[alex_lod]

What bothers me most about these is that they often charge money. In Buddhism the teaching of mindfulness has been offered through “dana” (donations). Teachings so close to our hearts shouldn’t be commercialized in my opinion. If they are, they lose a lot of their essence. Hard to explain :)

[criddell]

I think it depends on if you see a fee as buying mindfulness or supporting a teacher. I really don't have a problem with the latter.

I downloaded and have been using Oak for a few weeks now and so far, I think I like it. I haven't seen ads and the app is pretty basic. They have guided and unguided sessions and I find myself returning to the guided version even though I've pretty much memorized the instruction. The voices are nice and I actually find myself doing a better job of staying focused on my breath.

I don't know that it's been beneficial yet, but it is becoming a habit.

It also introduced me to Alan Watts and that can't be a bad thing.

[epalmer]

What is this "Oak" app you mentioned? There are a lot of Android Apps with Oak in their name. Thanks.

[skinnymuch]

Looks like it is for iOS only. https://www.oakmeditation.com. Apparently by Kevin Rose of Digg among other things fame.

[criddell]

It's an iOS app: https://www.oakmeditation.com/

For me it hits the sweet spot for simple, attractive, and useful.

[bunderbunder]

You could argue that selling apps is more akin to selling books than it is to teaching people how to sit.

[j45]

Same goes for how things like Yoga have been appropriated and commercialized. (Please read my last sentence if this comment upset you).

While it generally costs more to live in the west than the east, it seems to upset a lot of new yogis that Yoga is not traditionally paid for transactionally in India, in the westernized model. Nor is India a country of 1 billion Yogi's.

I'm very happy for people who find any kind of practice, exercise, etc that improves their life. Excluding people from that on the basis of money alone is something that I have not been able to agree to agree with.

[brango]

No but it was "paid for" by the student living with/spending significant time with the guru doing chores for them. I'd rather pay a few bucks per month to avoid that.

[j45]

I'm not sure I'd call or accept that behaviour as being one Of 'guru'.

The difference is similar to parents who raise adults to remain children and subservient vs. parents who want to raise children to be adults.

The same can be said for "gurus". True gurus want to raise equals so the student surpasses the teacher.

[bornonline1]

agree.