[...] I am certainly interested to know if anyone is aware of sources that make a careful distinction between suffering and pain in arguing that suffering and its reduction is what we (should) care about.
I wouldn’t go as far as what you’re saying in endnote 9, though. I mean, I see some chance that you’re right in the impractical sense of, “If someone gave up literally all they cared about in order to pursue ideal meditation training under ideal circumstances (and during the training they don’t get any physical illness issues or otherwise have issues crop up that prevent successfully completion of the training), then they could learn to control their mental states and avoid nearly all future sources of suffering.” But that’s pretty impractical even if true!
It’s interesting, though, what you say about CBT. I agree it makes sense to be accurate about these distinctions, and that it could affect specific interventions (though maybe not at the largest scale of prioritization, the way I see the landscape).
Lukas, thanks for taking the time to read and reply! I appreciate you reminding me of your article on Tranquilism—it’s been a couple of years since I read it (during my fellowship with CLR), and I hadn’t made a mental note of it making such a distinction when I did, so thanks for the reminder.
While I agree that it’s an open question as to how effective meditation is for alleviating suffering at scale (e.g. how easy it is for how many humans to reduce their suffering by how much with how much time/effort), I don’t think it would require as much of a commitment as you seem to expect in the median case. Personally, I think it’s likely that the median person would be able to make substantial progress in reducing suffering as a layperson, i.e. without becoming a monastic. Even if attaining a total and forevermore cessation of suffering is substantially more difficult/attainable by substantially fewer people in one lifetime, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that most people could suffer at least 50 percent less with dedicated mindfulness practice. I’m curious as to what might feed an opposing intuition for you! I’d be quite excited about empirical research that investigates the tractability and scalability of meditation for reducing suffering, in either case.
(By the way, would it be alright if I ping you privately to set up a meeting? I’ve been a fan of your writing since becoming familiar with you during my time at CLR and would love a chance to pick your brain about SFE stuff and hear about what you’ve been up to lately!)
Even if attaining a total and forevermore cessation of suffering is substantially more difficult/attainable by substantially fewer people in one lifetime, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that most people could suffer at least 50 percent less with dedicated mindfulness practice. I’m curious as to what might feed an opposing intuition for you! I’d be quite excited about empirical research that investigates the tractability and scalability of meditation for reducing suffering, in either case.
My sense is that existing mindfulness studies don’t show the sort of impressive results that we’d expect if this were a great solution.
Also, I think people who would benefit most from having less day-to-day suffering often struggle with having no “free room” available for meditation practice, and that seems like an issue that’s hard to overcome even if meditation practice would indeed help them a lot.
It’s already sign of having a decently good life when you’re able to start dedicating time for something like meditation, which I think requires a bit more mental energy than just watching series or scrolling through the internet. A lot of people have leisure time, but it’s a privilege to be mentally well off enough to do purposeful activities during your leisure time. The people who have a lot of this purposeful time probably (usually) aren’t among the ones that suffer most (whereas the people who don’t have it will struggle sticking to regular meditation practice, for good reasons).
For instance, if someone has a chronic illness with frequent pain and nearly constant fatigue, I can see how it might be good for them to practice meditation for pain management, but higher up on their priority list are probably things like “how do I manage to do daily chores despite low energy levels?” or “how do I not get let go at work?.”
Similarly, for other things people may struggle with (addictions, financial worries, anxieties of various sorts; other mental health issues), meditation is often something that would probably help, but it doesn’t feel like priority number one for people with problem-ridden, difficult lives. It’s pretty hard to keep up motivation for training something that you’re not fully convinced of it being your top priority, especially if you’re struggling with other things.
I see meditation as similar to things like “eat healthier, exercise more, go to sleep on time and don’t consume distracting content or too much light in the late evenings, etc.” And these things have great benefits, but they’re also hard, so there are no low-hanging fruit and interventions in this space will have limited effectiveness (or at least limited cost-effectiveness; you could probably get quite far if you gifted people their private nutritionist cook, fitness trainer and motivator, house cleaner and personal assistant, meditation coach, give them enough money for financial independence, etc.).
And then the people who would have enough “free room” to meditate may be well off enough to not feel like they need it? In some ways, the suffering of a person who is kind of well off in life isn’t that bad and instead of devoting 1h per day for meditation practice to reduce the little suffering that they have, maybe the well-off person would rather take Spanish lessons, or train for a marathon, etc.
(By the way, would it be alright if I ping you privately to set up a meeting? I’ve been a fan of your writing since becoming familiar with you during my time at CLR and would love a chance to pick your brain about SFE stuff and hear about what you’ve been up to lately!)
My sense is that existing mindfulness studies don’t show the sort of impressive results that we’d expect if this were a great solution.
If you have any specific studies in mind which show this, I would be interested to see! I have a sense that mindfulness tends to be studied in the context of “increasing well-being” in a general sense and not specifically to “decrease or eliminate suffering.” I would be quite interested in a study which studies meditation’s effects when directly targeting suffering.
Also, I think people who would benefit most from having less day-to-day suffering often struggle with having no “free room” available for meditation practice, and that seems like an issue that’s hard to overcome even if meditation practice would indeed help them a lot.
I really appreciate you raising this point in detail; I think it’s something I haven’t included enough in my own considerations. Having enough free time and energy for meditation practice is indeed a kind of privilege.
