Is meditation a meme?

I forced myself to try but I quit after roughly two weeks without any noticeable improvement to my life

6 year meditator. its changed my life. when you get really into it its like being on some kind of drug. i feel super centered. minimal anxiety. other people seem tense af. i sort of don't bother telling people about it much because the average westerner cbf. had a pretty intense experience in 2014 permanent effects. inner happiness is amazing

>Is meditation a meme?
It's kinda grown to be one. But for good reason. It's just that the self-help industry has jumped the band-wagon.
>do you meditate?
Yes, Zazen
>How long have you done it?
Couple year, on and off. On again.
>did you see any results?
Yes. Psychologically more stable, emotionally too. Can think clearer.
Also the "actually being present and in the moment" is not a meme. It's real and it feels like you are... alive? In a non-euphoric sense. Tho euphoria can happen.

Oh, and the moral changes are totally true as well. Loving compassion is also not a meme. And no, you don't have to be a delusional hippy for this.
When dealing with people you will find yourself being more calm, less "showmany" and more agreeable. Confident, in a non-arrogant way.

>had a pretty intense experience in 2014 permanent effects.
Had your first kensho, boy?

I've been meditating for decades since high school. It very much helps me keep my emotions under control. I'd be a huge mess without it.

>'no one meditates.' -paul valery

Yes.
No.
n/a
n/a

Also:
>not literature
fuck off

i just don't really get it. i've tried it in small increments but it just seems like i'm sitting there. how can there be more benefits?

checl out these audio guided meditations for starters, mediafire.com/file/9avnnk9e5180bon/Meditation.zip
then take a look at this booklet: meditationexpert.com/ebok/howtomeditate.pdf

I tried meditating once and accidentally game myself an orgasm. It was started from my prostate too, which meant the ejaculate got fucking everywhere

A few weeks ago, I might've said maybe, but now it's a firm no, it's not a meme. I've been "meditating" for ten years, and even though people have always called me easygoing and relaxed, I knew that inside I was depressed and anxious. Meditation the way I was practicing it didn't seem to do much. It settled my mind somewhat and was useful to do before I sat down to study or read, and I did it all the time, but for ten years nothing approaching profound ever happened. It didn't even relax me all that much. I kept doing it anyway, but I couldn't help but feel disappointed.

Then I changed how I meditated. I had always felt like I was watching thoughts during my meditation, as they tell you to do, but in retrospect what I was really doing was getting lost in thought. For ten years I'd been doing it wrong. So one day randomly, independent of my meditation practice, just trying to cure my depression, I started experimenting with controlling my thoughts. Every time terrible thoughts would occur to me, as they often did, I would force my attention to physical sensations - the body, the breath. It started to have an effect. Then I added this practice to my meditation, focusing on my body and my breath instead of thoughts. Then I realized I was an idiot, because this was what they were saying to do all along. Anyway, after a few days of this, I was remarkably happier, more relaxed, and more intuitive. At times I was so happy that the only thing I can compare it to is when I was prescribed painkillers from the dentist. But I didn't live happily ever after, because the feeling fades, and you try to hold on to it, and you get angry because you're slipping out of it. I think a meditation guru might say that you have to let the bliss go and focus on the new sensations. The key isn't bliss; it's maintaining awareness, and this can lead to bliss, but it's not the point. Maybe. Meditation is still mysterious to me, but I can at least say now that there is something there.

good post

Keep in mind that while people attribute so much to meditation, you don't need a good reason to do it. You don't have to elevate it to a level of self therapy or spirituality to enjoy it, it's not some secret formula, you can just do it if you're curious.

Whenever I try to meditate I just kept twitches and start feeling like I'm gonna throw up.

Why the fuck is there a meditation thread in Veeky Forums when reading is one of the few things you can absolutely not do while meditating?

>Yes
>2 years
> You will stop identifying with your ego, you will understand that you are nothing more than a perceptive point with no quality and no attributes. All this is achieved not on a intellectual level but on an experiencial one. You will feel that.

If someone is interested I can write down how it works.

Henepola Gunaratana's Mindfulness in Plain English is pretty great. Was the first book I read on mindfulness meditation after a bunch of websites. Its a pretty secular interpretation of it, so it doesn't really require any background.

you seem stressed. Maybe you should meditate?

>do you meditate?
No
>How long have you done it?
Never
>did you see any results?
No

>I had always felt like I was watching thoughts during my meditation, as they tell you to do
Where do they tell this? I have never heard such an advice. Sounds like the opposite of meditation.

