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Perhaps Matadora might realise this and make the distinction between discussing the benefits and motivations of meditation and focus more on a discussion of what it _actually is_ which appears to be what you are asking. Then you can talk with each other - instead of painfully past each other as we have so far observed.
Meditation is a means of transforming the mind. Buddhist meditation practices are techniques that encourages and develops concentration, clarity, emotional positivity, and a calm seeing of the true nature of things. By engaging with a particular meditation practice you learn the patterns and habits of your mind, and the practice offers a means to cultivate new, more positive ways of being. With regular work and patience these nourishing, focused states of mind can deepen into profoundly peaceful and energized states of mind. Such experiences can have a transformative effects and can lead to a new understanding of life.
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Originally Posted by monumentus
This is the kind of rhetoric that comes into conversations on spirituality and meditation - but which comes across as woo nonsense and is very rarely explained or unpacked too clearly. What "realm" are we talking about here - what is a multidimensional consciousness exactly - what does it mean to suggest multiple lifetimes?
I hear you but I am not a woo woo person. I stay clear of that.
According to the String Theory we have been taught that there are 10 dimensions. (M Theory says there are 11). I think there are more than this in our Universe. This is what the multidimensional aspect means.
If someone asked you to explain consciousness, could you do it? Very, very smart people have spent their entire careers trying to understand the answer to that question. It is surprising that something we all experience is so hard to explain.
I don't exactly know how to describe it other than a conscious energy force that exists all around us and throughout the Universe.
Most humans today are disconnected from this energy for many reasons but mainly because of the god awful dream that we have created for ourselves to exist in.
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Originally Posted by monumentus
I think this risks being misleading to the point of being entirely false. Meditation is generally not in fact about not thinking of feeling. At all. Attention-focused or mindfullness meditation for example is in fact about focusing thought on a particular focal point - an idea, concept or emotion. Not ceasing it altogether. Even the two links you yourself provided state this.
When you focus your attention on quieting your mind you are not thinking if you accomplish this feat. You are not sitting there thinking to yourself "mind be quite" You are not thinking anything when you have your attention focused on a quite mind.
Mindfulness is not the same as quieting your mind as you do in deep meditation. Instead mindfulness is focusing your attention on whatever it is you are doing. Walking, washing dishes, planting your garden...vs. being on autopilot when you do these things. This is not the same as quieting your mind. Until you have achieved a quiet mind during deep meditation then you will not understand what it's like.
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Originally Posted by monumentus
So it is quite misleading and false to inform people that if they are thinking - or experiencing emotion - during meditation - that they are not doing it right. A falsehood that is not only wrong - but is the basis for the majority of drop outs trying it and then giving it up.
I call rubbish on this. It's not misleading. If you are thinking while trying to achieve a focused quiet mind then you are not achieving the goal. You can't speak for what I experience during deep meditations. If I am thinking or feeling emotions then I know that I am not in deep meditation.
You are confusing mindfulness meditation, which are woo words, with focusing your attention on what ever it is you are physically doing. This is not the same as sitting down and quieting your mind and going into a deep trance meditative state of mind. Apples and Oranges.
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Originally Posted by monumentus
Jon Kabat-Zinn for example in his book tells us how many people falsely think that meditation is about having yourself in a mental boat and causing the seas around you to be entirely calm. He suggests a more accurate image is that meditation is about levitating the boat above the sea to a point where you can observe it - think about it - but not be a slave to the vagaries of it's currents and eddies.
Wildmind.org add to this saying "When meditation brings us to the point where self-talk ceases, the mind is anything but blank. Instead it’s full — full of an awareness of those sensations, feelings, emotions, and images." It is the opposite of ceasing emotions and thoughts - but instead ceasing that endless internal dialogue of subjective self evaluation and neurosis that goes along with thought and emotion.
Susan Piver also writes on the lay error that meditation means you stop thinking by drawing on the boat on the ocean analogy. She writes that "Fearing your own mind is like the ocean fearing waves." and goes on to say "meditation is not about ceasing thought - - - Perhaps the destination is just this: a mind that is utterly relaxed within itself. All the great dharma teachers tell us it is so."
Shizen Young goes on to write "The issue is not so much the presence or absence of thought activity during meditation. Rather, the issue is the degree to which ones thought activity is driven, unconscious and fixated." and Wendy Hasenkamp adds to this with " it is not about achieving a blissed out, “empty” state of mind. Cessation of thinking is possible (or so I hear), but I see this as more of a side effect, if and when it ever occurs. To me, meditation is actually a process—one of investigating your own mind and changing the way you relate to your thoughts."
Yes I have read all of these and no where did I claim the mind is empty and blank. Not thinking and being in a trance does not equate to a blank mind as if it were a dead non active brain. Having awareness is not the same thing as rambling mind talk. I disagree with most of what you post since this is not what I'm experiencing when I meditate. I am not feeling emotions, I am not thinking and as I go into trance I might see some images but once I am there I no longer see images.
