Post by Admin on Mar 24, 2018 14:32:37 GMT -5
One of the fun things I get to do as admin of this website is to learn not only of serious cool research around mindfulness themes but also-- increasingly of late -- see more uses of humor and satire treating meditation and mindfulness, which I personally tend to enjoy anyway. Two of these gems I will share here, with one caveat: I know that not everyone appreciates these sorts of satire or humor, but perhaps if approached mindfully it won't bother the reader so much....or not...
The first is from the UK newspaper The Guardian, and the other is from The Onion, (in)famous satirical publication, who truly invented 'Fake News' years ago.
Nothing seems guaranteed to spark an explosion of schadenfreude, in the world of psychology, like a new piece of research suggesting meditation might be hogwash. The latest, a review of 54 existing studies, found that mindfulness did little to boost compassion or empathy and that other activities, such as watching a nature documentary, might help as much. (“Mindfulness No Better Than Watching TV,” ran the gleeful headline on a post by neurologist Steven Novella.)
Then there was the astonishing study that found Tibetan monks and nuns fear death more than the average person – a freakish result, since their philosophy holds that the self isn’t real, so death ought to be no big deal. The delighted reactions to such news are the flipside of the irritation encapsulated in a recent Onion story: “Historians Discover Meditation Spread From Ancient China By Annoying Monk Who Wouldn’t Shut Up About How It Changed His Life.”
As a meditation proponent, I have my retorts at the ready, of course. For good scientific reasons, researchers usually don’t try to recruit participants specifically looking to get into meditation, when my hunch is you have to really want to do it for it to work. Often, they’re asked to meditate for very short sessions, whereas in my experience, the longer the better. As for those death-fearing Buddhists, who were apparently mainly young, perhaps it’s just that they’d thought about death more than most of us – and with more years of meditation, they’ll transcend their fear entirely?
Finally, if I really want to annoy the critics, I’ll wheel out the argument that meditation isn’t meant to have a goal – so condemning it for failing to achieve certain goals misses the point. Mainly, though, I keep quiet, for fear of being hoist by my own petard. The moment I start snarking at some opponent of meditation, I’ve proved their point that in my case, at any rate, it hasn’t yet led to unbroken kindness or calm.
Still, it’s intriguing that meditation seems to irritate some people quite so intensely. There’s definitely something aggravating about spiritual teachers speaking in an affectless monotone, implying they’ve discovered the secret of happiness, while their whole bearing suggests their lives are boringly calm. Then there’s the dodgy politics of telling people to find joy in life as it is, rather than fighting for change – plus the dubiousness of spending public money promoting meditation if science doesn’t support the outcomes you’re trying to achieve. Besides, it’s pretty infuriating to have anyone tell you how to be happy. Especially when the practice they’re telling you to try is one that, in some sense, involves not trying.
All of which are good arguments against stuffing meditation down others’ throats. What they’re not, though, are reasons not to meditate. Nor, if you ask me, is the research challenging its efficacy: for me to stop meditating because of a study would be as bizarre as to abandon country hikes, or meals with friends, because research showed they weren’t as beneficial as they seemed. But to a great extent, the “seeming” itself is the benefit: if life seems better when I meditate, it just is better. Sorry if that viewpoint gets you worked up. Maybe you should try meditation?
See Oliver Burkeman's Blog (which will change your life, says he) -- and especially the many excellent 250+comments which follow it, by click-pushing HERE.
Historians Discover Meditation Spread From Ancient China By Annoying Monk Who Wouldn’t Shut Up About How It Changed His Life
The Onion, 10/13/17 2:15pm
NEW YORK—In a groundbreaking new study published Friday in The Journal Of East Asian Studies, a team of leading historians has proved that meditation originally spread from ancient China because a single, highly annoying monk went around telling everyone how much it had changed his life.
Analyzing documents uncovered across the Eurasian continent, researchers determined that the monk, who lived in the seventh century A.D. and learned rudimentary breathing and visualization exercises from a group of Mahayana Buddhists, traveled widely and talked constantly about how practicing meditation for only a week had fundamentally altered his personal outlook. From the Korean peninsula to the Central Asian steppes, he is believed to have aggravated people everywhere he went, inevitably shifting every conversation to the importance of mindfulness and being centered, even when it was clear no one was interested.
“Our research shows that from Mongolia all the way down to Java, everyone hated this smug prick.”
“There are mentions of an unbearably irritating monk in many texts from the period, and once we realized they were all referring to the same person, we were able to conclude that much of the Eastern world learned about meditation from this one sanctimonious asshole,” said study co-author Sheila Ryan of New York University, explaining that contemporary accounts indicated the monk would travel the Silk Road via merchant caravan, nagging his drivers about the value of observing one’s negative thoughts without resistance or judgment. “For example, scrolls from Asuka-period Japan indicate the island nation’s first exposure to the practice was this monk droning on and on about all the insight he’d gained from a weekend spent meditating in Tibet....
