Can you say what you get from this? I’ve done meditation from time to time, but all I get from sitting for half an hour is having sat for half an hour. I’m familiar with the book you linked to.
I think I got really lucky: after a few days of 30 minutes a day, I was meditating while laying down and over the course of a few minutes slipped into something that is very similar to what is called jhana in the texts I’ve read. It was an incredibly intense ‘body high’ where I could feel my whole body quivering and had an incredibly strong focus on my body (so it wasn’t dissociative in any way). At first I tried to ignore this and keep focusing on my breath but I quickly realized this was silly and just tried to be mindful of my whole body. I became very aware of small muscle tensions and the like. Throughout the experience was an amazing bliss… truly beautiful. I’m normally a very self-critical person, which had previously made meditating a little stressful: I wonder what… no, stop, why must you always wonder what others think of you? Focus on your breath. But in the maybe-jhana sate I became accepting and understanding of my flaws and others’ flaws, and this understanding just made me incredibly happy. I involuntarily laughed out loud several times over the course of 10 minutes. At some point I sat up and tried my best to get into a half-lotus position, and noticed that the ‘images’ of random color and such that I would normally see on the back of my eyelids was completely grey, which was odd. I laughed at that, too. I sang out 108 ’om mani padme hum’s and got up. The effect stayed very strong for about… 10 minutes afterward, during which I managed to play 1 blitz chess game to test my cognition. It wore off over the next 15 minutes. My chess ability was surprisingly a little subpar, which was odd, because I felt like I should have had superpowers. From what I’ve read some students who experience jhana think that they’ve become enlightened: I think that’s very understandable. The sense of compassion and kindness and acceptance and joy I felt was exceptionally strong.
I got into the state after a series of insights about my breath that I’d never noticed before: first, that I could feel the temperature difference of the air as it was inhaled and exhaled. Second, that when I was breathing heavily, inhalation was very slightly painful. There were I think two other things I realized but I’ve now forgotten them. I kept having insights about various things after reaching jhana but I don’t remember them… I think they were just small things that I hadn’t noticed before but weren’t profound or anything.
I have no idea what the neurological effects were. I think there was probably some sort of cascade effect with the opioid receptors: the happier and more peaceful I felt, the better able I was to become happier and more peaceful. My mind was exceptionally clear the whole time.
Anyway, perhaps the coolest thing about the experience was that now I don’t have to force myself to sit down and meditate: it’s no longer the part of the schedule I put off for later. Now I just want to do it. Since then I’ve meditated twice, and had what appeared to be the fleeting signals of that state: slight numbness-like feeling in the face after strong concentration on breath. Meditation in general has become pleasant and is no longer a chore. For this reason I’d like to figure out how long it takes to achieve something like what I experienced, or how common it is. I feel very lucky that it took less than 4 hours total to reach a mental state so profoundly new to me, and I’d like to tell others to persevere until they experience similar things, but I don’t know at all how common my experience is. Also, I don’t know if my experience was a fluke: I kind of doubt it, as I seemed to get somewhat close the last 2 times I’ve meditated, and I think those were both for about 15 minutes each or so. Another benefit of having the experience was realizing that such a state is possible. I’d heard that those strong in meditation could experience something like a very strong body high akin to smoking cannabis sativa. I discounted such reports because it seemed unlikely such strong effects could come from simply paying attention to one’s breath. I now know better, but I’m still confused as to how it happens.
Even before that experience though, I had a few benefits of meditation: basically, just being mindful in general. I noticed how harshly self-critical I was all the time. I got noticeably better at focusing on one thing (my breath). I was significantly more peaceful and prone-to-compassion after meditating, the effect lasting 10 minutes to an hour, usually. But even so regular meditation reminds me that there’s a higher standard of mindfulness and compassion to aspire to. I don’t like feeling embarrassed of my past self—I try to update on expected dispositions the way I update on expected belief—and it seems that trying my best to be the kind of person I am right after meditating is a salient and moderately effective way to be a better me. That said, I’d rather take a pill or listen to a binaural beat that caused me to act that way all the time. It sounds a lot more feasible than becoming enlightened.
Thank you for that reply. I’ve certainly never experienced anything like that in goodness knows how many hours, although I’ve read theoretical descriptions of the jhanas.
There’s a general convention that one does not ask about another person’s meditation experience, nor speak of one’s own except with one’s instructor. In fact, people attending meditation class are sometimes advised not to discuss their experience with each other, which does not make for epistemic hygiene around the subject. I hope that on LW we need not be constrained by that (nor, of course, obligated to speak of these things).
