Zen Buddhism

[emjay]

Basically I think the best way of summing up meditation is being in the moment rather than lost in thought. So I think any activity where you're focused on the present moment can be classed as meditation, whether it be the traditional form of focusing on the breath, or just any other mindful activity where you're focused on the what's going on in the present moment... the immediate sensations rather than the past (memories) or the future (feelings of boredom etc - 'I could be doing something else'). For instance lately I've been trying to make my sandwiches mindfully, and that means not rushing to finish it because of a goal in mind (future thinking) but rather just focusing on the immediate sensations involved in the present moment, noticing as much as I can about every aspect of it... how the knife moves, how the butter looks etc... and just trying to let go of any non-present thoughts, labelling them as thinking. And you can do it for anything... walks, having a shower, playing music etc... just notice everything you can in the present moment and try to let go of any thoughts. And recently my therapist gave me another useful little mindfulness exercise which is quick and easy to do and just involves first noticing five things you can see, then five things you can hear, then five things you can feel, and finally trying to notice all of them at the same time.

[Thumpalumpacus]

No, I think you nailed it, Whatsoever.

[Whateverist]

Mindfulness is something I practice in everyday life as part of my recovery from alcoholism ... when I find myself with a bad flow of emotions, I start observing the flow, chase it upstream until I find the problem, and then address it so that my day doesn't go to shit and trigger a drinking urge.

I don't formally meditate, but often playing my guitar induces a similar mental state.

Funny how when something someone has written inspires and prompts me to write something in turn is precisely the times when I'm most likely to forget to kudos the inspiring post.  Omission fixed.

[Angrboda]

Interesting.  But I think mindfulness is something to be brought into as much of your life as possible .. cooking, walking, whatever.  I think of it as being in a receptive/noticing state rather than a directed/expressing state.  The idea of doing specific repetitive but essentially meaningless motions (or no motion) in order to achieve an effect seems kind of desperate.  Or like going on a short term diet to lose weight.  Much better to just change the way you eat or live.  Or maybe I'm just covering up for lack of discipline?

My personal view of meditation is that it differs from simple mindfulness.  Mindfulness in ordinary activities does little to restructure the way our brains process information.  In ordinary consciousness, the different centers of thought in our brain compete for overall attention, firing off largely unrestricted.  My view is that in intense meditation, the brain is learning to focus activity in a few select portions of the brain.  It is a form of training our mind how to do that.  Once the skill is acquired through intense meditation, it can be harnessed in less rigorous circumstances.  Mindfulness to me is like meditation lite -- it can alter the way the brain processes things for that short time period, but does little to retrain the mind overall. (in my opinion)  So in my view there is a reason for the rigors of practice which are not met by simply trying to live mindfully.

In psychology, the Stroop effect is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task. When the name of a color (e.g., "blue", "green", or "red") is printed in a color not denoted by the name (e.g., the word "red" printed in blue ink instead of red ink), naming the color of the word takes longer and is more prone to errors than when the color of the ink matches the name of the color.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_effect

In one interesting experiment, test subjects were hypnotized and given the post-hypnotic suggestion that the words they would be viewing would be in a foreign language which they did not speak. When tested under these conditions, the Stroop effect did not happen. They responded to mismatched word/color pairs as fast as matched ones. One of the theories about the Stroop effect is that different cognitive centers in the brain process each half of the word/color pair, with one center processing the word and another center processing the color. It's thought that when there is a mismatch, the two centers compete for attention, thus slowing the response. Under this theory, in the hypnotized subjects, the word center would remain silent as the subject did not believe they understood the language, thus the disappearance of the effect.

It's my theory that in meditation, we learn how to turn off those centers that are associated with processing input and only engage the centers responsible for attention. In that way I feel meditation is a form of training for the brain which teaches it how to do this.

[LivingNumbers6.626]

I don't know much about it. I used to know a guy who would talk about it and outer body experiences. Sounded like he had taken a shit ton of drugs, to be honest.