To read the whole thing click-push HERE.
The first is from the UK newspaper The Guardian, and the other is from The Onion, (in)famous satirical publication, who truly invented 'Fake News' years ago.
Do meditators annoy you? Try meditating
Meditation isn’t meant to have a goal – so condemning it for failing to achieve certain goals misses the point
Image Illustrator: Michele Marconi, Guardian 2018
Nothing seems guaranteed to spark an explosion of schadenfreude, in the world of psychology, like a new piece of research suggesting meditation might be hogwash. The latest, a review of 54 existing studies, found that mindfulness did little to boost compassion or empathy and that other activities, such as watching a nature documentary, might help as much. (“Mindfulness No Better Than Watching TV,” ran the gleeful headline on a post by neurologist Steven Novella.)
Then there was the astonishing study that found Tibetan monks and nuns fear death more than the average person – a freakish result, since their philosophy holds that the self isn’t real, so death ought to be no big deal. The delighted reactions to such news are the flipside of the irritation encapsulated in a recent Onion story: “Historians Discover Meditation Spread From Ancient China By Annoying Monk Who Wouldn’t Shut Up About How It Changed His Life.”
As a meditation proponent, I have my retorts at the ready, of course. For good scientific reasons, researchers usually don’t try to recruit participants specifically looking to get into meditation, when my hunch is you have to really want to do it for it to work. Often, they’re asked to meditate for very short sessions, whereas in my experience, the longer the better. As for those death-fearing Buddhists, who were apparently mainly young, perhaps it’s just that they’d thought about death more than most of us – and with more years of meditation, they’ll transcend their fear entirely?
Finally, if I really want to annoy the critics, I’ll wheel out the argument that meditation isn’t meant to have a goal – so condemning it for failing to achieve certain goals misses the point. Mainly, though, I keep quiet, for fear of being hoist by my own petard. The moment I start snarking at some opponent of meditation, I’ve proved their point that in my case, at any rate, it hasn’t yet led to unbroken kindness or calm.
Still, it’s intriguing that meditation seems to irritate some people quite so intensely. There’s definitely something aggravating about spiritual teachers speaking in an affectless monotone, implying they’ve discovered the secret of happiness, while their whole bearing suggests their lives are boringly calm. Then there’s the dodgy politics of telling people to find joy in life as it is, rather than fighting for change – plus the dubiousness of spending public money promoting meditation if science doesn’t support the outcomes you’re trying to achieve. Besides, it’s pretty infuriating to have anyone tell you how to be happy. Especially when the practice they’re telling you to try is one that, in some sense, involves not trying.
All of which are good arguments against stuffing meditation down others’ throats. What they’re not, though, are reasons not to meditate. Nor, if you ask me, is the research challenging its efficacy: for me to stop meditating because of a study would be as bizarre as to abandon country hikes, or meals with friends, because research showed they weren’t as beneficial as they seemed. But to a great extent, the “seeming” itself is the benefit: if life seems better when I meditate, it just is better. Sorry if that viewpoint gets you worked up. Maybe you should try meditation?
See Oliver Burkeman's Blog (which will change your life, says he) -- and especially the many excellent 250+comments which follow it, by click-pushing HERE.
Historians Discover Meditation Spread From Ancient China By Annoying Monk Who Wouldn’t Shut Up About How It Changed His Life
The Onion, 10/13/17 2:15pm
NEW YORK—In a groundbreaking new study published Friday in The Journal Of East Asian Studies, a team of leading historians has proved that meditation originally spread from ancient China because a single, highly annoying monk went around telling everyone how much it had changed his life.
Analyzing documents uncovered across the Eurasian continent, researchers determined that the monk, who lived in the seventh century A.D. and learned rudimentary breathing and visualization exercises from a group of Mahayana Buddhists, traveled widely and talked constantly about how practicing meditation for only a week had fundamentally altered his personal outlook. From the Korean peninsula to the Central Asian steppes, he is believed to have aggravated people everywhere he went, inevitably shifting every conversation to the importance of mindfulness and being centered, even when it was clear no one was interested.
“Our research shows that from Mongolia all the way down to Java, everyone hated this smug prick.”
“There are mentions of an unbearably irritating monk in many texts from the period, and once we realized they were all referring to the same person, we were able to conclude that much of the Eastern world learned about meditation from this one sanctimonious asshole,” said study co-author Sheila Ryan of New York University, explaining that contemporary accounts indicated the monk would travel the Silk Road via merchant caravan, nagging his drivers about the value of observing one’s negative thoughts without resistance or judgment. “For example, scrolls from Asuka-period Japan indicate the island nation’s first exposure to the practice was this monk droning on and on about all the insight he’d gained from a weekend spent meditating in Tibet....
To read the whole thing click-push HERE.