Best Of
Re: Two minutes of meditation?
I'd even go as far as to say that the benefits per minute are greater with micro-meditations than longer ones. This is often true with any endeavour - the law of diminishing returns.
marcitko
Re: Two minutes of meditation?
@Ren_in_black said:
@Jeroen said:
Then I start losing track of time and relaxing just being in a kind of eternal meditative space.That's interesting. When you say eternal, do you mean that it's there the whole time and you return to it when you meditate?
No, it’s just the feeling of timelessness which comes over me.
Jeroen
Re: On giving unsolicited advice
I think there is an element of wisdom involved in knowing when to do which actions. The more we step into the current moment rather than being so led by rules or habituated responses, the more we are able to emotionally read the situation and respond skillfully. This isn't an intellectually learned ability, it is skill developed slowly through meditation.
person
Re: Ozempic
@IdleChater said:
I think the difference between what you're saying and Buddhist teachings, is that you're talking about synapses firing and Buddhism is about mind. The brain is an organ, while mind is a phenomenon.What I wonder about, sometimes, is that we can observe synapses firing for something like "craving". My question - is mind (craving) caused by the brain, or is the brain reacting to the craving?
I like this question and have spent a fair bit of time learning and thinking about it. Clearly there is a strong link between the two, but I am now of the opinion that the relation is something like a projector and the film. Where the brain is like the film with all the information and the mind is like the light of the projector that gives that information a field of experience. Like the difference between unconscious and conscious thoughts, why isn't everything we do unconscious?
Mostly though I just don't know and am curious about what is going on.
person
Re: On giving unsolicited advice
@Vastmind said:
…It’s not that ‘I’m not ready’…
The "not ready" bit was a little presumptuous embellishment on my part due to the limitations of a message board format. 😉 I would have preferred to first ask you questions so that I actually understood you better. I appreciate you giving me grace regarding that. In fact, I didn't even read your earlier post, which would have clued me in to your actual perspective. Oops! Since i missed the post, I didn't read the article until just now. I'm so grateful you posted it, and I hope others take it to heart. It's an expanded version of what I was getting at.
I'm definitely not always successful at being the best listener. It's the part of "right speech" that's often the most challenging for me: recognizing the moments when my words don't add value.
This thread feels, to me, like the broader topic at hand is right speech - and holy hell that's a tricky one. At least it is for me. Alas, my poor little ego has yet to be dissolved and I tend to be reactively defensive. That's the feeling that's happening when I wish someone would just stop complaining and save it for their therapist. I grew up in a family where everyone was competing to say the funniest, or smartest, or most profound thing. It was like living in a Reddit topic thread. People were "debating" all the time. But, that didn't help my social skills with peers, and I got a reputation as a self-righteous and arrogant communicator. When I learned that was how people saw me, I was crushed. Unfortunately, my parents didn't have any idea how to guide me through that. They played up my feeling of being a victim, essentially saying my critics were haters.
So now, when I find myself in a conversation that I think I have some insight on, or one in which the context suggests I'm obligated give an opinion or take a side, my nervous system puts my body in a state of danger-awareness that's two-fold: I feel driven to prove myself like I did in my family growing up, and simultaneously fearful that doing so will cause people to think I'm an asshole. My core muscles and neck muscles tighten, I lean forward, my shoulders sort of bunch up, my heart beats faster, my breathing quickens, and my brain starts spinning in order to both prove my worth and defend it from being undermined. It's an adrenaline rush!
This is when the body-awareness cultivated in vipassana helps me tremendously. When I notice the tension I take deep diaphragmatic breaths to loosen my stomach muscles and slow my heart rate. I slowly roll my shoulders backwards and down. I make sure I'm not clenching my jaw. I relax my forehead and eyebrows. This whole thing doesn't take more than a minute or two unless I'm already agitated. Then, when I've convinced my sympathetic nervous system that I'm not in danger, I'm enabled to keep my mouth shut and be a good listener. Then, maybe, I can be a tacit yet helpful example of a nervous system in homeostasis.
