentence, an alarm goes of in my head.
i'm too tired to go into details right now, but if you're interested in where i'm coming from, or in meditation in general, i highly recommend giving this book a read:
Clark Strand cuts right to the heart of meditation, without dogma, gurus, religion, beliefs, or any of the other gunk that gets in the way of sincere and honest practice. In a beautiful style reminiscent of Thich Nhat Hanh, Strand has created the ideal meditation companion and guide. While Strand is probably among the few teachers who would never invite a following, he most certainly deserves one. If you read no other book on meditation, read this one. If you have other books on meditation, put them on the back shelf and read this one. If you have never meditated before and want a book to teach you how, read this one. This is the only meditation guide you will ever need. It is superb!
I was in SE-Asia and went to a few temples to meditate. One time I reached that deep state very quickly. I suppose it had to do with the sound of falling water nearby.. If you ever go to a Buddhist country I suggest you visit a course. It's quite cool. There was one teacher that has shown us how to meditate while walking. It was surprisingly good and I didn't walk into any walls or pillars while doing it.. ;)
It's interesting that the environment you're in could have an effect on how long it takes to get to The Deep; I believe it.
Meditating while walking sounds interesting but it also seems like it could be quite hard to control heart rate. Of course, maybe that's not as big of an issue as I make it out to be. In any case I'll have to try it sometime. Do you have a link to any further source of information about it?
If you are so out of shape that the walking causes you discomfort, then walk slower. Same if you feel your heart rate is too quick to allow you to stay calm.
Other than than that, there's no reason to worry about heart rate.
Only because it seemed to be closely tied to entering The Deep. But of course, it's possible that reduced heartrate is an effect rather than a cause of the meditative state, so I'll certainly try it out.
Very interesting read. I practiced meditation for a couple of months, but only for 15-30 minutes a day. I haven't researched too much, but the idea of "The Deep" as you describe makes the challenge seem worthy. Side question: how did your wife feel about you taking on a lengthy challenge that forced celibacy?
Thank you. Getting to The Deep made a big difference, but it took around 30 days before I got there.
My wife was remarkably cool about it, but of course, if you read the end of the article, you can see that I didn't quite make it all the way. =) What she didn't like so much, was that between 6-7pm I was not available to help out with making dinner.
"The Deep" sounds to me like the first or second Jhana from your description. But note that there are also a number of blissfull states that are generally seen as you being "sidetracked". If your goal is the bliss, then that is of course fine. If your goal is continuing to deeper meditation states, it is not a given that focusing on re-entering that state is a good idea.
As for your "forehead catching fire" that sounds like it could be related to concept of the acquired sign or counter sign (basically "images", though they need not be visual, that come to signal certain mental states), though for it to persist outside of meditation sounds odd.
The bliss seemed like a side-effect; it was nice but I wasn't trying to elicit it as much as it was generated by the calm.
Yeah, the forehead-flame was/is really bizarre. I did some Google searches for it and didn't find much of anything that didn't seem like pseudo-science (look up "Ajna chakra" and you'll see what I mean...)
It's always hard to convey to people that it was very different from a mental image / thought / feeling in that it actually feels tactile, in the same way that if you had a rock in your shoe, you wouldn't confuse it for anything else--I just don't know what this "rock" is made of; it could certainly be a creation of my mind, but it doesn't present itself that way. It's easy to ignore, so I ignore it.
In certain forms of Theravadin practice, the bliss is the "engine" which motivates the concentration on the target object. Fostering the bliss does tend to make it much easier to settle down, particularly when the mind is disturbed.
Interesting read. Based on the author's findings, I'm not sure if I could justify it. I feel like there's probably something better I could do, especially if the effects of meditation aren't as noticeable outside of your meditation period as the author suggests. Still worth a shot at some point I guess.
