I meditate about twice a day, once in the morning and once before bed. Sometimes I get lazy and just meditate in the morning. My typical amount of time is 30 - 40 minutes. I typically use my breath as a concentration object and go into vipassana, though I have done others. I supplement with the teaching from Tsultrim Allione's _Feeding Your Demons_.
If I don't meditate, I can feel my mind subtly destabilizing. It may not be apparent to other people, but it is apparent to me.
But beyond that, I've had realized some insights to know that mindfulness is the base reality of which everything else is a play, a story.
As far as benefits that others can see: I am less crankier. I am more empathic and occasionally intuit other people's motivations. I can see into other people's shadows and assuming I don't start resonating with my own, they don't upset me as much as it used to. With more space or more need, I can listen mindfully to someone else thrashing out their rejected shadow.
It's still a work in progress. I'm still working on being fully mindful while coding. I know the theory. As always, the practice is harder.
That's a great way to describe it. If I don't meditate, my mind gets all screwy too. I missed a few days while on vacation and found myself wondering: "How do people live like this?"
The writer who introduced me to that idea had this story. He was able to rest upon stillness even while standing or moving. He's a martial artist, so that means that he doesn't telegraph his intentions.
He once taught a workshop. Some dude, a police officer I think, came up to him later to tell him something. The officer said, "You know, I noticed that you are completely still. Then when you move, there is movement. I don't see any telegraphing. Then you stop. It is really freaky."
The teacher commented, he thought everyone else looks freaky.
I'm not there yet, where I can stay in that state of stillness when standing, much less moving. I've had a taste of it though. Enough that when I'm there, I see people moving. Their body language! So much twitching, and jerking, whether they are martial artists or not. It's like these weird influences in them that they don't know about, animating them. They look like they are possessed.
I'm actually going to adapt a paper-and-pencil RPG system based on this observation. That the way people normally are, is insane. That is, modern adults are insane in socially-acceptable ways. So starting characters would start with a wisdom of 1, maybe 2 if they are lucky. And any actions they take that they do not fully experience (modelled by rolling the wisdom dice pool), they gain a derangement. It's just that characters also start with derangements. Derangements are awesome sources of drama -- like, say, the TV show, Once Upon A Time.
I think this is where the Buddhist teaching of compassion comes in. You know, "how do people live like this?" They can't, you can see the suffering. It's not even their fault, though it is also their choice.
I'm glad that gnosis occasionally pops into Y(HN) to post stuff like this. It has always generated a lot of interest and discussion, and a great chance for people to thrash out what they think meditation is. And who knows? Maybe a few people will give it a try and find that they are more sane.
Kinda. It depends on how mindful you are when you are doing or practicing the same amount of sports a day.
If you're spacing out while training or playing, then you're not being mindful. This is also true of people who formally sit: a lot of people will spend years "spacing out" thinking they are emptying their minds and "meditating."
On the other hand, when you train and you get that feeling like... you're relaxed yet focused, your mind is engaged and aware, then yeah, you're likely in at least the first concentration state called Access Concentration.
It also implies something about "motivation". We tend to want to be "motivated" to do something. The feeling is often approaching flow or zone -- access concentration. The thing is, gaining access concentration is skill you can train by itself. Or at the very least, you can figure out how to slip into access concentration when you engage in the sport.
I know that many traditional martial arts are considered "enlightenment vehicles". In modern times, sports can be used for that vehicle.
If you want to know more about this, I recommend reading Dan Millman's _The Way of the Peaceful Warrior_. From there, Millman has a separate book specifically about using sports as a meditative practice. This one provides more of the context.
If I don't meditate, I can feel my mind subtly destabilizing. It may not be apparent to other people, but it is apparent to me.
But beyond that, I've had realized some insights to know that mindfulness is the base reality of which everything else is a play, a story.
As far as benefits that others can see: I am less crankier. I am more empathic and occasionally intuit other people's motivations. I can see into other people's shadows and assuming I don't start resonating with my own, they don't upset me as much as it used to. With more space or more need, I can listen mindfully to someone else thrashing out their rejected shadow.
It's still a work in progress. I'm still working on being fully mindful while coding. I know the theory. As always, the practice is harder.