Negative aspects of Christianity rarely talked about, even by atheists

[emjay]

I’d probably caution against the idea that secular materialist mindfulness is free of woo on account of it carrying those three descriptors and couching itself in the language of clinical diagnosis.  Or the notion that it’s utility (also arguable) suggests something about it being true.  But, ultimately…as you note, from a utilitarian standpoint these other things you wondered about are kind of sidelines.

Right, so you'd prefer I use the dreaded word 'woo' to describe mindfulness, is that it? I suppose I could consider it, but I really don't see why it should be called that. I suppose it depends how you define it, but for me there's nothing 'supernatural', 'mystical', or 'spiritual' about it... all it is is the choice of where you place your attention; primarily on the present rather than the past or future, or other mental/emotional distractions etc. I'd basically call it the power of single-mindedness over distracted or multi-tasking 'mindedness'. The power of focusing on the present state of a task rather than its imagined progress or lack of progress towards towards an imagined goal. I think that 'goallessness' of it is wonderful... of course goals exist, but they're not focused on in the same way in mindfulness, or at least not how I approach it; whatever the task is, you're not focusing on its progress towards completion but rather it's on/off state so to speak... 'I am washing up', rather than 'I am x percent through the task of washing up', including not focusing on all the mentally/emotionally distorted ways you could think about it... such as 'there's too much to do, I can't do it', or the flip side, 'there's so little to do, there's no point in doing it' etc. It is the opposite of 'multi-tasking'... like, in the past, whenever I used the bathroom I'd usually read a book, read my phone, or even just read shampoo bottles or whatever, while sitting on the loo, seeking a distraction, but not any more... a mindful shit lol, where you're not focusing on distractions, or on your progress, but rather on present sensations only, is surprisingly good ... I'd really recommend it if you haven't tried it ... and it helps the process as well I think, because you're more fine-tuned into the relevant sensations, in a completely unhurried sense.

Anyway, apply the same thing to anything else... like eating a meal, having a shower, exercising, whatever. It can be awesome, with a kind of unbroken... or less broken...  memory of it; that in itself is quite novel and amazing I think. And in my case, it also does wonders for my confidence... I'm not a very confident person but thanks to mindfulness, at my meeting I danced in the presence of about twenty people... originally I danced there, because the dance itself, inexplicably, helped deal with physical pain, but now I just dance there because I want to. And last week, again with the aid of mindfulness, I did something I've never done before in my life, and that was to dance in a bus station, in front of strangers... just essentially thinking, it'll pass the time until my bus. As I said, I'm not a very confident person but that experience was both empowering and terrifying... I doubt I'll be able to do it again any time soon, but it shows to me what mindfulness is capable of achieving if practiced well... which is somewhat variable with me, but when it is practiced well/reliably, I have no complaints whatsoever about it, only praise for it.

So yeah, call that 'woo' if you want, but ultimately I don't see why it should be called that, because all it's doing is essentially disciplining where you put your attention, in favour of the present moment, and whatever's 'arising' in it, somewhat objectively/detachedly, rather than allowing yourself to get sucked into mental or emotional distractions, including things like fear, worry, and 'overthinking' etc.

[The Grand Nudger]

Think of it this way - I'm inviting you to be mindful about mindfulness.

Mindfulness made your shits better. Mindfulness turned you into a confident person. Mindfulness relieved your pain...inexplicably, no less. Because you practiced it well. If I said it regrew hair, got out tough stains, and cured the flu you'd recognize a snake oil pitch. Bet I can find someone who makes each claim - and I bet they couch it in clinical terms. If it doesn't do any of that, maybe it's because a person wasn't practicing it well. God magic and ghost magic and hidden magic, the supernatural, the spiritual, the mystical....aren't the only kinds of magic...

Very often a person will say, about their magical beliefs, that it's just science, or just logic, that it doesn't contain any magic - no woo! I don't think they're lying to our faces. I think they feel about their magic the same way you feel about your mindfulness...because it has or seems to have, at least for them, those same effects and qualities that you both find useful and indicative of truth. That belief is itself a magical belief based on a formal logical fallacy. The idea that mindfulness is an objective philosophy is both magical thinking and wrong by definition. If I suggested to you that mindfulness didn't do any of that, how would you respond? In kind to this description? Would you tell me that these benefits happened after the mindfulness, ad hoc ergo propter hoc? How is that different from a charm or spell or formal ritual? How are you supposed to arrive at an objective conclusion by focusing on and developing your subjective apparatus? How is that different from revelation or inspiration or posession?

