So I’ve recently taken to zen meditation. it’s some difficult shit, but i’m finding it very beneficial even with my piss poor lotus form and concentration ability. feels great to unload the conscience and push the reset button. it also helps sharpen focus on the present moment in everyday life, which I’m finding is really helpful - more enjoyment of everyday life, more effective at work.
i’ve read that there are a lot of BSDs on wall street doing meditation on a regular basis. any AFers out there practice?
I don’t – but my grandma was actually a famous zen teacher & author. Her books are quite good – and are probably what you’re looking for since her emphasis was on integrating zen into everyday life. Her students were doctors, lawyers, professors, etc.
i read ‘Zen Mind: Beginner’s Mind’, which was very helpful
apparently there are many "schools’ of zen. this one is based on the teachings of some dude Dogen. this particular version in very simple: just sit. don’t try to attain anything (like enlightenment), just sit, be present in the moment, and eliminate all consious thought. a typical way to do that is to just witness your breath.
i like this version because i’m not interested in attaining anything or witnessing the universal mind or any other such nonsense. i just want to sit, be present and unburden my mind by eliminating thought for a few minutes a day.
I occasionally like to try some crazy different exercises to shock my body. Starting Monday I’m embarking on an eight week Piyo regime. I have no idea why.
Seems like you are taking the same path I took. Personally I don’t know why you are attracted to Zen given your statement above, maybe you like getting beat with a stick. I don’t judge bro
not sure what that means, please explain. should i be trying to attain enlightenment? i thought ‘the way’ was to eliminate all thoughts of attainment.
personally i don’t care about enlightenment. i care about training my mind to live in each moment (mainly to develop mental toughness and be able to handle extreme physical exertion over unknown periods of time, but I’m finding this mentality helps in many aspects of life). based on the description in ‘Zen Mind’, zen practice seemed to be useful practice.
There are two broad umbrellas for Buddhism: Mahayana and Theravada. Zen is in Mahayana. It emphasizes rituals and mystiscm to various degrees, mantras, being a bodhisattva (basically sacrafice everything for others), and cool nonsensicial things like Koans. Theravada is much simpler philosphy based on Buddha’s life when it was first recorded. For someone with your goals, I think both Mahayana and Theravada add too much relgiious BS on top of what’s necessary, but it’s way more prevelant and part of the doctrine in Mahayana.
Theravada is extremely bare bones compared. It’s focused almost entirely on self liberation and has a pretty simple doctrine based on what Buddha said led to better psychological states. Basically a Mahayana guy would tell Theravada guy that he is selfish and that he should help the entire world reduce suffering before his suffering is reduced.
Well, I’ve had highs and lows. Bare minimum is 5 minutes and I’d say the mode is 25 minutes. I used to go longer, but I’m out of practice. I’m trying to start meditating more dogmatically again, I’m just increasing some efficiencies elsewhere. it’s just tough to work, work out, and meditate and still get stuff other stuff done. I practice mindfulness in various activities during the day as well now in addition to the sitting meditation, so that’s help limit the damage to the lower level of meditation.
So, I’ve read through most of this book and was prepared to declare it complete psycho-babble nonsense…until yesterday. I went for a 6 mile run with a 40 lb weight vest. it was strenuous and I found it difficult to maintain even an 11 minute pace at the beginning. i was hurting, so i decided try out going complete zen. i kept telling myself that there was no “me” running. I felt my awareness move out of my rational mind and i concentrated on a visual of me stepping outside of myself and just observing this person (me but not me - i kept thinking of it as just a mound of atoms) moving through the world. with full awareness on the world as i travelled through it, and no room for awareness of any concept of “self”, there was also no room for judgement or evaluation of what i was going through - no pain from carrying the load, no self pity or other emotion, just observance of the world with no evaluation of the experience. before i knew it i had run the last 3 miles at my normal ‘no-load’ running pace and i felt like i could go all fucking day at that pace. it was an amazing experience.
final analysis: this shit works. taking awareness completely off of the self can be a valuable tool.
It’s not really health stuff. It’s just a combination taking points of view which seem to be beneficial to better mental states, meditation, and behaviors that led to better points of view. But there is no telling what kind of Zen Turd has been exposed to.
i’ve been doing very basic meditation in the morning - sitting in really shitty lotus form and concentrating on my breathing, which is supposed to help you eliminate conscious thought, but that’s extremely difficult to do for any period of time. the goal is to quiet the rational mind and just observe or experience the world with no evaluation of it.
i also do ‘box breathing’ when I’m driving - 4 count in, hold for 4, 4 count out, hold for 4. you can increase the count as you go. again good for quieting the mind.
the reason i’m doing all this is that i want to be able to perform at a much higher physical level. i’ve been doing the Sealfit training which is an absolute ball buster. on top of physical training it trains mental techniques for building mental toughness in order to be able to handle the work load (their philosophy is that the body is capable of 20x what the mind thinks it is capable of). so all this zen and mental exercise fits into that nicely.
turns out meditation can also really help out in all aspects of life.
this is interesting. whilst i’m curious about zen/meditation I’ve never experimented with it , however when I run the 1st 10 mins are shit - like every other human being - but once i break through the wall I get a strong dissociative feeling where I’m perceiving myself running from the outside with very little physical discomfort until I reach my goal/time allocation.
Here was me thinking I was a fucking nutjob when I’m really just zen as fuck…
