TheJach.com

Jach's personal blog

(Largely containing a mind-dump to myselves: past, present, and future)
Current favorite quote: "Supposedly smart people are weirdly ignorant of Bayes' Rule." William B Vogt, 2010

Mindlessness Meditation

My company has been pushing the 'mindfulness meditation' stuff on its employees for a while now. Long story short, I don't really like it, nor its goals, but that's probably because I have a more effective technique (for me) for my own goals. Maybe more effective for introverted nerds too. In particular, during one of the guided meditations I tried several months ago (since I figured I'd give it a shot for comparison) one of the comments was something like (taken from the mindfulness website): "Think of a time you were talking with a friend, spouse, or therapist about an important situation in your life, and when the conversation was over you felt lighter, loved, and cared for." My issue there is: I can't think of such a time! And this was the case for most of the "think of a time..." guide phrases. I'm just too weird I guess. Or I'm a man, mindfulness seems to attract more women than men, it may be because its methods resonate with women more easily.

I call my method 'mindlessness' now to contrast it with 'mindfulness'. But it's really just intentional zoning out, stopping your conscious thinking. It came about during my early teenage years while I learned about Taoism. I certainly have mistaken views about that and I don't claim my form of meditation is necessarily more 'Taoist' than not, though I do like to think of it like that sometimes. In any case, don't a lot of (at least western) meditation advocates like to say meditation is a personal thing you do for yourself and that there's no truly wrong way to do it?

My way is pretty simple, though not always easy. The goal is to empty your mind. Cease your thinking. That's it. A little more elaboration? If you are aware of anything, let it be that you are aware that you're aware there is no other thought besides that awareness and that is OK. Surrender to the Void (or perhaps the Tao) and relinquish your emotions, your body sensations, your very thoughts, to the flow of just Being in a state very close to Non-Being. Achieve nothingness.

See Full Post and Comments