OFC....I babble about my zen all the time even so. I think mindfulness makes me a better grower. I also think I'm wrong about that. My perception of life is an unfolding koan.

[emjay]

Think of it this way - I'm inviting you to be mindful about mindfulness.  

Mindfulness made your shits better.  Mindfulness turned you into a confident person.  Mindfulness relieved your pain...inexplicably, no less.  Because you practiced it well.  If I said it regrew hair, got out tough stains, and cured the flu you'd recognize a snake oil pitch.  Bet I can find someone who makes each claim - and I bet they couch it in clinical terms.  If it doesn't do any of that, maybe it's because a person wasn't practicing it well.  God magic and ghost magic and hidden magic, the supernatural, the spiritual, the mystical....aren't the only kinds of magic...  

Very often a person will say, about their magical beliefs, that it's just science, or just logic, that it doesn't contain any magic - no woo!  I don't think they're lying to our faces.  I think they feel about their magic the same way you feel about your mindfulness...because it has or seems to have, at least for them, those same effects and qualities that you both find useful and indicative of truth.  That belief is itself a magical belief based on a formal logical fallacy.  The idea that mindfulness is an objective philosophy is both magical thinking and wrong by definition.  If I suggested to you that mindfulness didn't do any of that, how would you respond?  In kind to this description?  Would you tell me that these benefits happened after the mindfulness, ad hoc ergo propter hoc?  How is that different from a charm or spell or formal ritual?  How are you supposed to arrive at an objective conclusion by focusing on and developing your subjective apparatus?  How is that different from revelation or inspiration or posession?

OFC....I babble about my zen all the time even so.  I think mindfulness makes me a better grower.  I also think I'm wrong about that.  My perception of life is an unfolding koan.

Okay, well thank you for sharing your thoughts, but I think you're wrong and/or have completely misunderstood me. There has to be a first time for everything.

I'm not talking about mindfulness as a skill per se, but more a choice, and a choice that's more easy to make in some mental states or moods than others... it requires nothing special to do it, other than the willingness or drive to do it, which isn't always present, especially when in actual physical pain, because physical pain is almost like 'automatic' mindfulness, in that it automatically pulls your mind to the present painful sensations, but naturally you want to escape those painful sensations, and often do so through seeking distractions or whatever. Only with 'equanimity', do you fight against that, and as I found out recently, that's a lot harder than in looks when in real physical pain. When I used dancing as an 'inexplicable' source of pain relief, that was it being used as a distraction, not mindfulness (mindfulness with it only came later, after it was no longer being used for pain relief, I think)... and it could well have been just because of the exercise or something... but it was more than a placebo, whatever it was, possibly, we think, having talked about it elsewhere; someone on AD showing me that stats showing there could be something in it. I've been in a lot of physical pain lately, and that, along with mental moods like depression and stuff, messed with my ability/willingness to choose to be mindful, but its absence I really missed because it led to things like anger and overthinking, stuff that it normally keeps at bay very effectively, by simple logic, nothing special, just causal; ie if you put your attention into 'overthinking' then that naturally 'feeds' it and leads to its continuation... that's just obvious causality is it not?... whereas if you have decided that 'overthinking', such as worrying etc... is bad for you... just causes you mental pain (the second arrow of suffering so to speak, in Buddhism)... then not feeding it, by directing your attention elsewhere, does not feed it... why is that not just simple causal logic to you? It works, not by something supernatural, but just by choosing where you put your attention, and in turn, what you mentally 'feed'. What you choose to focus on changes your experience, simple as that. But I'd say that's just obvious casual logic; nothing supernatural or superstitious about it, just simple causality; if I focus my attention on x I will experience an experience related to x, if I focus on y I will experience an experience related to y. That's not rocket science.

[Belacqua]

Okay, well thank you for sharing your thoughts, but I think you're wrong and/or have completely misunderstood me. There has to be a first time for everything.

