ksvanhorn comments on Meditation, insight, and rationality. (Part 1 of 3) - Less Wrong

35 Post author: DavidM 28 April 2011 08:26PM

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Comment author: ksvanhorn 30 April 2011 10:49:02PM 3 points [-]

Common kinds of meditation instructions, such as "relax, follow your breath, and cultivate equanimity towards whatever thoughts arise without getting involved with them", are unfortunately not the kinds of instructions that have an especially good track record among typical meditators. At least with respect to attaining the kind of insight under discussion. Such instructions do seem to work very well for helping people to be relaxed and less overemotional, though.

I'm interested in both stress reduction and enhanced clarity of thought/perception. Do you consider the kind of meditation you are advocating to be useful for both purposes, or just the latter?

Comment author: DavidM 01 May 2011 03:10:30AM *  5 points [-]

I would say that the methods leading to enlightenment will help with stress, but only indirectly. Once you've begun to do away with the delusions that cause you suffering, life starts to go a lot more smoothly. But the practice that most directly aims at that is not a relaxing one and is not one that I would ever recommend to someone to control their stress levels for immediate relief.

Parenthetically, some people find that, with partial enlightenment, the practices that directly improve mood and stress levels become ridiculously easy (for those who care to indulge). Most beginners typically find the same practices hard to execute successfully.

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