Thanks for reading. I love you guys.
ScottPen
Re: Ozempic
@ScottPen said:
@IdleChater said:
The cause is, ultimately, ignorance.
See: Dependent Origination
Pretty sure that craving is caused by the fact that, in the human brain, the limbic system handles motivation and the cerebral cortex handles
I think the difference between what you're saying and Buddhist teachings, is that you're talking about synapses firing and Buddhism is about mind. The brain is an organ, while mind is a phenomenon.
What I wonder about, sometimes, is that we can observe synapses firing for something like "craving". My question - is mind (craving) caused by the brain, or is the brain reacting to the craving?
Re: Buddhism, women and the goddess
@Jeroen said:
But then I think because of their biology women are less well suited to be celibate nuns, they are made to mother the next generation. That is why the Mother Goddess religion is more well suited to them.
And of course celibacy for men works so well. Look at the Catholic Church's history.....
I'm sorry I just find that statement incredibly offensive to women. Having followed a Mother Goddess path myself in my youth (Wicca), and being devoted to Mary as a child growing up Catholic, I can say I unequivocally agree that matriachal religions are more loving and peaceful than the current patriachal "Big 3".
But women can and do engage in celibacy quite successfully. I spent 8 years being celibate by choice and still managed to nurture and raise my daughter well. Perhaps you meant to word that differently?
Re: Two minutes of meditation?
@Ren_in_black said:
@Jeroen said:
Then I start losing track of time and relaxing just being in a kind of eternal meditative space.That's interesting. When you say eternal, do you mean that it's there the whole time and you return to it when you meditate?
I don't know precisely what Jeroen is talking about, but in Buddhist teaching, there is really no such thing as "eternal". One reason we suffer is because we cling to things, hoping they won't end (eternal), when, in fact, they are bound to end.
But, to speak to your question, yes, even a few minutes of meditation, mindfulness or otherwise, can be beneficial, if you think of it in those terms. I do it all the time. Longer meditation sessions - 10 minutes minimum - are optimal, however.
Re: Ozempic
@IdleChater said:
The cause is, ultimately, ignorance.
See: Dependent Origination
Pretty sure that craving is caused by the fact that, in the human brain, the limbic system handles motivation and the cerebral cortex handles storytelling and context. The limbic system functions in support of keeping humans alive long enough to make more humans, and the cerebral cortex handles all the stuff that we consciously experience; emotions, sensory tasks, memory, thinking, thinking about thinking, conceptualizing the past and the future, reasoning, language, problem solving, etc.
The limbic system, including your nervous system, handles motivation chemically, by rewarding us with good feels when we do things which, instinctively, keep our genes moving on (eating, sex, community, physical safety, etc). Those good feels are associated, subconsciously, with our memories of those experiences. The good feels fade as the brain does it's "re-uptake" of the hormones that created them. Also happening subconsciously, associations are made between the brain/body-state and memories of when we don't achieve the stuff that keeps our genes moving (food, sex, community, physical safety, etc), creating aversion. We experience craving, clinging, aversion, and striving for MORE, even in the face of abundance, because there's no convincing the non-thinky part of our brain to be reasonable. Buddhism puts the cerebral cortex more in the driver's seat. Every bit of complexity that piles on top of that is just context which the cerebral cortex handles in our life story.
If the Buddha were alive today, I think he'd include neuroscience under the tent labelled Prajna/Panna. Accepting the materialistic laws of nature is a part of accepting reality.
All my humble opinion.
ScottPen
Re: Two minutes of meditation?
Because there is no other time in which meditation can be done except in this present moment, why create value systems for the co-joining of those moments into some quantitative prizes of the past or the future?
Each moment is another opportunity to either meditate or not.
Whenever you notice that you're not, simply return to it without judgment or mental contortions.
Or as Dogen used to say "like an adjusting of your pillow in the middle of the night."
how