I'm not talking about mindfulness as a skill per se, but more a choice, and a choice that's more easy to make in some mental states or moods than others... it requires nothing special to do it, other than the willingness or drive to do it, which isn't always present, especially when in actual physical pain, because physical pain is almost like 'automatic' mindfulness, in that it automatically pulls your mind to the present painful sensations, but naturally you want to escape those painful sensations, and often do so through seeking distractions or whatever. Only with 'equanimity', do you fight against that, and as I found out recently, that's a lot harder than in looks when in real physical pain. When I used dancing as an 'inexplicable' source of pain relief, that was it being used as a distraction, not mindfulness (mindfulness with it only came later, after it was no longer being used for pain relief, I think)... and it could well have been just because of the exercise or something... but it was more than a placebo, whatever it was, possibly, we think, having talked about it elsewhere; someone on AD showing me that stats showing there could be something in it. I've been in a lot of physical pain lately, and that, along with mental moods like depression and stuff, messed with my ability/willingness to choose to be mindful, but its absence I really missed because it led to things like anger and overthinking, stuff that it normally keeps at bay very effectively, by simple logic, nothing special, just causal; ie if you put your attention into 'overthinking' then that naturally 'feeds' it and leads to its continuation... that's just obvious causality is it not?... whereas if you have decided that 'overthinking', such as worrying etc... is bad for you... just causes you mental pain (the second arrow of suffering so to speak, in Buddhism)... then not feeding it, by directing your attention elsewhere, does not feed it... why is that not just simple causal logic to you? It works, not by something supernatural, but just by choosing where you put your attention, and in turn, what you mentally 'feed'. What you choose to focus on changes your experience, simple as that. But I'd say that's just obvious casual logic; nothing supernatural or superstitious about it, just simple causality; if I focus my attention on x I will experience an experience related to x, if I focus on y I will experience an experience related to y. That's not rocket science.

You were far more polite about this than I could have been. 

It should be obvious that nobody but you knows what you are feeling in consequence of this practice. Nobody posting here knows what the group is like or what effect they have on their members. 

Whether you call it Buddhism, or Buddhist-inspired group therapy, or The Group Designed to Trigger Nudger, it doesn't matter. If it's working it's working. 

One thing we can be sure of is that when you find something good, and it's working, and you're optimistic about the future of it, then for sure some slob from the Internet is going to speak up and try to wreck it all. Please don't let that happen.

[Fake Messiah]

 One thing we can be sure of is that when you find something good, and it's working, and you're optimistic about the future of it, then for sure some slob from the Internet is going to speak up and try to wreck it all. Please don't let that happen.

She is on an atheist forum asking for an opinion, and if you think that people here won't question her choices, then you are retarded.

If you don't want to see religion criticized, then don't go onto atheist forums.

[emjay]

Okay, well thank you for sharing your thoughts, but I think you're wrong and/or have completely misunderstood me. There has to be a first time for everything.

I'm not talking about mindfulness as a skill per se, but more a choice, and a choice that's more easy to make in some mental states or moods than others... it requires nothing special to do it, other than the willingness or drive to do it, which isn't always present, especially when in actual physical pain, because physical pain is almost like 'automatic' mindfulness, in that it automatically pulls your mind to the present painful sensations, but naturally you want to escape those painful sensations, and often do so through seeking distractions or whatever. Only with 'equanimity', do you fight against that, and as I found out recently, that's a lot harder than in looks when in real physical pain. When I used dancing as an 'inexplicable' source of pain relief, that was it being used as a distraction, not mindfulness (mindfulness with it only came later, after it was no longer being used for pain relief, I think)... and it could well have been just because of the exercise or something... but it was more than a placebo, whatever it was, possibly, we think, having talked about it elsewhere; someone on AD showing me that stats showing there could be something in it. I've been in a lot of physical pain lately, and that, along with mental moods like depression and stuff, messed with my ability/willingness to choose to be mindful, but its absence I really missed because it led to things like anger and overthinking, stuff that it normally keeps at bay very effectively, by simple logic, nothing special, just causal; ie if you put your attention into 'overthinking' then that naturally 'feeds' it and leads to its continuation... that's just obvious causality is it not?... whereas if you have decided that 'overthinking', such as worrying etc... is bad for you... just causes you mental pain (the second arrow of suffering so to speak, in Buddhism)... then not feeding it, by directing your attention elsewhere, does not feed it... why is that not just simple causal logic to you? It works, not by something supernatural, but just by choosing where you put your attention, and in turn, what you mentally 'feed'. What you choose to focus on changes your experience, simple as that. But I'd say that's just obvious casual logic; nothing supernatural or superstitious about it, just simple causality; if I focus my attention on x I will experience an experience related to x, if I focus on y I will experience an experience related to y. That's not rocket science.