Do it faggot

By watching thoughts it may sound like I mean keeping your attention on thoughts, but what I really mean is observing thoughts as they arise but not following them, which is pretty standard meditation stuff. In my experience a "train of thought" occurs when the spark, the initial spur, is enticing enough that we get involved and start following the thought. A minute passes and you realize you weren't paying attention to your breath or your body; you were wrapped up in the thought.

The part where you curiously observe the thought and then gently bring your mind back to the breathing or whatever anker you are using, if any at all.

Because a state of mindfulness or awareness is good if you wanna go anywhere in life.

Meditation is another name for concentration. When the mind is concentrated on a single object, idea or biological function (breathe is a very popular one) your ego will disappear. In meditation your mind is full of the object of your concentration, nothing else is there. Your ego is nothing more than an idea itself and the more you will learn how to concentrate you will see that the ego disappear like any other thoughts beside the object of concentration. At that point you will feel your true self, the one that you cannot transcend,the one that is pure awareness without any quality.

A simple example to make you understand what I mean. Try to remember yourself, now. Try to remember that you exist. You will feel that your sense of self is more bigger. That's because you are creating your ego in this precise moment, you are thinking about it. If I become aware of this process your ego will be your creation and not who you are.

The only useful thing that meditation provides is the hability to improve your focus if you're easily distracted (almost everyone is in this multitasking world). Everything else people say it does is absolute trash and lies, and if you use meditation to "let go" of your thoughts and feelings you are a weak being that makes up mystical stuff to prevent facing himself.

You should try it first.

I did, and don't give me the "you did it wrong". It can "work" in many ways if you lie to yourself about it, meditation is placebo.

I don't have a direct problem with placebo, but one should know this before jumping into it. KNOW that you have the power to change yourself, meditation is just a common way to explain this, but you're better off without it.

For how long did you do it then?

I agree with you, there is a lot of metaphisical nonsense attached to it but you should at least had a gimple of what Said. If not you are doing it wrong. The most fundamental aspect of meditation is de-identification with the content of your mind like thoughts emotion and so on. What this leads to is a new sense of self. Can you tell me how you meditated ?

I'm a nervous guy and I get easily distracted, wich is very bad when you try to read difficult philosophy stuff or simply "boring but necessary" passages, so I gave meditation a try in order to improve this. What I did was sitting down and focusing only on my breathing for 5 minutes at the beggining (wich gave me headaches at first). I tried it for two months and it was mostly a waste of time. I can improve a lot of stuff by directly focusing on that stuff instead of resorting to some supposed panacea of a practice

OK that sounds more like. I was thinking you're following your thoughts and not bringing your attention back to your breath or whatever.

Meditation help focus as a side effect.
You should meditate only if you want some insight on yourself otherwise there are better things to do.

yes it works

i spent some time with a neuroscientist who studies it at oxford university, and the affects are so incredible it blows my mind its only just becoming popular. its sort of like performing a reboot/virus scan/malware scan on your brain so that it functions better.

Any source ?

>meditation
>not prayer
If you're not spending hours in your closet in prayer, you'll never achieve any sort of self-actualization

>Meditation is another name for concentration.
No, it isn't. The neural activation is inherently different.
Meditation is theta.

And conceptually it isn't correct either. Concentration is the act of holding ones attention on one thing for an extended period of time. Hypnosis is more like that.

You do realize that the stuff about counting breaths or paying attention to the breath/nose/belly/whatever is beginners-technique to help with the mind wandering, right?
There even is a minor debate among teachers to abandon that practice entirely, since getting rid of that habit is difficult later on.
>Everything else people say it does is absolute trash and lies,
I guess neuroscientists have been forging fMRI scans for years then.
The more you know...
This is demonstrably untrue.
You physically alter the structure of the brain with meditation. Did you think that was gonna happen quickly?

It also helps with needs for instantaneous gratification, by the way.
This shit is so common knowledge by now, that I'm surprised self-help nuts aren't trying to shove this shit down peoples throats as novel ideas by now. ...Oh, wait. They are.

Anyways, the research has been overwhelmingly positive.
Shit like this:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21034792
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19073756
researchgate.net/publication/6182829_Age_effects_on_gray_matter_volume_and_attentional_performance_in_Zen_meditation
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24705269
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27032724

And these are all outdated. Since MBCT became a thing, everyone and their mom is trying to get into the mindfulness game.
Among neuroscientists and psychologists, it's kind of the next big thing. Especially clinically, since it fixes a bunch of CBT problems.
Look up the TED talk on MBCT.

At this point meditation is pretty much like jogging. Unless you physically can't do it (shit knees/schizo), pretty much everyone should be doing it, even if the only reason is to see the doctor less.

>do you meditate?
Yes
>How long have you done it?
About a year
>did you see any results?
Absolutely. It makes me much calmer and stills my mind, which helps with just about everything.