This week, my meditation has consisted primarily of breath-focus meditation based on the Buddhist tradition of Vipassana. Vipassana is what most people think of when they think of traditional meditation. The goal of Vipassana is to keep your attention completely focused on the breath. When your attention inevitably strays from the breath, you gently bring your attention back to your breath. You repeat this process for as long as you wish. I started with just 5 minutes or so per day of Vipassana, but I've gradually built up to sessions that last between 10 and 20 minutes.
Although this practice sounds simple, it trains several psychological capabilities that are useful in countless circumstances. Keeping my attention focused exclusively on the breath trains my ability to concentrate on an arbitrary thing for an extended period of time. This ability becomes useful when I begin to do intellectual work. When learning new math, for instance, I often find it useful to go into a Vipassana-like zone in which the object of my meditation is the math I'm learning, rather than my breath. Using my breath to hone my concentration abilities is especially useful because the breath isn't typically seen as inherently interesting (though with proper presence of mind, anything can seem fascinating). If I can spend many minutes concentrating on something as simple as the breath, then concentrating on something I find inherently exciting, such as math, isn't difficult. Another benefit of Vipassana is the process of noticing myself get lost in thought and redirecting my attention to my breath. As a beginner, this happens constantly. I can typically spend between 10 seconds and several minutes focusing on the breath before getting lost in thought. Then, when I notice that I'm no longer focusing on my breath, I gently redirect my attention. Sam Harris has compared this process of redirecting attention to weightlifting for the mind, and I completely agree with this comparison. Each time I redirect my attention is like one rep of an exercise. With practice, I've noticed that redirecting my attention is getting easier and easier. This is also extremely useful when it comes to doing intellectual work. If I get distracted and check my email or look at my phone, I can use the skill I've built through Vipassana to gently direct my attention back to my work. Several meditation teachers whom I'm familiar with refer to this process of redirecting the wandering mind as the most beneficial aspect of meditation for a beginner. Finally, Vipassana practice has helped me notice how I feel when I'm about to get distracted. It's difficult to describe, but I'm discovering that there is a specific, subtle quality of mind associated with incoming distraction. As I get better at identifying this mental "warning state," I can begin to preemptively redirect my attention before I even get fully lost in thought. This week, I'll continue through Sam Harris's month-long beginner meditation course.
0 Comments
For my independent health exploration project, I have chosen to focus on meditation. My goal in exploring this topic is to live more mindfully in daily life.
For many years, I've periodically dabbled in meditation. I've read a few books, watched youtube videos, and tried several apps. Each time, I've meditated consistently for several weeks, but I've always lost the habit for around half a year before picking it back up. Most recently, I became interested in meditation after listening to Sam Harris–one of my favorite writers and speakers–discussed meditation on his podcast. Sam has several decades of meditation experience, and he has spent years on intensive retreats studying with meditation teachers. In recent years, he has published educational content on meditation with an unusual goal: to teach a secular practice of meditation that is completely free of all religious dogma, yet is just as profound as the richest religious traditions. Sam occupies a highly unusual niche in our cultural discourse: he is an outspoken atheist and scientifically-minded skeptic, yet he firmly believes in the value of spiritual experience. Most public voices have at most one of these qualities. Some critics of religion, such as Richard Dawkins, make logically persuasive arguments against religion, yet their discussion of spirituality stops at the sort of wonder at the natural world that Einstein and Darwin famously experienced. This wonder is a sublime state of mind, but it only begins to capture the possible range of human experience. In a secular context, mindfulness (being aware of the contents of one's consciousness) is often taught as little more than an "executive stress ball" that we can utilize to become more productive and relieve stress. But mindfulness is far more than a narrowly applicable, pragmatic tool. If implemented properly, it can transform the way one experiences all the contents of consciousness (sensations and thoughts). Yet when one turns to traditional religious techniques to learn about spirituality, such as those found in Buddhism, one runs into irrational teachings such as the assertion that reincarnation certainly occurs. New-age pseudoscientific writing founded on misinterpretations of quantum mechanics is no more rational. Sam's lessons on meditation are outstanding because they prioritize both intellectual honesty and profundity of experience. Starting meditation begins with recognizing that the untrained mind is perpetually lost in thought. If you try to think about nothing for even fifteen seconds, you will find that such a feat is virtually impossible. Even if your life depended on it, it's unlikely that you would be able to will yourself to stop thinking for even a quarter of a minute. The fact that most of us spend our entire lives lost in thought becomes alarming when we realize that it is impossible to be fully aware of the present moment when we are lost in thought. As a matter of experience, the only thing that truly exists is the present. To learn meditation from Sam, I created an account on Sam's app Waking Up. The app has dozens of ten- to fifteen-minute guided meditations that build on one another, as well as a similar number of meditation theory lessons and conversations with people whose knowledge is relevant to mindfulness. Additionally, I acquired Sam's book Waking Up, the content of which further elaborates on some points Sam introduces in the app. Every day, I have been completing at least one guided meditation on the app and listening to at least one theory lesson. I plan to continue this practice at least until I have listened to each guided meditation on the app. I will continue my practice this week, and I'll elaborate next week about the theory of meditation and the insights that I've gained. |
Jeremy MahoneyPsychological explorer, lover of learning, and admirer of the universe ArchivesCategories |