You were far more polite about this than I could have been. 

It should be obvious that nobody but you knows what you are feeling in consequence of this practice. Nobody posting here knows what the group is like or what effect they have on their members. 

Whether you call it Buddhism, or Buddhist-inspired group therapy, or The Group Designed to Trigger Nudger, it doesn't matter. If it's working it's working. 

One thing we can be sure of is that when you find something good, and it's working, and you're optimistic about the future of it, then for sure some slob from the Internet is going to speak up and try to wreck it all. Please don't let that happen.

Well, he's not trying to hurt me, I'm pretty sure of that, and he does remain to me a very insightful person... the wisest person I think I've ever met online (no offence to anyone else, just my personal view)... but even he can make mistakes... he got me wrong in a Mafia game once for instance

But this is not a particular rug that I'm gonna let get ripped out from under me, without a bit of a fight. It remains the best thing that happened to me after my operation, and I very much doubt I could have coped without it. At the end of the day, if it's woo, then so be it, and if that makes me an idiot, then also, so be it, but I'm not giving it up without a fight. It and those other Buddhism related ideas I've mentioned, wherever they came from, are pretty much the only thing that give me any sense of stability in this world... so even if I lose everything else, that's the one thing I don't want to lose, more than anything else... even if it makes me a woo-ist idiot so to speak.

Anyway, I wish you'd talk to him again. Just a wish of course... it's your call obviously, but nonetheless that's what I wish as I still think he's very insightful, if blunt and/or sometimes somewhat cryptic, and you could have some very insightful discussions with him if you started talking to him again. Basically I find it pretty uncomfortable being stuck in the middle between friends ignoring each other, as is happening here, and has happened many times before with the same and different people...  but it never gets any easier or less uncomfortable to be stuck in the middle like this. So just saying I wish you guys could build bridges, but at the same time, I know it's your call entirely, so feel perfectly free to ignore what I'm saying... just stating my opinion.

[emjay]

 One thing we can be sure of is that when you find something good, and it's working, and you're optimistic about the future of it, then for sure some slob from the Internet is going to speak up and try to wreck it all. Please don't let that happen.

She is on an atheist forum asking for an opinion, and if you think that people here won't question her choices, then you are retarded.

If you don't want to see religion criticized, then don't go onto atheist forums.

Just to say, I don't know if you're talking about me, but if you are, I'm male, not female. Just to say.

[The Grand Nudger]

Okay, well thank you for sharing your thoughts, but I think you're wrong and/or have completely misunderstood me. There has to be a first time for everything.

Maybe....   I choose to view it not as a misunderstanding, but as an internal dispute or critique between theravada and mahayana thought.  Between mindfulness, and no mind.  I don't doubt the earnestness of your experience and causal attributions, nor do I misunderstand them.  Alot of them are shared between us. 

I think there are many good reasons to doubt the accuracy of those attributions and experiences, the claim that it is strictly clinical, and the claim that it is exclusively logical.  That there's no woo, no magical thinking, and no need of any external unsupported beliefs to either explain or benefit from those practices.  All of this before we even get into those shoulds and should nots and value statements that are the aim of the practice and the conclusions we are supposed to reach after a thorough acknowledgement of object and subject impermanence from either of our opposed angles of approach.  

I'm not talking about mindfulness as a skill per se, but more a choice, and a choice that's more easy to make in some mental states or moods than others... it requires nothing special to do it, other than the willingness or drive to do it, which isn't always present, especially when in actual physical pain, because physical pain is almost like 'automatic' mindfulness, in that it automatically pulls your mind to the present painful sensations, but naturally you want to escape those painful sensations, and often do so through seeking distractions or whatever. Only with 'equanimity', do you fight against that, and as I found out recently, that's a lot harder than in looks when in real physical pain.