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Originally Posted by monumentus
So let us go back to Grandstanders original question:
I think by now it's been covered pretty well.
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Originally Posted by monumentus
There really is no distinction to be made. Meditation is a methodology of thinking - a way to train ones moment to moment attentions to not become a slave to thought and ongoing internal dialogue in a way that the majority of us are. It teaches us to notice thoughts - desires - and emotions as they arise in us and rather than be a slave to them - to cup them like a butterfly in our mental hands - observe them - not their properties and beauty - and then let them move on.
This is not accurate at all.
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Originally Posted by monumentus
Meditation is about the training of ones moment to moment attentions to stream line and subdue that ongoing discourse. To live and thinking in ones direct moment - and focus on it. And the benefits of doing so - are as others have already outlined. You do this not by NOT thinking - as has been suggested - but focusing your thought and noticing how and when your mind strays from the object of your focus - before then leading it back onto the track you had set it on before and keeping it there.
As I mentioned above, once you reach that deep level of meditation you are no longer thinking...you have shut down your mind chatter. It takes a lot of practice and patience to achieve this. It's not easy but it can be attained.
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Originally Posted by monumentus
It is just stuff people have made up - usually motivated by genuinely real and moving experiences of things like joy - interconnectedness - and universal love that can careen into the mind in moments of deeper meditation. And you can not only be forgiven for - but I infact heavily share - the frustration and impatience you feel with the complete spiritual clap-trap that hovers around the subject of meditation like insects around rubbish dumps - often supported by sciencey sounding words like "Dimensions" and "Bio feedback" and other words that contain a LOT less than the speaker wants you to think - and add even less to the conversation.
It seems you have issues with certain nouns. These nouns are not woo or sciencey. Perhaps you should look into how these words were derived.
It's fundamentalism. And if these are the same people criticizing Christian fundamentalism, then it's hypocrisy.
Quite the contrary. I'm constantly begging to have my atheist position utterly destroyed. I'll be the first to convert to theism if given evidence that the universe is controlled by a god. I just haven't seen the evidence yet.
If you have evidence for the existence for one or more gods, let's see it. Until then, I'm a skeptic. In the same way you are skeptical of the existence of Santa Claus. I don't call you a "fundamentalist" for not believing in Santa, because that would be ridiculous. Unlike the typical Christian or Muslim fundamentalist, Santa skeptics have no Absolute Unquestionable Beliefs that are Absolutely True Just Because We Say So.
We usually don't call Santa skeptics "fundamentalists," we call them "normal."
I'm constantly begging to have my atheist position utterly destroyed.
Why would other atheists - those who aren't fundamentalist - want to "destroy" your position? Why would live-and-let-live agnostics and theists want to "destroy" your position? Heck - a core value of my faith is summed up in a quote attributed to 16th century minister Francis David, "We need not think alike to love alike." What you seem to have not noticed is that it isn't about you - it is about how you regard others. It isn't about trying to "destroy" you but rather teaching you the illegitimacy of trying to "destroy" others, when the matters at hand are unknowns and unknowables, such as the meaning-making of other people's lives.
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Originally Posted by Freak80
I'll be the first to convert to theism if ...
Again, it isn't about you; it isn't about trying to get you to convert or change the way you regard the mysteries. It's about getting you to change the way you regard people who regard the mysteries differently from you.
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Originally Posted by Freak80
We usually don't call Santa skeptics "fundamentalists," we call them "normal."
There's a difference between skepticism and fundamentalism. Many of those folks whose position you have taken to ridicule are skeptics - questioning both the dogmatic insistence of fundamentalist Christianity and the dogmatic insistence of your fundamentalist atheism. To be an honest skeptic you have to be able to say, "I don't know," rather than just, "There's no proof," and that means you have to recognize and accept the difference between those two statements.
Also, it is important to note that suspecting everyone else of trying to "destroy" you isn't "normal".
I am not feeling emotions, I am not thinking and as I go into trance I might see some images but once I am there I no longer see images.
I think by now it's been covered pretty well.
This is not accurate at all.
As I mentioned above, once you reach that deep level of meditation you are no longer thinking.
I'm not asking this facetiously, but seriously.
Given what you've described, how do you know you haven't actually just dozed off?
I purposely did not say sleep since I think most can relate to instances of 'blanking out' ,coming to and not feeling as if they had been asleep...just zoned out.
But, you are in a religious and spirituality forum, where people, including atheists, come to share and discuss their own ideas about religion and spirituality. That people in this settling will defend their own beliefs and ideas, perhaps even zealously, is hardly a reason to assume they do so out of pride or fear. But, if "otherizing" is seriously a concern to you, integrity should cause you to acknowledge that it's hardly the exclusive domain of the non-atheists in this forum.
