[fellow_human]

What cultural practices are you referring to? Every non-white cultural practice? That would be proving my point.

I never stated there was value in every non-western cultural practice, only that the value that actually does exists is easy to dismiss away as "superstitious beliefs" (or mystic bullshit) until one of the "in-group" convinces us otherwise. No doubt, it's a good thing science now backs up meditative benefits to an individual, but it shows a certain level of arrogance if everyones culture is bullshit or backwards until [insert popular science guy] has confirmed otherwise.

[hombre_fatal]

Well, in my OP that you responded to, I used "eastern mystic bullshit" to explain where I was coming from and why I initially rejected meditation. It was always only something I'd hear brought up from a dread-locked vagabonding white guy with a mandala tattoo on his chest and the desperate need for deodorant.

Sam Harris makes the case that you can save the baby (mindfulness) from the bathwater (superstition, etc.) and that these practices were onto something because we share a common human experience.

Why not listen to his first chapter that I linked? I can almost guarantee that you would agree with him. You are just having a knee-jerk reaction to what you think is going on. Harris covers the exact things you think you're trying to point out.

Also, let's drop the skin-color bullshit. I reject all religion and superstition the same way I reject astrology, which is why I need a rationalist approach to have my mind re-opened to some of these ideas like mindfulness which are almost always couched in superstition. Sam Harris is precisely trying to do this and he starts that chapter making the case for it to people like me who immediately cringe at a loaded word "spirituality".

[fellow_human]

Fair enough, I did probably knee jerk or interpret things in the wrong way. Will give it a go perhaps. I'm currently using the headspace app which I suspect is a similar approach.