I think you give equanimity short shrift, lol.   It might be very special.  It's a claim about a particular mental state, it's achievability, and it's causal abilities.  This has actually been tested.  It turns out that mindfulness practice and zen practice (alot of overlap) can slow down activity in particular parts of the brain.  I think that people who wanted to view either one a particular way would stop here and say "see...studies!".  However, those same studies show that our brain also kicks up activity in other regions - so it's not actually any calmer or emptier - we just don't notice it.  Interestingly those areas include attention regulation, executive control...and pain processing.  Brain waves studies show patterns associated with flow states - like you might see in the performance of musical piece or many hours into working a field with hand tools.  I can also anecdotally attest that being pinched out of attempting malaguena or wire weeding until the world falls away is exceptionally painful and surprising.  A snap moment - where it feels like the pincher got a hell of alot stronger since the last time you suddenly remember being pinched.  

It's not by accident that buddhism deeply invested itself into music and gardening.

When I used dancing as an 'inexplicable' source of pain relief, that was it being used as a distraction, not mindfulness (mindfulness with it only came later, after it was no longer being used for pain relief, I think)... and it could well have been just because of the exercise or something... but it was more than a placebo, whatever it was, possibly, we think, having talked about it elsewhere; someone on AD showing me that stats showing there could be something in it.

Physical exercise has a strong connection to pain relief whereas mindfulness has a strong connection in the opposite direction.  I'm sure there's something in it - but if the subject matter is what magical elements remain after buddhism is stripped for a western secular and individualist audience, beliefs about it's powers that do not comport with reality or cannot be objectively reproducibly and independently demonstrated should be a canary in the mines.  People chewed and drank willow bark for thousands of years.  It was relieving their pain and their fevers through salicyclic acid - but that's not how they thought it was working, or all they thought it was doing.  If I had to sum up my thoughts about the sanitized western clinical expression of buddhism I'd put it in that context. 

I've been in a lot of physical pain lately, and that, along with mental moods like depression and stuff, messed with my ability/willingness to choose to be mindful, but its absence I really missed because it led to things like anger and overthinking, stuff that it normally keeps at bay very effectively, by simple logic, nothing special, just causal; ie if you put your attention into 'overthinking' then that naturally 'feeds' it and leads to its continuation... that's just obvious causality is it not?... whereas if you have decided that 'overthinking', such as worrying etc... is bad for you... just causes you mental pain (the second arrow of suffering so to speak, in Buddhism)... then not feeding it, by directing your attention elsewhere, does not feed it... why is that not just simple causal logic to you? It works, not by something supernatural, but just by choosing where you put your attention, and in turn, what you mentally 'feed'. What you choose to focus on changes your experience, simple as that. But I'd say that's just obvious casual logic; nothing supernatural or superstitious about it, just simple causality; if I focus my attention on x I will experience an experience related to x, if I focus on y I will experience an experience related to y. That's not rocket science.

It's not a science at all...and mindfulness doesn't keep anything at bay by simple logic because mindfulness is not logic.  It's experiential awareness, not intellectual analysis.  It's a practice, not a study.  As a matter of routine and conditioning, as a component of cbt...absolutely nothing about buddhism needs to be true to work.... assume it's even doing the work we think it is.  I don't think that breathing control or enhanced rest states or flow states are magical.  I think our beliefs about them and about buddhism and most crucially about minds, are.  That our amenability to the sanitized version of buddhism comes down to it giving us cultural license to believe in things we are not supposed to believe in, or would not believe in described in less sanitized but no less accurate terms, for effect.

(lol, it's turned into the negative aspects of buddhism rarely talked about - fuck it why not, let's do em all!)

[emjay]

Okay, well thank you for sharing your thoughts, but I think you're wrong and/or have completely misunderstood me. There has to be a first time for everything.

Maybe....   I choose to view it not as a misunderstanding, but as an internal dispute or critique between theravada and mahayana thought.  Between mindfulness, and no mind.  I don't doubt the earnestness of your experience and causal attributions, nor do I misunderstand them.  Alot of them are shared between us. 

