Is Meditation Worth It?

Dee

To be honest if it works for you fine by all means embrace it. I'm a former Buddhist which followed once I left Catholicism , meditation was a central practice and I found after a long time that the thing you were aiming to quiet and calm as in the ego you actually reinforced it by thinking "I'm getting good at this " also you gain this position of feeling somewhat different to others as in more balanced and wise in worldly matters again reinforcing the ego. I found I was not an isolated case but a norm regards this practice 

I eventually found true happiness is being happy in your own skin and not really giving a f-uck what others think of you as that is what causes humans much of their supposed life challenges

jack

JulesKorngold said:
My view:

Meditation can have many benefits, such as reducing stress, improving focus and concentration, and promoting feelings of well-being.

Hello J:

I'm a little more hands on than the practices you mentioned..  But, whatever it takes to get there, is cool by me.

I'm talking about biofeedback.  It's a method whereby you learn how to reach a state of well being, and a machine that buzzes when you get there.

excon

MayCaesar

All of my attempts at getting into meditation have failed miserably, and I honestly do not buy the whole premise behind it. The problem with meditating in order to quiet your mind is the same as the problem with doing various tricks in order to be confident: the assumption here is that without these tricks you are not confident, so you become reliant on them. If your mind cannot be quiet without you meditating all the time, then by default your kind is running amok, so you have not really solved any problems.

In my personal experience, I am the calmest and happiest when I focus on the external world, and I am the most disturbed and miserable when focusing on the internal world. Say, when I am engaged in a great conversation and am genuinely curious about what my partner has to say, listening intently and asking clarifying questions, then I am 100% calm and forget about all of my problems and insecurities. And, in contrary, when I am focused on myself, on what my partner supposedly thinks of me, and try to say something to improve the impression, then I am stressed and worried, my consciousness is trapped, and I end up saying a lot of cringy stuff that makes me feel even worse.

I am a fan of betterment through massive action, not introspection. Sitting in your room and reflecting on your thoughts and feelings can only get you so far; you really move forward when you go out in the world and face your demons head on. You have some insecurity that poisons your life? Actively put yourself in situations when that insecurity gets poked at, see that nothing terrible happens, and the insecurity will go away, so younno longer have to actively silence it. 

Say, if you are insecure about your looks, then you can go to social environments, approach people who you find attractive, talk to them and broach the subject of importance of looks. Helped me with mine when, by doing so, I quickly learned that a) my perception of my looks was vastly more negative than other people's, and b) almost everyone has some insecurity about it. By now these facts have been internalized and the idea that I do not look fine seems completely preposterous to me. I doubt I could have come to the same realization by sitting on a floor and chanting some mantra for hours: I needed the actual real world data, not mental tricks.

jack

MayCaesar said:

I needed the actual real world data, not mental tricks.

Hello May:

I think we were cross posting. 

Go read my tale of the buzzing well being machine?? 

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/13354-biofeedback

excon