I guess a good amount of acid and exstacy would make one conjure an outer body experience but I wouldn't know. haha 

[Whateverist]

Interesting.  But I think mindfulness is something to be brought into as much of your life as possible .. cooking, walking, whatever.  I think of it as being in a receptive/noticing state rather than a directed/expressing state.  The idea of doing specific repetitive but essentially meaningless motions (or no motion) in order to achieve an effect seems kind of desperate.  Or like going on a short term diet to lose weight.  Much better to just change the way you eat or live.  Or maybe I'm just covering up for lack of discipline?

My personal view of meditation is that it differs from simple mindfulness.  Mindfulness in ordinary activities does little to restructure the way our brains process information.  In ordinary consciousness, the different centers of thought in our brain compete for overall attention, firing off largely unrestricted.  My view is that in intense meditation, the brain is learning to focus activity in a few select portions of the brain.  It is a form of training our mind how to do that.  Once the skill is acquired through intense meditation, it can be harnessed in less rigorous circumstances.  Mindfulness to me is like meditation lite -- it can alter the way the brain processes things for that short time period, but does little to retrain the mind overall. (in my opinion)  So in my view there is a reason for the rigors of practice which are not met by simply trying to live mindfully.

Well with my lack of discipline I'm just screwed then.  But you make your point very clearly as usual.  I can't really assent to or reject it since I haven't undertaken such a thing.  But I always have engaged in a wide variety of activities in a state of flow.  Properly wired or not I have fun with my brain.  

[LivingNumbers6.626]

It's one of quite a few tools I use in order to redirect my emotions.

My recovery has not been perfect, and my toolbox and.plan need additions and revisions, but I could not go on as an active addict. It cost me a cherished relationship. I was becoming a person I despised. Every addiction, and addict, has both similarities and differences. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me -- and that goes for anyone reading this post. I'll be happy to help. Hell, might even start a thread about it.

Sounds like you got something there. So this "mindfulness" is a part of CBT, cognitive restructuring, socratic questioning, .............. I'm a fan! Also an addict.

That's how I got jumped in. CBT and DBT classes.

[LivingNumbers6.626]

I get into a "mindful" zone when I'm playing violin. Maybe it's meditation but I don't think of it that way. When I hear people talking about meditation, even Zen Buddhism-type meditation, it usually veers into a conversation spirituality or religion.

Don't have to call it meditation...maybe mindfulness? I used to play the piano regularly and found that often when i played all things disappeared and all my mental faculties were focused on one thing: piano. By definition, from what I understand, this could also be considered mindfulness.

[Whateverist]

In psychology, the Stroop effect is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task. When the name of a color (e.g., "blue", "green", or "red") is printed in a color not denoted by the name (e.g., the word "red" printed in blue ink instead of red ink), naming the color of the word takes longer and is more prone to errors than when the color of the ink matches the name of the color.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_effect

In one interesting experiment, test subjects were hypnotized and given the post-hypnotic suggestion that the words they would be viewing would be in a foreign language which they did not speak.  When tested under these conditions, the Stroop effect did not happen.  They responded to mismatched word/color pairs as fast as matched ones.  One of the theories about the Stroop effect is that different cognitive centers in the brain process each half of the word/color pair, with one center processing the word and another center processing the color.  It's thought that when there is a mismatch, the two centers compete for attention, thus slowing the response.  Under this theory, in the hypnotized subjects, the word center would remain silent as the subject did not believe they understood the language, thus the disappearance of the effect.

It's my theory that in meditation, we learn how to turn off those centers that are associated with processing input and only engage the centers responsible for attention.  In that way I feel meditation is a form of training for the brain which teaches it how to do this.

Didn't read this far the first time I responded. Thank you for sharing your views. I will give this more thought in the morning.

[Angrboda]

An interesting comparison can be made to automatic driving. In automatic driving, we're not really aware of the individual decisions we make on the road. We can drive for miles, taking various familiar exits, without once ever realizing that one is making decisions. That's a form of extreme mindfulness in which the task of driving fades from consciousness almost completely. However what it doesn't do is teach us how to willfully enter states of such focused attention. Our focusing and careful attention is forced upon the mind by the stimulus, not chosen by the will.