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Comment on Meditation is like drugs but better

No, meditation is not like drugs.

You’ve been doing the wrong meditation. ;)

Seriously, though, I kindof bristle any time I hear anyone say that “meditation is” some particular thing. What meditation is is extremely broad and varied to the point that it nearly defies definition.

Sure many buddhist jhana practitioners will say that the purpose of jhanas is insight, but what if I develop my jhana skills and never seek insight? Is that really not meditation?

Or, if I sit quietly and learn to contact my subconscious and/or Jungian archetypes. Or if I make up my own idiosyncratic form of practice specifically in order to try to become a hungry ghost in the next life, is that really not meditation?

(Mind you, it’s valid to accept a particular strict definition of meditation within a specific context. If I was at a vipassana retreat doing white skeleton meditation, that’d probably be kindof assholeish. And if the teacher was like “no, correct meditation is such-and-such,” I wouldn’t be like “nuh-uh my ass is meditation, man”. This situation is pretty different. If OP has found a way to “meditate” that’s “better than drugs” rather than “training the mind to be calm, patient, observant and focused”, that hardly makes it invalid or “not meditation.” Any more so than if they say “nice to meet you” rather than “hey, what’s up”, that makes it “not a greeting.”)

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farcaster@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Yeah I should’ve written it as “It is not like that for me”

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- JGrffn@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I’ve heard of people having breakthroughs/ego deaths while meditating, so it can definitely get there by the looks of it
  
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Zozano@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It might be more beneficial for some people to think of ‘meditation’ as ‘exercise’.

If someone says they’ve exercised, you dont automatically assume they’ve lifted weights, or done cardio, or stretches; we know how broad this term is.

One of my friends did ‘meditation’ during his karate days, but failed to understand a lot of basics around the science focused practices like mindfulness.

Turns out his dojo was practicing zen meditation, which involves trying to illicit vivid imagery in the mind (according to him).

Now, I dont know a lot about zen-meditation, maybe they did it as a cultural thing, but from what he was able to tell me, it sounded like a whole lot of junk mind flailing.

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- TootSweet@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  zen meditation… trying to illicit vivid imagery in the mind… it sounded like a whole lot of junk mind flailing.
  
  See, but, this is exactly the kind of attitude I’m trying to address in my comment. People judging other people’s meditation practices. You didn’t specifically go so far (at least not explicitly) as to call it “not meditation”, but you’re still judging the practice without really understanding it. (Not that I think you should be judging it even if you did understand it.)
  
  The practice you’re describing might have been something called “kasiṇa”. And it’s known to “illicit vivid imagery.” There are multiple kinds of kasina practices, but they originate from the Pali Canon itself in works such as the Visuddhimagga and Vimuttimagga^[ The Fire Kasina Meditation Site ]^[ Wikipedia page on Kammaṭṭhāna ].
  
  That’s as meditation as meditation gets. If you’re going to call that “junk mind flailing”, the Buddha would like a word.
  
  Now, I don’t know for sure kasina was what you’re describing. But it’s also beside the point. I don’t think meditators really have a leg to stand on to claim that even something like sitting quietly, eyes closed, and playing the whole original Star Wars trilogy in their head from memory is “bad meditation” or “not meditation” just because they judgmentally can’t imagine it “exercising” a “muscle”/“mental skill”/etc. (Daniel Ingram, one of the co-authors of the fire kasina site I cited earlier and a huge advocate for fire kasina as a practice, talks about using fire kasina to conjure vivid images of dragons from Lord of the Rings, kinda just because he’s a geek (and I mean that endearingly) and it’s fun. Though he’s also strongly of the opinion that kasina can lead to insight.) “Meditation” is not the sort of term that a lot of people tend to try to gatekeep, and I think that’s basically never a good thing.
  
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  - Zozano@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Fair assessment. Though I didnt go as far as to assert that it ‘was’ all bullshit - and is the reason I prefaced my comment with an admission of ignorance.
    
    In any case, I’m convinced that my friend was not doing it right, either by his own failure to understand, or the lack of adequate instruction during guided meditation, because he didnt seem to have any meaningful insight into his own mind - beyond having a better imagination, which I suppose does translate to a more creative mind in general.
    
    In addition, he didnt comprehend the idea of being able to ‘drop in’ to a meditative state when not actively practicing. After introducing him to mindfulness, he found it far more insightful and beneficial in general.
    
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