Mindfulness Meditation

I recently started meditating in earnest, and I’m getting the hang of it, so I thought I’d share what I’ve learned in case anyone is interested (or can offer tips!).

I had tried meditating for a long time without much success. When Sam Harris started talking about mindfulness meditation not too long ago, I realized that I’d generally been doing it wrong (‘thinking with my legs crossed’ as Harris describes it), although I also realized that some things I hadn’t thought of as meditation were actually a very good form of mindfulness meditation (more on that later). My job now has me travelling quite a while by train each day, and I’ve finally started to put into practice some of what I’ve learned, and I think I’m already seeing positive results.

I don’t approach meditation in a religious or even a spiritual sense. The literature is pretty good on the practice to support certain causal claims about it that don’t rely on anything more than neuroscience. I think of meditation as a kind of brain training, a sort of flexing of specific mental muscles to make other mental work easier. The metaphor is apt: neurons that are used frequently make more and stronger connections, and the networks that they are part of start to play a larger role in the workings of the brain. Mindfulness meditation exercises networks involved in self-perception, attention, and executive control, and so the expected benefits (and those observed in long-term practitioners) are improved concentration and attention, and better self-awareness, self-control, and emotional regulation.

There are two kinds of meditation involved: one that exercises various skills related to attention, the other with self-awareness and executive control.

In one form of meditation, I sit still and comfortably and close my eyes. It’s not necessary to be sitting, nor to close my eyes, but as I’m still a beginner these things make it much easier. I focus my attention on my breathing, the sensations in my nose, throat, lungs, and chest related to breathing. The focus on breathing is a somewhat arbitrary choice; the point is to pick some part of oneself and intentionally focus on it at length. I’ve realized that many practices of traditional martial arts which require focus on various aspects of body posture serve the same purpose: forms and standing poses that focus on holding the body in just such a way similarly require intentional direction of the attention towards minor aspects of sensation, and that’s the goal.

As I focus on the breath, my mind wanders, and when I notice that it has, I return to the breath. The product of this practice is to 1) attempting to remain focused, 2) notice when attention has flagged, and 3) return to the subject of attention. This improves control over attention, improves awareness of attention, and increases attention span.

The other kind of meditation is similar, but should come only after some practice with the attentional form. In this form, again I sit and close my eyes, but this time I try to focus on all experiences at once. The metaphor I use here is one from vision: one can look at the center of ones visual field, or one can use what I’ve heard called “splatter-vision”, not attending to anyone thing but seeing the whole visual field at once. I do a kind of splatter-vision-of-mind, and try to see the whole experience of a moment at once. Often this means floating between feelings, e.g. the bottoms of my feet and the sounds of the train and the thoughts of the work of the day ahead etc. The goal is to notice all the thoughts and feelings and sensations, to be aware of everything going on in the moment.

The reason this should come after practice with the attentional form is that this is just a different attentional activity: attending to the experience of consciousness, and doing so intentionally and mindfully. Like with the breath meditation, the mind will wander, will latch on to thoughts or sensations, and one must have the attentional awareness and control to return to the exercise of just noticing.

As I say, I am a beginner with these types of meditation, and I imagine that there are other forms of meditation worth doing, though as I understand it these are the forms that have been shown to be effective in controlled studies. I feel like I’m seeing results (my attention to my work has improved significantly, but I was starting from the low bar of severe ADD). I intend to continue, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in better controlling ones thoughts and feelings.

I am not making a sarcastic comment when I say that meditating makes me fall asleep. I have tried and tried but, REM sleep always happens.

I too sometimes fall asleep :slight_smile: But I’ve also found that that’s related to how well I can maintain attention. When I succeed in staying focused on my breathing, I usually become more awake as a result of meditating.

One thing that helps is body posture. If I’m slumped in my seat I’m more like to doze off. If I sit upright, if necessary to the point of not resting my back against the back of the seat, I don’t usually have any trouble.

But ultimately it’s exercise, if you’re already exhausted from a day of work or a couple nights of bad sleep, it’s not likely to go very well. Over time, it should improve, and while fatigue will always make it less effective, it should become easier to avoid sleeping.

One type of meditation I do, has to do with staying completely still, and trying to not think, move or feel.
I’d call it stillness meditation.
It is good for defragmenting my consciousness. I don’t do it often enough.
When the whole mind is led to silence, it can me more unified and consistent.

Welcome to the world of meditation Carleas… it is a world of thought-finding and self-realisation, but what a world it is.

Have you encountered anything during the process that stands out or is at the forefront of your mind?

I like that phrase “defragmenting my consciousness”.

One form of mindfulness meditation that works for me is when I am walking in the park.
I clear my degree of “monkey mind” to eventually only see and to hear what is going on around me where nature is concerned…only nature, which includes for me the birds and the squirrels.
I see and hear it all but I don’t make mental comments on it. There is only the observer and the observed. There is no reflection going on.
I simply observe it (without effort) and pay attention to it as I am walking on and on.
I think that meditation can be about anything. I sometimes turn off the lights in the darkness, lighting a candle and watching it/simply observing it flickering and dancing on the wall. You’re not WAITING for anything, you’re not thinking of anything, you’re just there in the moment. You become somewhat as Buber phrased it “The I and the Thou.”

Like Dan said, a form of defragmentation of the consciousness…the result of which is that.
It’s a kind of synergy.

I’ve mastered meditating all the time. To keep my brain open to work different channels easier and faster. I’ve noticed different results based on where you meditate and how and who you’re surrounded by. Think of the possibility of shared imaginations and forced perceptions a bit.

This is very true Arc, and if I may, add to this, that for me, (and I mentioned that we resonate strongly in this ), a sense of immanence occurs, when, such walks in a natural setting, bring on the joyful realization of the non existence of conventional time.

Just before I dropped out of post-graduate philosophy ,when my wonderful prof sidelined the topic of the
day, I forget what that was, he mentioned a tid bit
about Kant, as a man, who practiced a lifetime habit of scaling the same trail, on a medieval, mountain-top, hidden in blue haze, while meditating.
I
have practiced that now, for almost 30-40 years, and have come to feel, rather than realize the truth
In the lie beneath conventional, measured time.

It has become, for me, the feeding of a necessary illusion, using Sawuellis’ terminology.

It is there, and then, when ‘reality’ becomes a clear perception. Wood nymphs and satyrs, fauns and fairies inhabit that land, and eternity becomes
manifest, as a total dissolution of the abject concept
of nihilism. You simply dissolve within the flow, and realize, and pray, that once, in some god forsaken future you may, re-create this scene, this feeling,
even if…But such, at times needs guardians,
less you fall prey to the sense of you jealously guarding it. The method, can never be of doubt.
Descartes’cogiti set the stage, and poor Nietzche was
the idol-come victim to this subtle, yet deadly ,
underplayed axiom.