From the article: "About half a year ago I started taking psychedelic drugs fairly regularly. Partially because they were fun, but also because I could see how they benefited me therapeutically. When I heard that meditation could produce similar effects, I found a ten day intense silent meditation course I could join in Italy."
Huey Lewis & the News:
"I want a new drug
One that won't make me sick
One that won't make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick
I want a new drug
One that won't hurt my head
One that won't make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red"
I'm inclined to go with Feynman on this. He was once convinced in the 1960s by Dr. John Lilly to try LSD, being told it would improve his thinking. Feynman then thought, the next day, that he had solved a hard problem he'd been working on. While going to a meeting where he was doing to discuss his solution, he realized that he hadn't solved the problem, he had hallucinated that he had solved the problem. Feynman was furious. He wrote "I like to think, and I don't want to break the machine."
That guy would probably get equally good results by taking 10 days off to go surfing.
This is such a dismissive attitude. What Feynman is talking about is putting something artificial in your body with potentially adverse side effects. This has very little to do with sitting still in a room and watching your breathing. This is something people have done for thousands of years, and it consists "only" of sitting.
Going on a surf vacation for 10 days isn't going to have nearly as big of an impact as something like this in this dimension. You may a get a lot better at surfing really quickly, and meet some friends. Which is great!
If you don't think meditation is for your, fine, don't do it. But don't downplay people's experience by imposing your own limited world view on it.
EDIT: My intention is not be dismissive of surfing as an activity. I would be surprised though if OP went on a 10 day surfing retreat and wrote a similar article to the one we are reading now.
Meditation is commonly practiced by all kinds of people, many of whom don't do it in the tradition you may associate with 'Meditation'. I wouldn't be so dismissive of surfing. Activities that force you to clear your mind (so you don't die or seriously hurt yourself) are other candidates for similar outcomes.
There's scientific evidence that meditation improves memory, cognition, grey matter, concentration, and so on.
The same is not true for surfing or generally relaxing. Just because people feel like there are similarities between experiences on psychedelics and meditation does not mean that they have equal outcomes.
Or just 10 days of doing anything you don't normally do.
10 days of doing anything intensively would make a drastic results:
- learn a new programming language
- learn a new skill (cooking, painting, carpentry)
- 10 straight days of helping someone less fortunate than yourself
Huey Lewis & the News:
I'm inclined to go with Feynman on this. He was once convinced in the 1960s by Dr. John Lilly to try LSD, being told it would improve his thinking. Feynman then thought, the next day, that he had solved a hard problem he'd been working on. While going to a meeting where he was doing to discuss his solution, he realized that he hadn't solved the problem, he had hallucinated that he had solved the problem. Feynman was furious. He wrote "I like to think, and I don't want to break the machine."That guy would probably get equally good results by taking 10 days off to go surfing.