[duncanawoods]

> out-of-touch with most mindfulness instruction I've experienced

The premise that emotions, be it anger, desire or rumination, are harmful, is almost aways the selling point and the reason people choose to start or are given such training.

The training itself might include non-judgement/compassion but that isn’t why you are sat there in the first place.

It’s difficult for me to see non-judgement as anything but a tool to pacify anger rather than as actual legitimisation of a state of anger as a way of being.

[BiteCode_dev]

I think it may be because culturally we mix anger with the causes and consequences of anger.

Meditation can, little by little, albeit very slowly in my experience, decorrelate those 3.

I've seen it to result in meditators subject to a lot of anger:

- producing less anger

- maintaining anger for smaller amounts of time

- acting less dramatically over anger

And so it seems logical that people draw the conclusion that meditation tells you not to be angry. That angers it bad, or that you should control it.

To my knowledge, that's not the teaching.

Note that I think it's as good as a reason as any to start practicing. The practice will shift your point of you over time anyway. It's what it does.

And it will help with the suffering related to anger on the long run.

However, confusion can arise if people with little to no experience with meditation make quick judgement of the technic and build definitive ideas on top of that.

Appart from kindly explaining that it's a different story, there is not much one can do about it, though.

[duncanawoods]

I believe meditation has taken too much oxygen from intellectual action e.g. writing exercises where you try to fully describe what is happening, the feelings, the causes, consequences and possible actions.

If you do this, you gain insight, empowerment and actionable plans. Meditation might claim something similar but I don’t think it delivers to the same degree.

[BiteCode_dev]

Self-development in general is a very efficent excuse to avoid taking action.

You can certainly use "meditation" to work on yourself forever, in preparation for doing things, and never, ever, actually do anything.

But in itself, it's not the nature of meditation.

In a way, meditation share similarities with physical exercice.

Doing your morning run doesn't make you less fit to take action, make a plan or to apply critical thinking. I would say it's the opposite.

A lot of my most productive periods in my life are right after meditation retreats.

During those times, I use GTD a lot, to support my efforts. Writting, descripting, listing causes and consequences are in no way in competition with meditation.

To be frank, I don't know what could be in competition with meditation. It's pretty much orthogonal to everything by essence.

[alecbenzer]

IME it does deliver. Not necessarily directly (like, you're not going to come up with an action plan white meditating), but, over time, it helps cultivate a state of mind where those things are easier to do.

I think it does take time, though, like between 1 week and 1 month of daily practice, to start noticing the effects.

[mercer]

I agree, but I'll add that in my opinion a writing exercise such as OP describes is half-way meditation anyways.

different activities involve different degrees of mindfulness, and I believe making a sharp distinction, while sometimes useful, is usually harmful.

You can take a shit mindfully, way I see it. it might not be something you call 'meditation' most of the time, but I imagine it's even possible to do a proper meditative shit.