[a-nikolaev]

Thank you, this is the most compelling argument for meditation I've ever seen.

Don't want to sound too ignorant (although I might be), but more often than not I encounter much simpler interpretations of meditation and its goals that (to me) sound more like instructions to wall off rather than to find peace with yourself. They also sometimes come with a tacit shaming of strong emotions, but as the saying goes: "when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". I think that pushing for no strong emotions at all (at least on the surface) does promote walling off rather than actually understanding yourself better, which sometimes requires you to be out of balance. Like in math, always going up can lead you to a local maximum only, and to reach a global maximum you have to walk downhill once in a while.

[BiteCode_dev]

> more often than not I encounter much simpler interpretations of meditation and its goals that (to me) sound more like instructions to wall off rather than to find peace with yourself.

I've notice this at several occasions.

It is not specific to meditation though.

Agile software development, as practiced behind corporate walls, is very different what Beck and Schwaber talked about in the 90'.

Thanks to MMA, we know now that many modern martial art teachings are not practical from a self-defense perspective.

Many may claim they follow the ideal of the same famous religious figure, and confronted with each others, will end up with opposite opinions on how to live one life.

As soon as something become mainstream, it is bound to be adapted into different variations of what it was initially intended. Yet we keep the same name for it.

For what I know, what I'm practicing is also a variation of a variation of a variation of something.

[e12e]

> Thanks to MMA, we know now that many modern martial art teachings are not practical from a self-defense perspective.

I don't disagree with the general point that there are martial art schools that do not teach effective self defense - but I'm not sure how MMA figures in to it.

Self defense is about situational awareness, coping with multiple attackers, probably armed. Often you may have a way of de-escalating the situation (eg: give them your wallet).

I suppose in the instance of a single un-armed rapist (often the case when the victim knows the attacker) MMA has increased the focus on grappling (ie: judu/jujutsu/bjj and various wrestling techniques).

I'm not sure what else the popularity of MMA has thought us about self defense.

Now, if your talking about ring fighting with a particular ruleset, one on one, with a referee... That might be something else.

[Viliam1234]

I am not an expert, but some sources on meditation describe states of extreme emotion, as intermediate steps towards enlightenment. In Wikipedia, the first and second jhana are described as "rapture and non-sensual pleasure" (with or without internal speech respectively). So the proper path to balance seems to lead through mastery of the emotions, not suppressing them.

I think the idea is that you are not your emotions, and you don't have to be ruled by your emotions, but rather the emotions are something that happens to you, and something you can control. Doesn't mean you have to turn them off, it just means you have the option to do so if necessary. Or perhaps you feel the emotion, but are not compelled to act on it.

[closeparen]

Walls get such a bad rap. They are how we do resilience. They are how we prevent cascade failure. They are how we can keep sailing even when a compartment floods.