[mudita]

The thing that made me transition from a mindset of “I have a body” to “I am a body”, was actually Zen meditation. This was surprising to me. Before I tried it, I thought of meditation as a purely mental thing, I didn’t expect that the first really noticeable effect of regular meditation would be a changed relationship to my body,

Much later I discovered contemporary dance, quit my phd in machine learning and became a professional dancer, which really deepened my body awareness and transformed my relationship to being a body even more.

I remember, in the beginning of my dance career, after a three month dance intensive I applied to a (Haskell) programming job again to finance my dance education and went to a computer science conference. It was a bit of surreal experience. The people at the conference were very nice and intellectually curious people and I liked them, but the contrast to the environment in dance communities was very strong. I felt like almost everybody there thought of them-self as a brain, piloting a body like a big mecha. In the dance environments, even during lunch breaks etc., it always felt like there was a lot of subtle awareness in everybody about their own body, the other bodies in the space, the distances and empty space between bodies, a non-verbal channel full of quiet energy and information. In the computer science conference this channel was just dead.

[NovaDudely]

"The thing that made me transition from a mindset of “I have a body” to “I am a body”, was actually Zen meditation."

Checks username... yeah that checks out. ;)

Something that struck me years ago was in the documentary about Philip Glass - Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts. He did a weekly physical class that is meant to tie mind and body together (I forgot the name, I watched this like 15 years ago). As he said he did it for like 5 years and felt like he got nothing out of it but did it regardless, until one day it just all synced up and he 'got it'.

A similar thing happen with me over the years, the more I got out and moving, the less I found myself involved in the realms of high intellect. Not in an 'ignorance is bliss' kind of way, but not identifying with it as much. It went from "why dance, lift, walk etc - it achieves nothing" to, that is it. It is the flow of the world. It doesn't achieve anything because it doesn't have to, it is a happening, like all life and the universe itself is but an happening. I have had a very similar experience to you with these conferences, it just feels kind of dead in a way, or more you can sense the lack of potential.

That disconnect between the bring and the body is something I have seen many times with those that partake in Buddhism and its many flavors. It was Ajahn Brahm said when he was in university and beginning his path, that one day he was talking with other students and professors and suddenly realized that he did not want to be like these people and that the same path as them, to be a brain and nothing more. He is now a Theravada Buddhist in Western Australia.

[xyzelement]

I appreciate your story and at the same time I don't agree with fully identifying with just the body.

In fact in my yogic training, we learned to apply the 'i have' vs 'i am' as much as possible - directly opposite of what you are saying.

As someone growing religiously right now, I like the framework of the body being a vehicle for the soul (or at least, the mind) resonates a lot more.

[mtalantikite]

I'm not sure what sort of yoga you practice, but if it is more based in Hinduism then this would be one of the major differences between it and Buddhism. [1] In all schools of Buddhism there is the teaching of anatman, that there is no self or soul. [2] So the attitude around 'I' is a bit different, mainly that there is no permanent 'I' to identify with. Still, you're right in that 'I am a body' isn't quite right either.

[1] There are Buddhist yogas though, mainly from modern day Bangladesh that were preserved in Tibet, for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Dharmas_of_Naropa and the trul khor exercises. A Baul I've been lucky to practice with a little talks about it too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JZ4__GTbjA

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatt%C4%81

[mandelbrotwurst]

One way that I sometimes think about this is that we are all of these things, and that being one thing need not preclude being another as well.

[codr7]

Breaking the identification is a big part of Yoga from my experience.

But so is being fully within your body and not fighting it.

As well as disciplining it and removing any disturbances.

[safety1st]

From a non-spiritual, non-religious perspective, as an atheist I don't believe that souls exist, I don't subscribe to any religious teachings and I don't do any kind of meditative or spiritual stuff.

That said, weight training completely transformed my relationship with my body. You can only lug a big hunk of iron into the air so many times before you start thinking about how much we really have in common with a gorilla. Yeah we grew opposable thumbs and a much more active prefrontal cortex, but 96% of our DNA is the same as theirs after all. By the pound we're mostly monkeys or something like them and it's a bit conceited to imagine otherwise.

