James_Miller comments on Stupid Questions July 2015 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Gondolinian 01 July 2015 07:13PM

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Comment author: James_Miller 02 July 2015 02:31:55PM 0 points [-]

Focus to what? Breathing?

Comment author: OrphanWilde 02 July 2015 06:07:54PM 4 points [-]

Breathing is one option, although it doesn't strictly need to be the focus. The goal is to focus your -entire- mind upon your focal point, leaving no mental space for anything like boredom.

Honestly I'm not sure how applicable mindfulness meditation is to different mental types. Some people seem genuinely incapable of focusing their entire mind on one thing; I'm on the extreme end in the other direction, and am incapable of conscious focus on -more- than one thing at a time, to the point where I can be in extraordinary pain and -simply not notice-, because something else is more interesting. To some extent mindfulness meditation probably just reinforces a habit in me which, while generally desirable, is over-exercised in my case.

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 July 2015 09:24:25PM 2 points [-]

Breathing is good for beginners.

I would recommend against focusing on an object outside of your body at the beginning for people in the LW cluster.