Meditation!

[ib.me.ub]

What do you think about meditation and the place it leads you to?

[Minimalist]

Where does it lead you to?

[Paul the Human]

It never leads me anywhere. I always open my eyes to discover I am right where I was before. Am I doing it wrong?

[KichigaiNeko]

The only "place" meditation is to lead you to is you.

I find that meditating allows me to 'calm down' and become more sensitive to just what my body is up to. De Stressing from the day and other people and generally setting my body into idle mode.

[Edwardo Piet]

It doesn't go anywhere. For me meditation amounts up to having to live with extremely repetitive thoughts that I'm 'meditating on' so I now habitually think about my own thinking most of the time. It started with just being aware of my own thoughts more than usual and repeating them over and over to re-focus them, in an entirely non-religious way. Now I just can't shut the fuckers up.

However, some good points can come from being more aware of your thoughts I guess. You get a different (and rather odd, round-about way) of thinking about things to before. Even if it is annoying.

EvF

[Pippy]

good point Evie, it is about controlling the chatter of the mind. Meditation versus non-meditation is like the equivalent of being in control of your breathing and not. It's always happening, and we may as well try to be in control of it as it makes out quality of life better.

I think meditation is valid, valuable and venerated. My whole life is a meditation.

Ah Buddhism, I just read a great book about it and it reminded me of how fond I am of that system of belief.

[Purple Rabbit]

However, some good points can come from being more aware of your thoughts I guess. You get a different (and rather odd, round-about way) of thinking about things to before. Even if it is annoying.

Could you be some more specific on that round-about way of thinking? In what way does it differ from the thinking you experienced before?

[Edwardo Piet]

Being aware of my own thoughts more often at the same time as the outside world. Before I was only occasionly aware of my thoughts. Before by default I was aware of my surroundings and only sometimes aware of my thoughts. Now I am automatically aware of my thoughts by habit it seems, and so it allows me to be more aware about the normal processes of thinking I would have previously had without knowing it, in-detail. I think my thoughts may have even be more repetitive than I had thought before I started meditating but I just didn't realize it. But now because I am aware of my thought cycles it allows an extra layer of thinking as I think about thinking more often, and allows me to think about things on a deeper plain than before ( for ME that is, I was never really philosophical at all before. Now it's my number one, primary, main, interest). NOW however, I have trouble being practical and NOT thinking about my thinking so I miss out on more of the obvious stuff and the shallower plains and what's right under my nose in the outside world, and the present moment, I feel.

I used to be very apathetic indeed when it came to philosophy. Now I can't help but monitor every one of my thoughts - I even put philosophy into my every day thinking all the time. Whether I suck at it or not, I like to philosophize if I can.

P.S: I corrected my above post where I said I mediated in an entirely non-secular way. I meant non-religious or indeed secular. I don't do religious meditation lol. Nor do I really follow any method. I just "meditate" in the sense of "ponder on", specifically my own thoughts. Introspection basically. I'm so much more introspective than I used to be, by default I seem to live in introspection but I am aware of this and I don't get carried away in thought cycles.

Anyway hard to explain and I hope the above helped at all convey what the fuck I'm 'on about'.

EvF

[Purple Rabbit]

Thanx EvF, that helped indeed. It sounds as what I would call the third person perspective what you're talking about. Is that a description that fits what you're talking about? Also the fact that with that perspective you're able to recognize thought cycles is something that clarifies something of the benefits of meditation. Do you think that elements of meditative techniques are present in modern western techniques of psychology and self-building? It sound so to me?

[Edwardo Piet]

Sounds exactly right to me indeed. I'd say just general HABITUAL introspection is what it is. As opposed to having to force it, it's a matter of introspection becoming a big automatic habit.

It is like a third person perspective indeed. Something I had way way less off/none of before. It developed onwards from since I was about 16 or 17 I reckon... and much more so since I was 19 onwards (I'm 21 now by the way).

It's like always feeling I am observing myself and so I don't feel myself but rather a kind of character or avatar that I am observing... self observation all the time is weird because it feels almost as though there are two mes :S

I read like 20 or so self-help books in the past... so whether any psychology in them has had an effect on me I'm not sure. In fact I think one or two of them have, in just remembering that I'm the one doing the thinking and not forgetting that obvious fact that it would normally be so automatic to do - but not anymore. Now I am just automatically used to thinking about thinking my thoughts AS I think them almost.

EvF