Of course it's not exclusive to theists. And I have been known to disagree with unbelievers on this very point from time to time.
Why would other atheists - those who aren't fundamentalist - want to "destroy" your position? Why would live-and-let-live agnostics and theists want to "destroy" your position? Heck - a core value of my faith is summed up in a quote attributed to 16th century minister Francis David, "We need not think alike to love alike." What you seem to have not noticed is that it isn't about you - it is about how you regard others. It isn't about trying to "destroy" you but rather teaching you the illegitimacy of trying to "destroy" others, when the matters at hand are unknowns and unknowables, such as the meaning-making of other people's lives.
Again, it isn't about you; it isn't about trying to get you to convert or change the way you regard the mysteries. It's about getting you to change the way you regard people who regard the mysteries differently from you.
There's a difference between skepticism and fundamentalism. Many of those folks whose position you have taken to ridicule are skeptics - questioning both the dogmatic insistence of fundamentalist Christianity and the dogmatic insistence of your fundamentalist atheism. To be an honest skeptic you have to be able to say, "I don't know," rather than just, "There's no proof," and that means you have to recognize and accept the difference between those two statements.
Also, it is important to note that suspecting everyone else of trying to "destroy" you isn't "normal".
Excuse my interruption, but something you said is inaccurate.
The vast majority of atheists DO say "I don't know."
Whether they label themselves this way or not, almost all (if not all) atheists I've met, read about, or listened to was an agnostic atheist. The two terms are not mutually exclusive.
We don't merely say, "There's no proof." We say "there MIGHT be SOME kind of God out there, but there is no evidence and no proof. Therefore, we're not going to accept religion, dogma, or pretend we believe absolutely that a god exists."
What gets me about this debate is how it is religion that proposes that God exists ... and not just an unknowable god, but GOD, the one represented in their holy books. I've yet to meet a devout Christian (or other believer) who can honestly say, "I don't really know if there's a god." What's part and parcel of religious devotion is the absolute, unwavering belief that their specific God exists.
They do not say "I don't know" whether they are a fundamentalist or very liberal. Thus saying atheists are just as dogmatic just isn't true.
Unfortunately, the standards for belief are practically non-existent for religion and gods. With any other incredible, impossible claim made about any other subject, most people would be skeptical and require good evidence to believe it. But with religion, well, anything goes, and logic -- even when analyzing just the dogma -- no longer applies.
If I believed conclusively in the Ancient Astronaut theory, fully half the people in any given room would laugh at me and think I was a wacko.
But if I believed in an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, transcendent being who used magic to speak the entire universe into existence -- then used a pile of dirt and a rib to magically poof humanity into existence ... well ... I would be seen not only as normal but also as a good, solid, red-blooded 'Merican.
I'm not asking this facetiously, but seriously.
Given what you've described, how do you know you haven't actually just dozed off?
I purposely did not say sleep since I think most can relate to instances of 'blanking out' ,coming to and not feeling as if they had been asleep...just zoned out.
Because I am wide awake and sitting up with my back straight during my meditations and I am aware of my attention.
During sleep you are not aware of your attention. Even during Lucid Dreaming you are aware that you are dreaming but it's not the same awareness that you have during a deep meditation.
If you are falling asleep during meditations, you are not doing it correctly. People new to meditation might tend to fall asleep since they are so relaxed and it's probably the first time in their entire life that they have learned to quiet their mind talk. They tend to fall asleep. If this is happening to new beginners, then they need to find a way to stop it as this will result in a trigger for them to fall asleep each time they begin their meditation practice.
There are many techniques that can be used for those who are falling asleep when learning how to meditate for the first time.
I'm afraid to believe one can be aware but not feeling or thinking creates a bit of a problem for me.
Perhaps its because you have never achieved this for yourself. I can explain meditation to you until I am blue in the face but until you have experienced this state of mind for yourself there is nothing that I can say that will help you to understand it. What you are having problems with is the exact goal of deep trance meditation.
Aware and having your attention focused on not thinking or feeling emotions...is the end goal of meditation.
I say give it a try. Find a way to learn how to achieve this and then you will understand what deep trance meditation is about.
Perhaps we need to define terms.
When you say feeling to me this implies that you are experiencing feelings generated from thinking or by allowing your emotions to run unchecked.
You are calming your emotions during meditation...it forces you to do this if you are correctly meditating.
During meditation, you are 100% awake and focusing your attention on "nothing" you will get to a point where you are not thinking about anything and you have shut off the mind talk that seems to just guide itself uncontrollably. This is not easy to achieve, which is why most westerners get frustrated with trying to learn how to meditate and give up and become naysayers.
The fact that you are awake during meditation (how do you know that you are awake?) because you are 100% aware and you are in control of your thoughts and emotions during deep meditation. This is the goal!
Last edited by Matadora; 10-03-2015 at 03:58 PM..
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