If you're a knowledge worker who sits in a chair and thinks all day it's easy to believe you're nothing like a monkey, but strenuous exercise dispels that notion because it recruits all of your body's monkey systems and makes all of the parts of you work together. In retrospect it shouldn't be surprising at all that letting most of your anatomy wither away is unhealthy and puts you out of balance. It's like getting your car serviced but telling the shop that you only want them to look at the electronics.

[lloeki]

> I don't subscribe to any religious teachings and I don't do any kind of meditative or spiritual stuff.

It sounds like you're conflating meditation-the-exercise with spiritual and religious approaches.

Fundamentally they are unrelated. Taking it to the extreme one can consider the mind to be a process produced by the brain+, no soul involved. Taken that way, meditation is no different than weight lifting. The same way a muscle+ specialises itself depending on training (endurance vs strength vs explosive vs volume) the brain (and thus the mind) also specialises in whatever it gets most exposed to. The same way one can lay out a physical workout plan for a specific desired outcome (including rest), one can lay out a mental workout plan for a specific desired outcome (including rest). The latter is meditation.

Meditation may exist in religious contexts, e.g Buddhist or Zen, but even then many forms are in practice detached from any religious belief, with no koan or mantra. e.g Ānāpānasati (sit, and simply watch the breath) and Sōtō shikantaza (meditation with no objects, anchors, or content, striving to be aware of the stream of thoughts, allowing them to arise and pass away without interference). These are fantastic tools to unlearn bad (sometimes traumatic) mental habits, just like one learns to have smooth but effective muscle action instead of being tense and twitchy and forcing it through.

+ I'm using "brain" as a shortcut for a system that is vastly more complex, just as I use "muscle" for a system that is equally as complex.

[firecall]

Yes, and it’s interesting that Prayer in Christian Churches is essentially a form of group meditation!

These practices date back thousands of years, and likely came out of the understanding of the importance of meditation for a healthy society.

The importance of meditation, yoga-like practice and so on has been muddled in our neo Christian western cultures.

Christianity separates mind, body and soul.

So perhaps now US style Christian prayer has become more about worship and less about self awareness.

[Dalewyn]

>non-religious perspective, as an atheist

This is a completely off-topic tangent, but as a fellow non-religious person I'm sorry: Being non-religious and being an atheist are mutually exclusive positions.

Being non-religious means you are apathetic to religion thereof. God(s)? Souls? Afterlife? Commandments? Nope, you don't care about anything concerning religion one way or another.

Being atheist means you believe in no god, no souls, no afterlife, no commandments, and so on. This is, ironically, a form of religion. You care about believing in no religion.

[armada651]

This distinction between non-religious and atheist is new to me and sounds like an Americanism. Over here in Europe if you don't believe in a god you're an atheist, simple as that.

Some people are agnostic, meaning they are religious but don't subscribe to a particular god or doctrine. However no one makes the distinction between atheism and non-religious that you're making here. It may have something to do with the fact that society in the US is so pervasively religious that the only way to escape it is to explicitly identify yourself as an atheist.

[mattmanser]

You're confusing agnostic with what is usually termed spiritual in the UK. People who are spiritual sort of "pick and choose" whatever they fancy, or just feel there's some greater being but don't think any religion gets it right. Sometimes it's monotheistic, sometimes polytheistic.

Agnostic means you believe it's impossible to know whether god exists or not.

I do agree with what you're trying to describe, that many people in some European countries just don't care one iota about religion. I don't think Americans can really understand that without living in a secular society. It's such a non-thing in our lives that, non-religious, agnosticism and atheism, etc. all tend to get mixed into one.

Society has become so secular that those technical definitions have become essentially meaningless. God doesn't exist/I've given it no thought/I don't know if a God exists/I don't acknowledge the existence of supernatural entities all are essentially the same position because it takes up so little of our time or brain power and has so little consequences on our lives.

I stress "some" countries as some European countries, or just small parts of those countries, are still fairly religious.