What the OP failed to do with his practice, which is a cornerstone of classic buddhist, yoga, and hindu practices, is that once one gains enough skill at the sitting or asana practice one is supposed to start progressively expanding the practice to daily life. You do the 30 minute meditation thing everyday until you start to get the hang of it, then you expand that to walking or asana meditation, then start doing breath check ins throughout the day and gradually expand mindfullness to as many activities as you can. I do it washing dishes, sitting in traffic, listening to people, etc. There are little tricks to help, I make up games for myself that essentially bring me to some kind of awareness about the present moment without getting lost in the normal thought garbage. Games like, count how many times I say "I" in this conversation, can I do the dishes while counting 5 counts on each inhale/exhale, where is the balance on my feet at when I am walking/standing in line, etc. These are tricks that train the mind to start to gain ever more mindful awareness of the present moment, which is training the mind to essentially do the meditation thing during daily life. It the most beneficial practice I've ever found, because it makes you better at literally EVERYTHING. Its giving you the ability to be more conscious of everything you do, without reacting mindlessly to everything, and an ever more subtle experience of life. Trading up to manual transmission driving and higher resolution vision
I feel like there's probably something better I could do, especially if the effects of meditation aren't as noticeable outside of your meditation period as the author suggests.
Not to diminish the OP's accomplishment, but he only meditated for 100 days. Even if you're as disciplined as he was, you're only scratching the surface at 3 months. If you want the perennial peace of a monk or a master, that takes years. But it's about the process and the work as much as the result.
Most of us have decades of conditioning in a high-stress, competitive society (and, if you believe in karma, possibly eons of difficult karma). We're also evolved to survive in a much harsher environment than the one we're in now. You're not going to undo all of that in 3 months, but you can make a surprising amount of progress.
To me, meditation seems like an entirely self serving activity. As an analogy (and probably not a very good one) what if electrons began to meditate 60 minutes per day? They lose their charge and basically do nothing? Or what if birds and bees began to meditate? I think the result of all that would be pretty obvious.
You could say something similar about sleep. Yet our bodies and minds need sleep to recharge. I could say something similar about meditation, but it's something you must experience. If you're curious, try it and see what happens, an experiment, as it were.
Your first error is assuming that meditation is "doing nothing". Meditation is an attempt to get past the shallow chatter of mostly negative thoughts that drains us, and closer to the deeper nature of mind.
Perhaps the electron, which fulfills its physical contract perfectly, is already in a state of pure meditation. Who knows?
As for whether animals meditate and what would happen if they did, I have no idea.
Meditation is best learned with a good teacher. I highly recommend Bhante Vimalaramsi at http://www.dhammasukha.net/
I recently did a 5 day retreat and it was life changing. He makes meditation practical, fun and rewarding.
Interesting read, thanks. I'm curious about meditation not helping with everyday stress, outside of your "force field" time. Do you have any thoughts on why there wasn't a halo effect?
It's hard to say--I definitely expected there to be more of an after-effect, so it was a little disappointing to realize that that wasn't going to happen. I think a lot of it has to do with the setting in which I live and work--big cities simply have a lot of stressors in them: noise, crowds, cars, etc., that are all triggers for me. At the time I was also managing a group of co-workers, and the responsibilities that came with it also were stressful.
I think I would have been able to persist the state longer if I lived in a suburb where I could avoid those things more readily.
I've been practicing meditation for a long time off and on. I've gone months with sitting every day. I've had stretches where I sat an hour a day. I've participated in mediation retreats. One new concept that I'm trying to put in place relates directly to the point about how just sitting every day doesn't change the stress level at work. It's the idea of trying to break away the practice of awareness from the cushion and spread it out during the day. It's really simple, but I've found it very difficult to practice. It's 5 "moments" a day you remember to "meditate." Basically this moments should lass from 15 seconds to a minute, and you just try and gain awareness of whatever is present in that moment.
To me this could promise some powerful benefits, beyond just sitting every day. But thus far, I've found it very hard to do this 5 times a day. Anyone ever try this?
There are tons of micro exercises you can come up, the trick is to "catch" yourself as often as possible every day. screw the 5 times, just try to max out every day. Dont stop what you're doing, just start to become conscious of what you're doing. The breath is the key. Its tough but it works.
To me this could promise some powerful benefits, beyond just sitting every day. But thus far, I've found it very hard to do this 5 times a day. Anyone ever try this?
