[Knee_Pain]

If you want a free mindfulness app you should consider searching for the one developed by the US Department of Veteran Affairs on your platform's app store. It usually ranks very low on the list because not many people know about it and because all the other apps market themselves heavily.

Unlike all the garbage apps which ask you for subscriptions and DLCs just to play 10 minutes of audio, every single thing is free and freely downloadable. It also has customization options, a journal, a very simple and rational interface and a small corpus of advice.

[unmole]

Link to Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gov.va.mobileh...

[hitekker]

I'm not sure how useful this app is. Scanning the comments down-thread, the people preaching mindfulness seem to struggle to practice it. I thought the whole point was to help a person be self-aware, but I see resentment and rage bubbling up unfiltered.

[hetzenmat]

The app is called "Mindfulness Coach". The search is easier with this information.

[Knee_Pain]

Thanks, the problem is that the name is very vague so maybe there are copycats or similar sounding options so I wanted to go with the publishers

[lynx23]

Am I the only one who thinks meditation with an app is super hilariously weird? Its hard to explain without falling for too much cynism, but... the topic is mindfulness, not "have my phone tell me what to do next". If you are unable to mediate without the help of an app, start here, instead of pretending you are meditating just because some app tells you every step along the way.

[unmole]

> Am I the only one who thinks meditation with an app is super hilariously weird?

Yes.

> have my phone tell me what to do next"

The phone is a tool. It doesn't tell me what to do.

> you are unable to mediate without the help of an app, start here, instead of pretending you are meditating just because some app tells you every step along the way.

Mindfulness and Buddhism is traditionally practiced in a teacher-student setting. Are they all pretending to meditate because they have a teacher telling them what to do every step of the way?

Your entire comment reeks of utter mindlessness. Maybe an app would help?

[lazide]

Teachers and the Sangha exist to help guide, direct, and provide accountability for the student.

None of which is possible for an App to do, because an App isn’t aware.

This outsourcing of basic human awareness and community to tech is quite concerning and actively harmful to our mental health IMO.

[astrange]

It's not any weirder than any other exercise app. It keeps you on track and reminds you what you're supposed to do. (Which isn't exactly "just sit there." You can do it wrong.)

You can even get an EEG reader for biofeedback meditation like Muse. Works well as long as you stay away from the Deepak Chopra stuff.

[throw_pm23]

Exercise apps seem equally weird to me.

[wodenokoto]

Is guided meditation on cassette tape also hilariously weird? Or what about in-person guided meditation?

[throw_pm23]

Yes for the first, less so for the second.

[yadingus]

I've done vipassana retreats where they play audio files from Goenka's instructions. You can do the same with a phone.

I've used analogue timers to determine when to get up from my session. Please explain the difference between an analogue timer and a digital one, for this purpose.

[barrysteve]

It is strange.

I wouldn't come to a tech site to air the counter-tech opinion and I wouldn't anticipate a fair and balanced response.

[lynx23]

Wait, I couldn't even survive without my smartphone, being blind and all. Given that context, if a person deeply emersed in tech to actually get things done during the day says they think not everything should be solved with an app, that is a counter-tech opinion?

And yes, I sort of deliberately put this comment here to see how HN users react if their believes or their bussiness model are seemingly "attacked".

[Knee_Pain]

Have you downloaded the app? Have you seen how it works and what its options are? Everything you wrote is coming from a place of ignorance.

[carvink]

Also free and relevant - a link to WHO's guide for "unhooking from difficult thoughts and feelings". There's audio you can download. It's not even an app.

https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240003927

Here's more detail about how it was tested. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/2022-apri...

[Reasonabl]

This is excellent and to the point. Thanks for sharing.

[037]

Link to Apple App Store (iPhone/iPad) https://apps.apple.com/app/mindfulness-coach/id804284729

[throw_pm23]

I find meditation, mindfulness on the one hand and apps, smartphones, and technology, on the other, to be a grotesque contradiction in terms. Obviously I know this is not a widespread opinion.

[Knee_Pain]

Explain the contradiction of terms, otherwise this reply is worthlessly vague

[NoZebra120vClip]

A smartphone is a device designed to distract us and hold our attention. Even with a well-behaved app on it, it's still designed and configured to constantly beep and whistle and send notifications, and fly into our hand and compel us to doomscroll something unimportant. It's fairly impossible to reconfigure a consumer device so that it doesn't do this.

Someone who is practicing contemplation should not be held prisoner by a robot voice or a glowing screen, but instead reach an inner presence of God, and His stillness encompassing all that we experience during that sacred time.

It is absolutely necessary to shut out every distraction possible. At the same time, we acknowledge that the practitioner will be distracted in some way, not through his own fault, and we must learn the proper response to fleeting distractions. But to purposely tether yourself to a created, pagan object is to invite failure from the outset.

[unmole]

> A smartphone is a device designed to distract us and hold our attention.

No it isn't.

> to distract us and hold our attention. Even with a well-behaved app on it, it's still designed and configured to constantly beep and whistle and send notifications, and fly into our hand and compel us to doomscroll something unimportant.

That doesn't match my experience in over the decade of using smartphones.

> Someone who is practicing contemplation should not be held prisoner by a robot voice or a glowing screen

A smartphone is a tool.

> but instead reach an inner presence of God, and His stillness encompassing all that we experience during that sacred time.

Buddhism is non-theistic. There is no God.

> But to purposely tether yourself to a created, pagan object is to invite failure from the outset.

Is this meant as satire? I mean, pagan? Really?

[astrange]

> Buddhism is non-theistic. There is no God.

This is a bold and untrue statement. There's every kind of Buddhism possible out there. Pure Land is pretty theistic…

[Knee_Pain]

I just put my silenced smartphone on the table and after 15 minutes it sounds a pleasant bell to remind me meditation time is over. Sometimes I want to do guided practice so I listen to the instructions of the meditation guide.

So, where is the problem here? Maybe you are arguing an uninformed strawman.

I could argue the same thing about going to a place of worship. You are surrounded by people (the thing that biologically distracts us the most since we crave social interactions) that make sounds or move about, plus sometimes there is a master guiding people in their practice.

Isn't that the textbook definition of distracting? Why can you magically ignore a whole drove of people around you but somehow a silenced smartphone is just too much to handle? Double standard much.

> instead reach an inner presence of God, and His stillness encompassing all that we experience during that sacred time

>pagan object

this is just baseless cultist talk

[NoZebra120vClip]

> You are surrounded by people

The idea of corporate worship is that the assembly is united in their purpose, there is an order observed, and the people develop discipline from this orderly worship. Also, people are not machines and that's disgusting that you draw this analogy.

People may distract, even in that situation. Many have their minds elsewhere, some don't want to be there, someone may even be actively disruptive. But corporate worship is not usually contemplative meditation.

I have been in worship sessions where silence is strictly enforced, and there is no master guiding an order of prayer. This adoration is always in a group setting. Hey, I've even used my device sometimes to look up Bible verses. It's not sterile.

But if someone is sitting at home, alone, the best practice is to shut out unnecessary distractions to the extent that it is possible. And your phone obeys its corporate master. A mobile device is not under the control of the user holding it.

[Knee_Pain]

My smartphone does exactly what I tell it to do during my meditation time. You keep arguing a strawman using religious language.