No, meditation is not like drugs. If anything it’s like exercise for a very particular part of your mind. It can train the mind to be calm, patient, observant and focused. I practiced for many years. In my experience it does not in and of itself bring any sort of feelings of happiness.
Seriously, though, I kindof bristle any time I hear anyone say that “meditation is” some particular thing. What meditation is is extremely broad and varied to the point that it nearly defies definition.
Sure many buddhist jhana practitioners will say that the purpose of jhanas is insight, but what if I develop my jhana skills and never seek insight? Is that really not meditation?
Or, if I sit quietly and learn to contact my subconscious and/or Jungian archetypes. Or if I make up my own idiosyncratic form of practice specifically in order to try to become a hungry ghost in the next life, is that really not meditation?
(Mind you, it’s valid to accept a particular strict definition of meditation within a specific context. If I was at a vipassana retreat doing white skeleton meditation, that’d probably be kindof assholeish. And if the teacher was like “no, correct meditation is such-and-such,” I wouldn’t be like “nuh-uh my ass is meditation, man”. This situation is pretty different. If OP has found a way to “meditate” that’s “better than drugs” rather than “training the mind to be calm, patient, observant and focused”, that hardly makes it invalid or “not meditation.” Any more so than if they say “nice to meet you” rather than “hey, what’s up”, that makes it “not a greeting.”)
It might be more beneficial for some people to think of ‘meditation’ as ‘exercise’.
If someone says they’ve exercised, we dont automatically assume they’ve lifted weights, or done cardio, or stretches; we know how broad this term is.
One of my friends did ‘meditation’ during his karate days, but failed to understand a lot of basics around the science focused practices like mindfulness.
Turns out his dojo was practicing zen meditation, which involves trying to illicit vivid imagery in the mind (according to him).
Now, I dont know a lot about zen-meditation, maybe they did it as a cultural thing, but from what he was able to tell me, it sounded like a whole lot of junk mind flailing.
zen meditation… trying to illicit vivid imagery in the mind… it sounded like a whole lot of junk mind flailing.
See, but, this is exactly the kind of attitude I’m trying to address in my comment. People judging other people’s meditation practices. You didn’t specifically go so far (at least not explicitly) as to call it “not meditation”, but you’re still judging the practice without really understanding it. (Not that I think you should be judging it even if you did understand it.)
The practice you’re describing might have been something called “kasiṇa”. And it’s known to “illicit vivid imagery.” There are multiple kinds of kasina practices, but they originate from the Pali Canon itself in works such as the Visuddhimagga and Vimuttimagga[1][2].
That’s as meditation as meditation gets. If you’re going to call that “junk mind flailing”, the Buddha would like a word.
Now, I don’t know for sure kasina was what you’re describing. But it’s also beside the point. I don’t think meditators really have a leg to stand on to claim that even something like sitting quietly, eyes closed, and playing the whole original Star Wars trilogy in their head from memory is “bad meditation” or “not meditation” just because they judgmentally can’t imagine it “exercising” a “muscle”/“mental skill”/etc. (Daniel Ingram, one of the co-authors of the fire kasina site I cited earlier and a huge advocate for fire kasina as a practice, talks about using fire kasina to conjure vivid images of dragons from Lord of the Rings, kinda just because he’s a geek (and I mean that endearingly) and it’s fun. Though he’s also strongly of the opinion that kasina can lead to insight.) “Meditation” is not the sort of term that a lot of people tend to try to gatekeep, and I think that’s basically never a good thing.
Well everyone is different. I practiced Zazen and nobody ever told me of experiencing a high or altered awareness. That’s only my experience though and I’m not trying to discount yours :)
No, meditation is not like drugs. If anything it’s like exercise for a very particular part of your mind. It can train the mind to be calm, patient, observant and focused. I practiced for many years. In my experience it does not in and of itself bring any sort of feelings of happiness.
You’ve been doing the wrong meditation. ;)
Seriously, though, I kindof bristle any time I hear anyone say that “meditation is” some particular thing. What meditation is is extremely broad and varied to the point that it nearly defies definition.
Sure many buddhist jhana practitioners will say that the purpose of jhanas is insight, but what if I develop my jhana skills and never seek insight? Is that really not meditation?