This sounds really interesting.
Something I'd like to strive for is more purity in experiences. What I mean is that when I go swimming, I shouldn't be thinking about work. When I'm at work, I shouldn't be thinking about my next swim.
I'm far from qualified to opine on this topic, but it seems to me that the "most meditative" practice is to do whatever you're doing well, with intent, and free of pollution from other influences, i.e. "when I sleep, I sleep; when I eat, I eat".
The Deep (to me) is a lot like being in a coding flow, or that blissed-out feeling you get an hour or two into a long bike ride or a swim.
Now to bounce off this. I think that there may actually be a difference between what this practice can do for you and the experience of being in the flow. However, I think they are closely related. My idea of what it means to be the flow, you are, in a sense, not acting from your conscious "I" mind, but just kind of acting without acting. This is the whole Taoist Wu-Wei concept. But really, you are coming from the space from which thought arises, rather than the thought itself.
So when you are in the flow with coding, swim, or bike ride, you are in the midst of an action that granted you access to this state. But you did not actually consciously enter this directly state by choice.
But the I think the trap can be that you can only access this when you are doing things that lead to being in the flow. What about being able to enter this state when you are really upset about something or when things are going badly, or when you are bored, or when you are doing something compulsively.
The practice I believe is trying to access this state at random times of the day, and especially in those times when you are not engaged in an activity that lends itself to this awareness, but actually engaged in activities that do the opposite (such as being annoyed at someone).
The idea is that you are building this muscle that allows you to access the "flow" more and more and eventually maybe realize that in some way can always access the space from which thought arises, because that space must always exist.
But again, this is theory. Practice is hard. I'll take a moment now.
The concept for this came from this ebook. I've only skimmed it.
I believe the flow state is essentially an active meditation. One accesses it by stilling the blah blah thought mind and ego enough to allow the subconscious to freely flow into action. There are plenty of ways to do this, in fact I've found boring repetition is great for it (I play piano). Above all else though, meditation is probably the best practice, since that trains one to be still enough to allow deeper parts of the mind to "flow" freer whilst maintaining enough focus that one isn't derailed by every possible distraction that could arise. And I also agree with you on the "muscle" training throughout the day. This state is always available, and the trick to being a baddass at life is to be able to find it NO MATTER WHAT else is going on. The only way to train that is to do in distracting situations. This is why I like yoga, because there's a bunch of other crap going on that I have to "overcome" with focus and stillness of mind. Only then will the asana make sense and I'll access that state, and that same training makes me better at it for rest of my daily activities. Kind like how doing math also makes you good a solving problems in general, or reading/writing literature makes you more emotionally intelligent.
I probably got a sit or two per month in after that, so I didn't stop completely, but I slowed down mainly because I got a new job that I liked and so I let myself get completely sucked into it and ended up working later hours.
I also wanted to continue to be social and that meant going out and having a beer every once in a while. Those two things really crowded out the 6-7pm time slot that I had for sitting.
I wish it were easier for me to sit in the morning, but alas. I'm hoping to restart the practice with the 2nd Annual /r/meditation sit this coming January.
Have you considered using a daylight lamp in the morning (with about 10k lux)? Looking into it should stop melatonin production and give you nice caffeine-free mental kickstart. I use mine for 10-20 minutes every morning and I think it has helped me staying off the caffeine (it even seems to increase my blood pressure which is quite low without caffeine).
I started meditating recently after reading MIPE. I'll try to find a teacher as soon as I can. What got hooked me up was some research that it improves cognitive performance: http://www.gwern.net/docs/dnb/2010-zeidan.pdf . There's some evidence that long term meditation changes structure of the brain and improves mood and attention outside of meditation practice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_activity_and_meditation#C... . This post seems like good encouragement as well: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/38947/is-prac... .
One thing which I notice the most is increased ability to deal with distractions and staying focused on boring subjects . It is essentially what one practices during meditation. Dealing with distractions is very important skill for programmer: http://blog.ninlabs.com/2013/01/programmer-interrupted/ . What's more it's kind of skill, that is hard to develop without active practice. I can't think of better way of developing it than meditation.