Can you say what you get from this? I’ve done meditation from time to time, but all I get from sitting for half an hour is having sat for half an hour. I’m familiar with the book you linked to.
I think I got really lucky: after a few days of 30 minutes a day, I was meditating while laying down and over the course of a few minutes slipped into something that is very similar to what is called jhana in the texts I’ve read. It was an incredibly intense ‘body high’ where I could feel my whole body quivering and had an incredibly strong focus on my body (so it wasn’t dissociative in any way). At first I tried to ignore this and keep focusing on my breath but I quickly realized this was silly and just tried to be mindful of my whole body. I became very aware of small muscle tensions and the like. Throughout the experience was an amazing bliss… truly beautiful. I’m normally a very self-critical person, which had previously made meditating a little stressful: I wonder what… no, stop, why must you always wonder what others think of you? Focus on your breath. But in the maybe-jhana sate I became accepting and understanding of my flaws and others’ flaws, and this understanding just made me incredibly happy. I involuntarily laughed out loud several times over the course of 10 minutes. At some point I sat up and tried my best to get into a half-lotus position, and noticed that the ‘images’ of random color and such that I would normally see on the back of my eyelids was completely grey, which was odd. I laughed at that, too. I sang out 108 ’om mani padme hum’s and got up. The effect stayed very strong for about… 10 minutes afterward, during which I managed to play 1 blitz chess game to test my cognition. It wore off over the next 15 minutes. My chess ability was surprisingly a little subpar, which was odd, because I felt like I should have had superpowers. From what I’ve read some students who experience jhana think that they’ve become enlightened: I think that’s very understandable. The sense of compassion and kindness and acceptance and joy I felt was exceptionally strong.
I got into the state after a series of insights about my breath that I’d never noticed before: first, that I could feel the temperature difference of the air as it was inhaled and exhaled. Second, that when I was breathing heavily, inhalation was very slightly painful. There were I think two other things I realized but I’ve now forgotten them. I kept having insights about various things after reaching jhana but I don’t remember them… I think they were just small things that I hadn’t noticed before but weren’t profound or anything.
I have no idea what the neurological effects were. I think there was probably some sort of cascade effect with the opioid receptors: the happier and more peaceful I felt, the better able I was to become happier and more peaceful. My mind was exceptionally clear the whole time.
Anyway, perhaps the coolest thing about the experience was that now I don’t have to force myself to sit down and meditate: it’s no longer the part of the schedule I put off for later. Now I just want to do it. Since then I’ve meditated twice, and had what appeared to be the fleeting signals of that state: slight numbness-like feeling in the face after strong concentration on breath. Meditation in general has become pleasant and is no longer a chore. For this reason I’d like to figure out how long it takes to achieve something like what I experienced, or how common it is. I feel very lucky that it took less than 4 hours total to reach a mental state so profoundly new to me, and I’d like to tell others to persevere until they experience similar things, but I don’t know at all how common my experience is. Also, I don’t know if my experience was a fluke: I kind of doubt it, as I seemed to get somewhat close the last 2 times I’ve meditated, and I think those were both for about 15 minutes each or so. Another benefit of having the experience was realizing that such a state is possible. I’d heard that those strong in meditation could experience something like a very strong body high akin to smoking cannabis sativa. I discounted such reports because it seemed unlikely such strong effects could come from simply paying attention to one’s breath. I now know better, but I’m still confused as to how it happens.
Even before that experience though, I had a few benefits of meditation: basically, just being mindful in general. I noticed how harshly self-critical I was all the time. I got noticeably better at focusing on one thing (my breath). I was significantly more peaceful and prone-to-compassion after meditating, the effect lasting 10 minutes to an hour, usually. But even so regular meditation reminds me that there’s a higher standard of mindfulness and compassion to aspire to. I don’t like feeling embarrassed of my past self—I try to update on expected dispositions the way I update on expected belief—and it seems that trying my best to be the kind of person I am right after meditating is a salient and moderately effective way to be a better me. That said, I’d rather take a pill or listen to a binaural beat that caused me to act that way all the time. It sounds a lot more feasible than becoming enlightened.
Thank you for that reply. I’ve certainly never experienced anything like that in goodness knows how many hours, although I’ve read theoretical descriptions of the jhanas.
There’s a general convention that one does not ask about another person’s meditation experience, nor speak of one’s own except with one’s instructor. In fact, people attending meditation class are sometimes advised not to discuss their experience with each other, which does not make for epistemic hygiene around the subject. I hope that on LW we need not be constrained by that (nor, of course, obligated to speak of these things).