Or, if I sit quietly and learn to contact my subconscious and/or Jungian archetypes. Or if I make up my own idiosyncratic form of practice specifically in order to try to become a hungry ghost in the next life, is that really not meditation?
(Mind you, it’s valid to accept a particular strict definition of meditation within a specific context. If I was at a vipassana retreat doing white skeleton meditation, that’d probably be kindof assholeish. And if the teacher was like “no, correct meditation is such-and-such,” I wouldn’t be like “nuh-uh my ass is meditation, man”. This situation is pretty different. If OP has found a way to “meditate” that’s “better than drugs” rather than “training the mind to be calm, patient, observant and focused”, that hardly makes it invalid or “not meditation.” Any more so than if they say “nice to meet you” rather than “hey, what’s up”, that makes it “not a greeting.”)
It might be more beneficial for some people to think of ‘meditation’ as ‘exercise’.
If someone says they’ve exercised, we dont automatically assume they’ve lifted weights, or done cardio, or stretches; we know how broad this term is.
One of my friends did ‘meditation’ during his karate days, but failed to understand a lot of basics around the science focused practices like mindfulness.
Turns out his dojo was practicing zen meditation, which involves trying to illicit vivid imagery in the mind (according to him).
Now, I dont know a lot about zen-meditation, maybe they did it as a cultural thing, but from what he was able to tell me, it sounded like a whole lot of junk mind flailing.
See, but, this is exactly the kind of attitude I’m trying to address in my comment. People judging other people’s meditation practices. You didn’t specifically go so far (at least not explicitly) as to call it “not meditation”, but you’re still judging the practice without really understanding it. (Not that I think you should be judging it even if you did understand it.)
The practice you’re describing might have been something called “kasiṇa”. And it’s known to “illicit vivid imagery.” There are multiple kinds of kasina practices, but they originate from the Pali Canon itself in works such as the Visuddhimagga and Vimuttimagga[1][2].
That’s as meditation as meditation gets. If you’re going to call that “junk mind flailing”, the Buddha would like a word.
Now, I don’t know for sure kasina was what you’re describing. But it’s also beside the point. I don’t think meditators really have a leg to stand on to claim that even something like sitting quietly, eyes closed, and playing the whole original Star Wars trilogy in their head from memory is “bad meditation” or “not meditation” just because they judgmentally can’t imagine it “exercising” a “muscle”/“mental skill”/etc. (Daniel Ingram, one of the co-authors of the fire kasina site I cited earlier and a huge advocate for fire kasina as a practice, talks about using fire kasina to conjure vivid images of dragons from Lord of the Rings, kinda just because he’s a geek (and I mean that endearingly) and it’s fun. Though he’s also strongly of the opinion that kasina can lead to insight.) “Meditation” is not the sort of term that a lot of people tend to try to gatekeep, and I think that’s basically never a good thing.
The Fire Kasina Meditation Site ↩︎
Wikipedia page on Kammaṭṭhāna ↩︎
Yeah I should’ve written it as “It is not like that for me”. Though this is the first time I’ve heard someone who meditates compare it to doing drugs.
I’ve heard of people having breakthroughs/ego deaths while meditating, so it can definitely get there by the looks of it
Meditation doesn’t get you high?
Drugs don’t alter your awareness?
Drugs alter your perception, not awareness. Mediation and a philosophy class you didn’t take on YouTube will cure you of that confusion.
No it’s a a fairly sober experience.
Well I guess they can. I have no firsthand experience with psychedelics etc. but it doesn’t sound like the same kind of experience.
Well it gets me high. It’s a standard result of meditating. Some even warn us to not get carried away with the high.
And yes, drugs, like meditation, alters my awareness. Not saying they do it exactly the same way but yes, the same stuff, altered.
Well everyone is different. I practiced Zazen and nobody ever told me of experiencing a high or altered awareness. That’s only my experience though and I’m not trying to discount yours :)
The smile at the end makes all the difference.
If there was any proof of that, the laws would be moving to prohibit in certain professions or situations
No
Who said they don’t?
Well meditation gets me high.
And meditation, like drugs, alters my awareness.