I think there are many good reasons to doubt the accuracy of those attributions and experiences, the claim that it is strictly clinical, and the claim that it is exclusively logical.  That there's no woo, no magical thinking, and no need of any external unsupported beliefs to either explain or benefit from those practices.  All of this before we even get into those shoulds and should nots and value statements that are the aim of the practice and the conclusions we are supposed to reach after a thorough acknowledgement of object and subject impermanence from either of our opposed angles of approach.

I thought we'd moved past that?... in the sense that I've already said that I accept the fact that the 'philosophy' of it doesn't make any coherent sense without believing in all the supernatural claims of it, which neither of us do, obviously. As for the mindfulness vs no mind differences between different schools of Buddhist thought, again, I thought we'd moved past that if we're accepting that it's not a coherent philosophy without the supernatural belief, and in any case, the whole 'no self' aspect of it... of Zen in particular (and are you saying you consider yourself interested in/leaning towards mahayana thought as well as Zen? The Buddhist group I go to is mainly mahayana, but with a little bit of Zen influence at some times as well, but not so much Theravada, which was my personal preferred starting point for all of this, just because of its repetitive, logical nature, compared to poetry etc which is less my thing)... has never really interested me anyway... it's essentially saying we have no soul, or we are not part of some infinite out of body consciousness or whatever, well, I don't need Buddhism to tell me that So yeah, no, that's never been an issue for me, as it is for Sam Harris or perhaps you too, cos that's not what appeals to me about all of this.

So what I'm saying is, I thought we'd moved beyond talking about Buddhism as a philosophical theory, and onto questions about the value of the actual practices in a standalone sense rather than as part of a wider philosophy?, which for the sake of argument we're accepting isn't coherent unless you believe in the supernatural claims.

I'm not talking about mindfulness as a skill per se, but more a choice, and a choice that's more easy to make in some mental states or moods than others... it requires nothing special to do it, other than the willingness or drive to do it, which isn't always present, especially when in actual physical pain, because physical pain is almost like 'automatic' mindfulness, in that it automatically pulls your mind to the present painful sensations, but naturally you want to escape those painful sensations, and often do so through seeking distractions or whatever. Only with 'equanimity', do you fight against that, and as I found out recently, that's a lot harder than in looks when in real physical pain.

I think you give equanimity short shrift, lol.   It might be very special.  It's a claim about a particular mental state, it's achievability, and it's causal abilities.  This has actually been tested.  It turns out that mindfulness practice and zen practice (alot of overlap) can slow down activity in particular parts of the brain.  I think that people who wanted to view either one a particular way would stop here and say "see...studies!".  However, those same studies show that our brain also kicks up activity in other regions - so it's not actually any calmer or emptier - we just don't notice it.  Interestingly those areas include attention regulation, executive control...and pain processing.  Brain waves studies show patterns associated with flow states - like you might see in the performance of musical piece or many hours into working a field with hand tools.  I can also anecdotally attest that being pinched out of attempting malaguena or wire weeding until the world falls away is exceptionally painful and surprising.  A snap moment - where it feels like the pincher got a hell of alot stronger since the last time you suddenly remember being pinched.  

It's not by accident that buddhism deeply invested itself into music and gardening.

No, don't get me wrong... equanimity is my ultimate goal... but I'm just saying that I've seen for myself how hard it can be when in real physical pain. But I am still trying to develop it and learn about it to some extent... for instance with my cold showers, and generally preferring not to rely on pain pills etc, or doing while doing exercise etc... trying not to push away pain, or discomfort, at least some of the time... as well as trying new things, that's another good way of developing it I think, because unfamiliarity itself can be a form of discomfort.

When I used dancing as an 'inexplicable' source of pain relief, that was it being used as a distraction, not mindfulness (mindfulness with it only came later, after it was no longer being used for pain relief, I think)... and it could well have been just because of the exercise or something... but it was more than a placebo, whatever it was, possibly, we think, having talked about it elsewhere; someone on AD showing me that stats showing there could be something in it.

Physical exercise has a strong connection to pain relief whereas mindfulness has a strong connection in the opposite direction.  I'm sure there's something in it - but if the subject matter is what magical elements remain after buddhism is stripped for a western secular and individualist audience, beliefs about it's powers that do not comport with reality or cannot be objectively reproducibly and independently demonstrated should be a canary in the mines.  People chewed and drank willow bark for thousands of years.  It was relieving their pain and their fevers through salicyclic acid - but that's not how they thought it was working, or all they thought it was doing.  If I had to sum up my thoughts about the sanitized western clinical expression of buddhism I'd put it in that context.

