N=1 experience: I read the piece bramflakes linked, and decided to try it out. My first few sessions were uneventful; they felt like a little quiet time, no more. On the third try, after a few minutes, I found that my breathing naturally slowed down dramatically and I fell into a trancelike state, feeling less connected with my body yet with my mind still working approximately normally. Coming out of this session felt like waking up after a good night's sleep, with less distraction and more focus, though not with more energy per se. I've since usually been able to access that trance-like state after 5-7 minutes of focus, and have been basically hanging out in that state of mind for a while until the session is over. If anyone has any ideas on what to do once there, I'd be curious to know.
Since then I've attempted to meditate when my schedule allows. I find it a useful cure for the kind of fast-paced inattention that I tend to fall into (what folks have called "monkey mind"). Also interesting, it's really made clear to me the lack of control I have over my trains of thought. Directing my attention is not something that I was even aware of as a skill worth training.
Hi everybody,
There's been a bit of talk of Mindfulness meditation around. I am curious about this, because it looks like it might be practical advice backed by a deep theory.
Unfortunately, all the tutorials on mindfulness meditation seem to be semi-practical advice backed by totally bogus theories (focus your energies, blah blah). I've been able to extract some useful stuff from such articles, but I don't know what I can trust, and I still don't fully understand how it's even supposed to work.
My current understanding is that you are supposed to pay attention to something and then pay attention to your attention, notice when you go off track, not judge yourself, and focus your attention back on the thing you were paying attention to. Or something.
I'd like to understand the technique at least well enough to judge success. When I'm doing chin-ups, it's easy to see if I did a chin-up or not, and how many, but I don't even know what this mindfulness stuff is supposed to look like.
If anyone knows more about what it's supposed to feel like, what the steps are an so on, I would really appreciate if you posted your knowledge here.