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Over Meditating/Escaping Current Reality?

DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran
edited May 2011 in Meditation
Over Doing Meditation? Over Meditating?
Can someone get attached to meditation so much that he or she does not feel like living in current reality?
The monks who practice meditation day and night aren't they trying to escape this reality?
Thoughts?

Comments

  • taiyakitaiyaki Veteran
    all depends on the individual. we take what we get from meditation and integrate it in all aspects of our lives.
    the purpose of meditation is to ground us back into reality rather than away from.

    people using a method for escapism? i am sure it happens, but hey meditation is great~
  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran
    all depends on the individual. we take what we get from meditation and integrate it in all aspects of our lives.
    the purpose of meditation is to ground us back into reality rather than away from.

    people using a method for escapism? i am sure it happens, but hey meditation is great~
    Yea!
    I have met many individuals who use meditation as an escape.
    Not willing to live in the moment.
  • taiyakitaiyaki Veteran
    how do you spot someone who is using meditation to escape from reality?
    and isn't doing something to change your current situation basically preventing you from accepting what is?

    it's like we meditate to get to a state of concentration or some kind of bliss. but isn't the point to just accept what is. accept our current situation. accept our monkey mind.

    i suppose it comes down to what "true" meditation is. isn't the goal to have insight into the workings of reality to find true freedom?

    what if one finds such freedom but decides to work on jhana states? what harm will that bring?
  • SpinyNorman2SpinyNorman2

    Can someone get attached to meditation so much that he or she does not feel like living in current reality?
    The whole point of meditation is to encounter reality more directly.

    Spiny
  • SpinyNorman2SpinyNorman2
    Not willing to live in the moment.
    Again, the whole point of meditation and mindfulness is to fully experience the present momement.

    Spiny
  • SpinyNorman2SpinyNorman2
    it's like we meditate to get to a state of concentration or some kind of bliss. but isn't the point to just accept what is. accept our current situation. accept our monkey mind.
    I'd say that the purpose of meditation is to develop concentration and insight.
    But in order for these to develop we need to be fully accepting of the way things are.

    Spiny
  • santhisouksanthisouk Veteran
    Can someone get attached to meditation so much that he or she does not feel like living in current reality?
    Personally I don't see how a person who is not in touch with reality would be interested in meditation. People who does not live in current reality are people who does not care about the world or themselves.
    The monks who practice meditation day and night aren't they trying to escape this reality?
    You have to realize that a true monk renounces the world so they would be living in the reality of being a monk. If this person meditates all day it should be for liberation and nothing else, and to me that is very highly respectable and honorable reality.
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    I think it is better not to bad-mouth "escapism" too much. Lay or monk, who does not, at first, wish to escape? Hope, belief, goals, sincerity ... all such things play into a desire to revise or improve and, by extension, to escape the wiles of suffering and attachment and ego and ... pick your poison.

    Buddhist practice, as far as I can see, is intended to inform people in the most intimate way that there is no escaping this moment. So we practice as a means of discovering what is obvious -- there is no escape and (if it really needed to be said) it's OK.

    Martin Luther King once observed, approximately, "It's not what's wrong with the world that scares people. What really scares them is that everything is all right." This observation is nice work if you can get it, but for an escapist like me, it requires some effort.

    Escapists R Us, I'd say.

    Lay or monk, let's just keep up a determined and constant practice. That way, maybe one day, we can just keep up a determined and constant practice.
  • zenffzenff Veteran
    edited May 2011

    The monks who practice meditation day and night aren't they trying to escape this reality?
    Thoughts?
    Everything we do can be seen as an escape from something else.

    The continuously meditating monk could argue that people who live ordinary lives do so because they can not handle a life of meditation.
    The person living an ordinary life might say no; the monk is running away from ordinary life. His little universe of meditation is a hide-out.

    The key – I think – is not to distinguish meditation from ordinary life; not to distinguish the thing we are doing from the thing we are not doing right now.
    They are the same thing.
    That is to say, for me they should be the same thing when I try to be in the present moment without adding words, concepts and preferences to what is naturally pure.



