Re: My experience is what I agree to attend to.

On May 7, 8:36 am, "pg" <p...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Lance" <LanceG...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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pg wrote:
"Paul Grieg" <pgr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On May 5, 8:40 pm, "pg" <p...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Peter Brooks" <Peter.H.M.Bro...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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On May 5, 11:39 am, Lance <LanceG...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Something experienced meditators can do without the least effort. The
trained mind as the equivalent of the fit body that receives a regular
workout. It does what you want it to do, and is better equipped to do
so
efficiently. 'Mindfulness' has been around for millenia.

I've mentioned this here and on other forums before, but meditation is
still
often dismissed as cranky weirdo stuff for hippy types.

I find I get distracted, or bored, very quickly if I attempt to
meditate, and have decided it's probably not really for me.

Well, exactly - you and everyone else when starting out. It takes a few
weeks before it starts to come naturally, whereupon the benefits begin to
follow.

Sonja
Lyubomirsky's book "The How of Happiness" is very good on doing 'what
works', and admits that some people (like her!) just can't really get
into meditation.

Everyone can do it. It just requires a few weeks of disciplined effort,
that's all. You can't just buy it off the shelf and switch it on.

She suggests that if you find mediation difficult you should try one
of seven other techniques for finding happiness/contentment -- getting
into flow activities works best for me, that is, things like reading
(or writing in a newsgroup!)

Very little in common in terms of benefit - I'm a huge reader, and I
meditate. There is just no comparison between the two, in terms of
gaining
'mindfulness'. I'm not surprised that S.L. who has admitted not actually
learning to practice meditation should think it possible to equate the
benefits of the activities you mention with it.

As in mediation, in reading or writing you focus on one thing. The
advantages, for me, is that it is easier to ignore distractions &
boredom by doing an all-involving, varied activity rather than just
watching the breath.

It just doesn't work like that. An analogy would be the difference
between
the training of a disciplined athlete to that of a porky gym member who
sits
on a bike for 5 minutes a couple of times a week, doing the crossword,
before retiring to the bar exhausted. Anyone with a reasonable brain can
read a good book - it requires very little mental discipline.

pg

pg wrote "Anyone with a reasonable brain can read a good book - it
requires very little mental discipline."

Varies with the book I think. Reading Kant and Hegel require quite a
lot of self-discipline (at least that's my experience) and I just
couldn't summon up enough discipline to finsih reading Heidegger's
"Being and Time". Of course reading novels can seem completely
effortless (see my post above about reaqding trances).

It's certainly true that some reading requires better mental discipline.

I have to read exam scripts several times a year and I can tell you
reading much the same stuff hundreds of times can require considerable
mental discipline too.

I think video games can also train concentration (not just meditation
and reading difficult stuff) though perhaps not quite the same sort of
concentration reading requires. Even doing complex mental arithmetic
can train concentration. When you can't sleep at night try calculating
the fifth root of a very long number and see how much concentration is
required.

I think some kinds of memory tasks can also require enormous
concentration and need practice to perfect. For example remembering
the order of cards in a sorted pack of 52 cards doesn't come easy.

Ok. An analogy would be those getting a little physically fit 'by accident',
rather than by design. And bearing in mind that physical fitness is often in
the mind of the 'must-get-down-to-the-gym-this-week' would-be sportsman,
rather than reflecting his actual condition.

pg- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

There is not one royal road to learning mind control. It obvious to me
that there are many forms of mind control, and that some may be more
important in some contexts than in others. In the academic world the
ability to concentrate on and master complex texts is far more
important than mindfulness. In the context of needing to remember
large amounts of detail for use later, memory training is far more
important. (Think of Roman lawyers needing to hold all the details of
their cases in their heads). Eisntein's ability to concentrate was
legendary (children could crawl all over him and he would not notice
for example, but he was not meditating. It seems to me that
mindfulness is useful in many everyday circumstances - for example
coping with distractions and worries. I think it is very important to
human happiness. But to pretend that all other forms of mind control
are accidental approximations to mindfulness is rather fancilful.

Lance
.

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