As I said, I don't think that pain relief had anything to do with Buddhism or mindfulness necessarily. It was a complete surprise to me when it happened, and turned out to be more reliable and long-term in duration than taking pain pills like Paracetamol. The fact that I did it at a Buddhist meeting was more coincidental than anything else, and completely against Buddhist teachings when you think about it, and I'm sure many of the Buddhists might have thought that... ie taking a pill or chasing a distraction is pretty much the opposite of mindfulness and equanimity.

I've been in a lot of physical pain lately, and that, along with mental moods like depression and stuff, messed with my ability/willingness to choose to be mindful, but its absence I really missed because it led to things like anger and overthinking, stuff that it normally keeps at bay very effectively, by simple logic, nothing special, just causal; ie if you put your attention into 'overthinking' then that naturally 'feeds' it and leads to its continuation... that's just obvious causality is it not?... whereas if you have decided that 'overthinking', such as worrying etc... is bad for you... just causes you mental pain (the second arrow of suffering so to speak, in Buddhism)... then not feeding it, by directing your attention elsewhere, does not feed it... why is that not just simple causal logic to you? It works, not by something supernatural, but just by choosing where you put your attention, and in turn, what you mentally 'feed'. What you choose to focus on changes your experience, simple as that. But I'd say that's just obvious casual logic; nothing supernatural or superstitious about it, just simple causality; if I focus my attention on x I will experience an experience related to x, if I focus on y I will experience an experience related to y. That's not rocket science.

It's not a science at all...and mindfulness doesn't keep anything at bay by simple logic because mindfulness is not logic.  It's experiential awareness, not intellectual analysis.  It's a practice, not a study.  As a matter of routine and conditioning, as a component of cbt...absolutely nothing about buddhism needs to be true to work.... assume it's even doing the work we think it is.  I don't think that breathing control or enhanced rest states or flow states are magical.  I think our beliefs about them and about buddhism and most crucially about minds, are.  That our amenability to the sanitized version of buddhism comes down to it giving us cultural license to believe in things we are not supposed to believe in, or would not believe in described in less sanitized but no less accurate terms, for effect.

(lol, it's turned into the negative aspects of buddhism rarely talked about - fuck it why not, let's do em all!)

I didn't say, or didn't mean to say, it was science, or even 'logical' in a wider sense, just that it was causal in an immediate sense, ie changing the focus of your attention in an immediate sense. Would it make any difference if we changed the name, if 'mindfulness' has too much baggage in your view? Say we replace the word mindfulness with 'attention focus changing practice', which does what it says on the tin, just a practice that causally changes the focus of your attention, is that still 'uncausal' or illogical... in an immediate sense... to you?

In other words, fuck Buddhism (sorry Buddha ), fuck the terms used by Buddhism, such as meditation and mindfulness, and however they may have been adopted by the West, both in streamlined forms of the religion and in medicine etc... as Bel says, if it's working it's working. And it certainly is working for me, whatever you want to call it, and whether you want to attribute it to Buddhism or not. To me it's just the practice of choosing where to put my attention, and trying to avoid putting it on things that create additional mental pain for me, such as overthinking (what Buddhism... or wherever... calls the second arrow of suffering... mental pain rather than physical pain... again something anyone could come up with, doesn't matter if it was Buddhism or not, it's just a good and useful idea wherever it came from). What's wrong with that, and what's not logical/causal about that?

[Sheldon]

Hi Sheldon,

You and I approach these discussions quite differently. You've made it clear that you think I'm not a good person to talk with, so I won't take up any more of your time.

Good luck to you in the future.

You made a generic accusation, then failed to address my criticism of it, and respond with this passive aggressive handwaving. Yes, it's fair to say that you and I approach discussions very differently, that much is true.

"You've made it clear that you think I'm not a good person to talk with"

That's a lie, I have made no such claim, only responded to your posts, which tend to ignore then misrepresent what I have said, as you have here again. 

Instead of faux politeness, what I'd appreciate is honesty.