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by 613style
2062 days ago
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I agree that it's difficult to get to the core practical side of these things. Buddhism and related religions/philosophies have had a lock on meditation for so long that it can be hard to disentangle the real stuff from the stuff that got made up along the way. So when you reach for The Mind Illuminated, which is a 400 page book, and trivialize the 390 pages of good pragmatic instructions on improving concentration and insight skills because you read 10 pages of spiritual mumbo-jumbo, you're missing a powerful opportunity. The fact is that if you sit quietly and pay attention to your breath for a couple hours a day, some very transformative stuff will eventually start happening all on its own. No books or religion is required. But as a society, we mostly aren't willing to do that because of attitudes like that displayed in your post. We're making progress, though. Brains of advanced practitioners are being put in fMRIs with surprising results, and things are happening slowly. My point was that we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater in the name of being good scientists. |
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This is just so crazy to me. We have a book that claims to be scientific while making absolute absurd statements without any comment, why wouldn't we dismiss it? It's a bit hyperbolic, but imagine if "Introduction to Electrodynamics" included a chapter on how to use magnets to communicate with god. To me it would absolutely ruin what is otherwise an amazing resource, because it fundamentally ruins my ability to trust the source. It doesn't matter if the rest of it is actually legitimate and good, either they're unable or unwilling to separate what is legitimate knowledge and what is religion.
Honestly, I'm actually rahter disturbed by the book's reception. It's a well received best seller that even on the (supposedly) skeptical HN is praised without a caveat. Not only that, but if you look into a lot of meditation forums, a lot of people into meditation do genuinely believe in the supernatural stuff. I can't imagine a better sign to show that we're not skeptical enough.
>The fact is that if you sit quietly and pay attention to your breath for a couple hours a day, some very transformative stuff will eventually start happening all on its own.
Sure and if you state it that way, I'd wager most people wouldn't dismiss it. The issue is that 99% of the time, this is not how it's sold.
>But as a society, we mostly aren't willing to do that because of attitudes like that displayed in your post
Sure, but without this attitude it's also a lot easier to fall for (intentional or unintentional) bullshit of all sorts. I used to be really into chaos magick (same deal basically, natural 'brain hacking') and I'm pretty sure without this attitude I would have turned into of the crazies who thinks their self inflicted psychosis means they have the powers to alter reality.
The fact that most people in meditation forums either outright admit believing the supernatural stuff or are incredibly evasive about it (just like with chaos magick), says more than enough in my opinion.
>My point was that we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater in the name of being good scientists.
We shouldn't, but we should also be as skeptic as possible and dismiss people who seamlessly interweave facts and fiction, because that's also how conspiracy theorists and nonsensical "alternative medicine" quacks sell their craft.