I’m going to chew on this some more, but one initial thought I’ve had is that the general quality of life needed as a prerequisite to devoting enough time and energy to meditation practice may be lower than one may expect, at least by Western standards. For example, in a place like India, there seems to be a good amount of people in difficult circumstances that nonetheless make time for meditation and spiritual pursuits. However, I agree that in the limit, if all of your waking moments are focused on simply acquiring enough food today, it seems much less reasonable to prescribe meditation as the solution for their suffering.
I did so in my article on Tranquilism, so I broadly share your perspective!
I wouldn’t go as far as what you’re saying in endnote 9, though. I mean, I see some chance that you’re right in the impractical sense of, “If someone gave up literally all they cared about in order to pursue ideal meditation training under ideal circumstances (and during the training they don’t get any physical illness issues or otherwise have issues crop up that prevent successfully completion of the training), then they could learn to control their mental states and avoid nearly all future sources of suffering.” But that’s pretty impractical even if true!
It’s interesting, though, what you say about CBT. I agree it makes sense to be accurate about these distinctions, and that it could affect specific interventions (though maybe not at the largest scale of prioritization, the way I see the landscape).
Lukas, thanks for taking the time to read and reply! I appreciate you reminding me of your article on Tranquilism—it’s been a couple of years since I read it (during my fellowship with CLR), and I hadn’t made a mental note of it making such a distinction when I did, so thanks for the reminder.
While I agree that it’s an open question as to how effective meditation is for alleviating suffering at scale (e.g. how easy it is for how many humans to reduce their suffering by how much with how much time/effort), I don’t think it would require as much of a commitment as you seem to expect in the median case. Personally, I think it’s likely that the median person would be able to make substantial progress in reducing suffering as a layperson, i.e. without becoming a monastic. Even if attaining a total and forevermore cessation of suffering is substantially more difficult/attainable by substantially fewer people in one lifetime, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that most people could suffer at least 50 percent less with dedicated mindfulness practice. I’m curious as to what might feed an opposing intuition for you! I’d be quite excited about empirical research that investigates the tractability and scalability of meditation for reducing suffering, in either case.
(By the way, would it be alright if I ping you privately to set up a meeting? I’ve been a fan of your writing since becoming familiar with you during my time at CLR and would love a chance to pick your brain about SFE stuff and hear about what you’ve been up to lately!)
My sense is that existing mindfulness studies don’t show the sort of impressive results that we’d expect if this were a great solution.
Also, I think people who would benefit most from having less day-to-day suffering often struggle with having no “free room” available for meditation practice, and that seems like an issue that’s hard to overcome even if meditation practice would indeed help them a lot.
It’s already sign of having a decently good life when you’re able to start dedicating time for something like meditation, which I think requires a bit more mental energy than just watching series or scrolling through the internet. A lot of people have leisure time, but it’s a privilege to be mentally well off enough to do purposeful activities during your leisure time. The people who have a lot of this purposeful time probably (usually) aren’t among the ones that suffer most (whereas the people who don’t have it will struggle sticking to regular meditation practice, for good reasons).
For instance, if someone has a chronic illness with frequent pain and nearly constant fatigue, I can see how it might be good for them to practice meditation for pain management, but higher up on their priority list are probably things like “how do I manage to do daily chores despite low energy levels?” or “how do I not get let go at work?.”
Similarly, for other things people may struggle with (addictions, financial worries, anxieties of various sorts; other mental health issues), meditation is often something that would probably help, but it doesn’t feel like priority number one for people with problem-ridden, difficult lives. It’s pretty hard to keep up motivation for training something that you’re not fully convinced of it being your top priority, especially if you’re struggling with other things.
I see meditation as similar to things like “eat healthier, exercise more, go to sleep on time and don’t consume distracting content or too much light in the late evenings, etc.” And these things have great benefits, but they’re also hard, so there are no low-hanging fruit and interventions in this space will have limited effectiveness (or at least limited cost-effectiveness; you could probably get quite far if you gifted people their private nutritionist cook, fitness trainer and motivator, house cleaner and personal assistant, meditation coach, give them enough money for financial independence, etc.).
And then the people who would have enough “free room” to meditate may be well off enough to not feel like they need it? In some ways, the suffering of a person who is kind of well off in life isn’t that bad and instead of devoting 1h per day for meditation practice to reduce the little suffering that they have, maybe the well-off person would rather take Spanish lessons, or train for a marathon, etc.
I’ll send you a DM!
If you have any specific studies in mind which show this, I would be interested to see! I have a sense that mindfulness tends to be studied in the context of “increasing well-being” in a general sense and not specifically to “decrease or eliminate suffering.” I would be quite interested in a study which studies meditation’s effects when directly targeting suffering.
I really appreciate you raising this point in detail; I think it’s something I haven’t included enough in my own considerations. Having enough free time and energy for meditation practice is indeed a kind of privilege.
I’m going to chew on this some more, but one initial thought I’ve had is that the general quality of life needed as a prerequisite to devoting enough time and energy to meditation practice may be lower than one may expect, at least by Western standards. For example, in a place like India, there seems to be a good amount of people in difficult circumstances that nonetheless make time for meditation and spiritual pursuits. However, I agree that in the limit, if all of your waking moments are focused on simply acquiring enough food today, it seems much less reasonable to prescribe meditation as the solution for their suffering.