[roel_v]

Uh no, not in 'Europe'. Where I am in Europe, 'atheism' is being convinced there is no god. Agnosticism is not knowing whether there is a god at all. Not that you're religious but not to a particular god or doctrine like you claim - I've never heard of that concept before, how can you be religious but not knowing what it is you believe in? I'm not much in the know on the exact nomenclature, but your definition of 'agnosticism' is not in any way supported by the way Wikipedia describes it, and the way I've always understood agnosticism is what is called 'apathetic agnosticism' on Wikipedia - and that is, from my perspective, the predominant understanding of it in 'Europe'.

[wholinator2]

I'm from America and have heard both these concepts, just to add a data point

[Dalewyn]

I'm Japanese(-American) and thus have that perspective on it, more Japan than America.

Being non-religious means you simply aren't concerned. Are there gods? Great. Are there no gods? Awesome. Jesus is the one God? Okay. Zeus leads his pantheon of gods? Nice.

Atheism meanwhile is a deliberate belief in no religion. It's different from simply not caring about religion at all, because you do care about religion insofar as to not believe in it.

[armada651]

That sounds more like implicit atheism, which is a distinction within atheism, but still commonly defined as atheism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_and_explicit_atheism

[Dalewyn]

Implicit atheism is still concerned with not believing in religion.

The way I see atheism is that a belief in no religion is, by its nature, a religion. Joe is a christian and believes in Jesus, Bob is an atheist and believes no god; both are merely two sides of the same coin. You can't call yourself non-religious if you believe in a religion, whatever the specific form.

Being non-religious means you don't care; it's not that you don't believe, you simply could not care less one way or another. Wikipedia appears to call it apatheism[1] and more broadly irreligion[2], but semantics aren't the focal issue here.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion

[danaris]

While the phenomenon you describe is certainly real, I think that you may also have been misperceiving part of it: Having a deep belief/understanding that your self is your whole body does not require having a highly-trained body or a strong kinesthetic sense. There could have been many people at that conference who shared your belief, but had not taken the years of physical training to make that externally apparent.

[mieubrisse]

That sounds like a fascinating journey that I'd love to read; have you written anything about it? I'm a born-and-raised software engineer (read: meat mecha mindset), but I recently became interested in dance when I moved to Brazil as many people there have this unconscious connection with dance and their body that I envy. In my case, I'm dimly aware of that non-verbal channel you mentioned, but I struggle to comminicate on it and - if I'm being honest - doing so makes me feel vulnerable and awkward.

[prox]

A great thing is when you can mobilize your vulnerability and akwardness to some degree. What’s important if you may decide to say something like dance is to find a community and teachers who are supportive and in a way able to vulnerable as well. So choose “wisely” in that regard.

I did a lot of teaching of yoga and my primary responsibility was giving people space to be that.

[hinkley]

It was tai chi for me, but I started that after Buddhism and zen. I could never get comfortable. Not as in 3 out of 10 pain scale, but 7.5-8.5 out of 10. Having people tell you to ignore the pain is unhelpful when they imaging paper cut and you’re feeling knife wound.

Tai chi has a warmup that’s an easy shift into standing meditation.

[divan]

One of the most amazing comments I've seen on HN. Thank you for sharing this!

[kpennell]

This is a great comment and describes why a lot of people don't like 'tech people' and why SF has changed so much for the worse.

[Maschinees]

I would like to combine both in a holistic way.

I don't feel I can achieve this in my flat therefore instead of switching my whole career as you did, I'm trying to move to a big peace of land we're I can be / have to be more active.

I do think so that IT is growing more in a less super nerdy (I don't move) area.

Plenty of my friends got more active over the years

[pelario]

I don't know how common is that story... Either I know you, or I know someone with a similar story.

Anyways, as someone who identifies both as a computer scientist and as a dancer, I can definitely relate to your experience:-)

[johnea]

Mostly the kind that involves getting up from your seat and going outside...

After that, the more cardio exercise you get the better...

[agumonkey]

I wonder about the effect of complex balancing activities (dancing, sports, yoga, even drumming) onto our brain.

[michaelrpeskin]

My 3 sports are mountain biking, climbing, and snowboarding. I always describe them as managing panic under fatigue and high cognitive load. I need the focus and problem solving, it tickles some part of my brain in a good way.

[jahewson]

Wow! Good for you.