  • personperson Don't believe everything you think The liminal space Veteran

    The monks who practice meditation day and night aren't they trying to escape this reality?
    Thoughts?
    Yes, but isn't that ultimately the point? Didn't the Buddha teach us how to escape from the cycle of rebirth?

    I guess it all depends on how you define escape. If living a life of meditaion is just a lifestyle choice and not used as a tool to liberate your mind then I guess it could be a form of escapism. So I guess like almost everything else, it depends.

  • aMattaMatt Veteran
    People who meditate in the Buddhist sense increase their present moment awareness, so initial intent doesn't matter. There is no rule of the world that says one must watch TV, go to a 9 to 5, date, and go to parties. What is there to escape from? Said differently, how could meditation be an escape? They are still there... whether they are texting, cooking or sitting.

    Some people who are depressed sleep as a method of avoidance, but that is a lot different than meditation. Becoming more aware is not a distraction.
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    Over Doing Meditation? Over Meditating?
    Can someone get attached to meditation so much that he or she does not feel like living in current reality?
    The monks who practice meditation day and night aren't they trying to escape this reality?
    Thoughts?
    Are they trying to escape Samsara? Yes. :)

  • compassionate_warriorcompassionate_warrior Veteran
    edited May 2011
    The daily routine of monks in monasteries doesn't involve meditating all day. Typically, they have a schedule of morning meditation, and evening meditation. In-between they're studying/memorizing texts and doing chores in the monastery, occasionally participating in debates. It's monks who go on retreat and spend weeks, months, sometimes years in meditation that "meditate all day". But this isn't an escape, it's hard work of a spiritual nature. It's the pursuit of insight and wisdom.

    Good question/OP, though. There may well be misguided souls who use meditation as an escape, or who misunderstand its purpose.
  • Floating_AbuFloating_Abu Veteran

    Can someone get attached to meditation so much that he or she does not feel like living in current reality?
    The whole point of meditation is to encounter reality more directly.

    Spiny
    What Spiny Norman said.
  • SpinyNorman2SpinyNorman2
    Over Doing Meditation? Over Meditating?
    I've known lots of Buddhists who don't meditate enough. I can't recall ever having met one who meditates too much. ;-)

    Spiny
  • newtechnewtech Veteran
    Depends on the meditation.
    A meditation that its placed on the present moment should´t be a problem.
    Blacking out with forced concentration, or clinging will feel like fantasy world.

  • brodynbrodyn
    i think to meditate all the time is escapist IF that is all you do. we are given a body to use not just to sit there all day looking inward, but to act as well with the knowledge we gain.

    i also think budhist monks are kidding themselves. to leave society to avoid temptations - (not unlike christian evangelists by the way) and they live peaceful existence among themselves = and making peace for themselves alone away from society. it makes no sense.

    i mean of course you can get along with people as a monk when your surrounded by others that are trying to be humble and kind- but what if that same monk was then taken away from their environment- disrobed - how would he handle for example- watching someone abuse an animal who refuses to listen to wisdom. would he not step in? would he not use violence if needed to stop the action?

    its like people who go on meditation retreats - so great and wonderful, and then they come back and yes im sure u can use the teachings but not always so easy to implement in the real world.

    i think budhism should be for us all to change ourselves- AND the society we live in, not through just sitting on a mountain gazing in a mirror, but to use society as a mirror, and help eachother to reach englightenment through sharing compassionate wisdom, not just ourselves.
    just doesn't make any sense to me- you escape into a peaceful world of monks and solitude, seems selfish in a way.
  • AMHAMH
    hmm, I don't have time to escape reality, and I struggle with time for meditation like most lay people. So I guess someone could do it but escaping reality for me is taking a nap when I am not tired or sitting an daydreaing about really inlikely or unhealthy ideas (not just a hope that can become reality with some work). So now I am outa time again
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