--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltabl...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Richard M" <compost1uk@> wrote: > > You felt that then? That meditation was kind of "numbing" you or > > something? > > > > I think I re-started TM again about the time you began your > > "experiment". To be honest my experience is the opposite, if anything. > > I have to say I am pleased with how it's going. Is your experiment > > still ongoing? > > I'm definitely offering my experience of meditation as some kind of > last word on what meditation does. I think its effects can be > different for different people in different circumstances. > > That said, for me meditation very quickly becomes addictive. I needed > to meditate twice a day to feel right. I would feel a need for "rest" > in the afternoon, which is not typical when I don't meditate. It > enhances a sense of dissociation that I don't need. I could perceive > no cognitive benifits from it other than that the experience itself is > very enjoyable. I think it alters my neuro transmitters which makes > it very enjoyable and addictive for me. So without feeling that it > was doing more for me outside meditation, I couldn't justify the time > spent. But it is always there for me as a nice break when I need one. > Since I don't believe it is cultivating something as a cumulative > effect regular meditation doesn't make sense for me. > > I'm glad to have it in my mental toolbox as an option. When I stopped > meditating in '89 after my intense 15 years with 4 years of rounding, > it took me a long time to reconnect with my feelings with the intimacy > I feel now. As soon as I felt the practice separating me from that > intimacy I stopped meditating. I was only regular for 6 months last > year. > > So it wasn't a numbing of emotions, it creates a detachment from them > that I don't prefer as a style of functioning. It is the opposite > state of feeling I need as an artist. I know people claim it enhances > feeling, but that is not my experience. It shifts me into a different > relationship with my feelings. If I had a lot of negitive feelings > that might be an asset, but I don't so for me it isn't. > > Tell me about your experiences. Are you experiencing benifits in your > activity?
Well, yes - at least I think so! I relate very well to a lot of what you say. The actual practice is great. But when you open your eyes, is anything different, has anything changed? I certainly do not feel any negative change (I have not noticed the detachment from emotions that you describe). The practice feels as if it should be good for my health (and it seems to be qualitatively different to the kind of health benefit you would undoubtedly achieve in any case by just relaxing for 20 minutes). Beyond that - the danger is to assign anything good that happens to "benefit of meditation". And yet I dunno, I do "sense" something! I feel good; I think I sleep better; Apparently I am less grumpy; And I have this odd feeling that events are unfolding more "for" me than against me. I'm sorry, but there it is. There's no need to shout, I hear your groans. Where I don't see eye-to-eye with you is exemplified in this sentence of yours: "I think it alters my neuro transmitters which makes it very enjoyable and addictive for me. So without feeling that it was doing more for me outside meditation, I couldn't justify the time spent" Try substituting "listening to great music" for the word "meditation" in the above, and I hope you will see what I mean. I suspect that your attitude is driven by a preconception of what is "inside" and what is "outside", and that the former is not "real" in some way. The quietness, the silence that I sense through TM is something that I think is profound. It has a "pregnancy" about it that seems to point to even more (if I could just get there!). I like that and it pulls me in. It's no different (for me) than the sense of the poetic/profound you might get from, I don't know, a beautiful sunset, a walk by the ocean, or anything else that floats your boat. But more so. Materialists and scientistic types will just shrug all that off as "just" feelings, and just some fog in your brain. Their loss I would say. They need to get over their religion.
