No, meditation is not like drugs. If anything it’s like exercise for a very particular part of your mind. It can train the mind to be calm, patient, observant and focused. I practiced for many years. In my experience it does not in and of itself bring any sort of feelings of happiness.
Meditation is like drugs but better
Submitted 3 days ago by rainrain@sh.itjust.works to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
farcaster@lemmy.world 3 days ago
TootSweet@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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.”)
farcaster@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Yeah I should’ve written it as “It is not like that for me”
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.
rainrain@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Meditation doesn’t get you high?
Drugs don’t alter your awareness?
farcaster@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Meditation doesn’t get you high?
No it’s a a fairly sober experience.
Drugs don’t alter your awareness?
Well I guess they can. I have no firsthand experience with psychedelics etc. but it doesn’t sound like the same kind of experience.
Wolf314159@startrek.website 3 days ago
Drugs alter your perception, not awareness. Mediation and a philosophy class you didn’t take on YouTube will cure you of that confusion.
biofaust@lemmy.world 3 days ago
If there was any proof of that, the laws would be moving to prohibit in certain professions or situations
Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 days ago
Nah, I am 100% certain drugs are better.
Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
I was gonna say, OP’s got it backwards, but if that works for them, more power to them !
SARGE@startrek.website 3 days ago
I’ve meditated a lot.
I’ve done a few drugs.
I liek drugz
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 3 days ago
You’ve been using the wrong drugs.
rainrain@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
I’ve been meditating for a while. And I’ve done a variety of drugs. So I speak from experience.
Meditatation, like drugs, gets you high and changes your perceptions.
Meditation, unlike drugs, takes effort and practice. It’s also way way smoother. And there’s no ceiling.
And here’s a thing. Consider the act of concentrating your attention. The control, clarity and depth if perception that it brings. It’s something that we all use. Every scientist, engineer and artist uses concentration as his main tool, without which none of that would be possible. Concentration is the backbone of our culture.
One meditation technique (we basically have 2) takes that further. It takes that awesome power of concentration to very deep and strange places. Magical even. But still, it’s just that same old familiar magic that we all depend on, just taken further.
And then there is another meditation technique too.
sirico@feddit.uk 3 days ago
Why not both
Dropper_Post@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Maybe i was doing meditation wrong. Can anyone give a tutorial how to do it so it’s better than drugz?
FUCKING_CUNO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
You mentioned a few times meditation gets you “high”. What exactly do you mean by that?
rainrain@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Elevated mood combined with strange perceptions.
Or, to explain by example. You ever used weed, cocaine or shrooms? It’s in that general vicinity.
Lemming6969@lemmy.world 3 days ago
You have a medical problem, possibly schizophrenia, get help. Meditative thinking does not produce any of this for a normal person.
Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Mmm K
Zozano@aussie.zone 3 days ago
Lol OP is actually right but not explaining it well in the comments.
rainrain@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Gimme your better explanation please.
Zozano@aussie.zone 3 days ago
Meditation is essentially a self-imposed flow state; an artifact of consciousness reflecting extreme focus. It’s akin to a runners high. Its features include ego dissolution, a distorted sense of time, reduced perceptions of pain, and feelings of bliss.
This is normally due to the release of neurotransmitters - dopamine, serotonin, endorphins and GABA, the same chemicals affected by common recreational drugs.
These features are regrettably short-cut with drug use. With training, these states of consciousness can be attained without any downsides, though at the cost of not being quite as powerful as drugs.
Think of it this way, meditation is like pouring happy juice on your brain slowly. Taking drugs is like placing the bottle on your head and smashing it with a hammer - sure, you’re going to get a lot of happy juice on your brain, but the glass might make it unbearable, you have no choice when it ends, and the next day you’re going to be forced to pick the shards of glass out.
Weird analogy I suppose, but it helps to illustrate why OP might prefer the slow drip.
At the end of the day, there’s no debate about whether meditation can produce these feelings - it’s simply a matter of whether a person has the time and interest to seek these things out, or whether they want to flood their brains with happy juice.
Personally, I live in both camps; I’ve had profound realizations about my own mind while meditating, but I also like getting zonked off my gourd.
serpineslair@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Drugs are like meditation but better.
rainrain@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
I think that people who have experience with drugs are good candidates for learning meditation. Autists, spergs and ADHDers too.
Drugs are like an airplane ride to an exotic destination. Meditation is like getting a pilot’s license.
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Some people would say the price of an occasional plane ticket is better than the hours of study necessary to get a license. “Better” really depends on your goal. Not everyone really wants to get a license.
That said, if you fly every day, it’s probably not a bad thing to look into.